I love a good abstract game and they are often some of the most played games in my house. They come in many shapes, sizes and themes and are favorites of my wife and I especially for a quick game or two. Today we are going to talk about one of the newest and best looking ones I have seen in quite some time: Mandala Stones!
Mandala Stones is published by Board & Dice and designed by Filip Glowacz. Graphic design by Zbigniew Umgelter. It plays 2-4 players in approximately 30 mins.
Overview
Mandala Stones is an abstract game that has players arranging stones in colorful patterns that will cause certain artists to be influenced and give you more of the artist stones you are looking for. Making towers to score points players will line up their stones into a combined mandala board to score more points and try to come out on top!
Gameplay
Mandala Stones plays with 2-4 players and all players start with a game board and two objective cards for personal scoring at the end of the game. The main board is set up with 4 stones in a tower on each available mandala spot and the four main artists on the art spots on the board. The separate Mndala board is placed next to the main board.
On a player’s turn they can choose to 1-Pick or 2-Score. You must score if you have no empty spaces.
In Pick players will pick mandala stones from the main board by moving any of tihe artists to a new spot and take any stones on the top of a stack that are not adjacent to other artists and match the pattern of the artist you selected. You must pick the order of the stones you select because they will be placed on top of one another to form a stack from bottom to top. This stack is placed on an empty space in your player board.
If you chose to do Score you will pick one of the colors shared by the tops of any stacks on your player board and score them according to the rules for the particular tower. You can also just score the top stone of each stack and score one point for each stone. This is a great way to reset the stacks and get certain stones to the top when you want to score a color.
All removed stones are added to the mandala board from the center out and if you cover a victory point spot you can score that immediately. The game ends when a player covers the last spot in the mandala board based on the player count or if a player cannot score or pick on the end of their turn. Players will pick one of their objective cards and score it. The player with the most victory points is declared the winner!
Impressions
Mandala Stones is a beautiful entry into the wide world of abstract games that seem to be one of the more popular game types over the last few years in the board game hobby. I really love a good abstract game, and I think the ones that work well have an easy entry to learn but provide thoughtful choices that you must plan out for a few turns to really do well.
The art style on these mandala tiles and the colors really pop on the table. I appreciate that the styles of the patterns are different enough to really stand out, I never felt like they were hard to differentiate. The white patterns contrast very well against the solid bright colors.
The gameplay for this is somewhere on the scale of not as complex as a game like Calico but more along the lines of a game like Azul. Yes you need to think ahead with your decisions but it is hard to plan way ahead on this one. I have found that it plays well for average level players and ramps up just fine to satisfy even the most seasoned gamers.
Player count does not seem to affect the difficulty or ease to play this one, we found that at 2, 3 or 4 players it worked well. The more players the harder it is to pull off the right combo move/plan due to the constant change of the board state and the mandala board as well. Most of our games sat in the 30-45 min window without any complications or confusion from players.
Ultimately this game will make its way into rotation in our home and for game nights as a nice, easy to learn and play game that presents plenty of challenges for players of all levels. I will be introducing this to plenty of different players and fully expect this to be something everyone will enjoy. Make sure to give it a chance and get it to your table soon!
I want to say thank you, Isaac, your work is really helpful.
Thank you for the kind comments!