Game Review: Gipsy King

By W. Eric Martin
November 27, 2007

Publisher: Cwali
Designer: Corné van Moorsel
Players: 2-5
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 30 minutes
Rules Language: English/Dutch/German/French

Version played: Published boardgame; online version at Mastermoves.eu
Times played: (Boardgame) Six times: twice with 2 and 4, once with 3 and 5; (online) 55 two-player games (40-15 baby!)

If I were to describe the elements of my ideal game, I would include an abstract yet disposable theme (to entice others while allowing me to ignore it), short rules, a quick playtime, a variable starting position, few to no random elements, and strategy that’s visible on the first play yet deep enough to reward multiple playings. Alternatively, I could just hand you a copy of Gipsy King.

Dutch designer Corné van Moorsel has already created one gaming masterpiece: Floriado, which meets all of the qualifications listed above. Floriado, an obscure game given away at the Spiel game convention in 2003, is available on van Moorsel’s Mastermoves.eu, and after nearly 200 online games I still feel like I’m learning how to play. The more that I play, the more that I can see patterns of movement and possible plays both for myself and my opponent. The game is dirt simple to explain, yet it’s fabulous and rewarding. I feel sure that in time Gipsy King will prove its equal.

A Caravan Built for Two
Let’s start with the two-player game of Gipsy King, then add in the other players later—something van Moorsel did by first introducing the two-player game online, then publishing a boardgame version later. Each player represents a family of nomads who are traveling in caravans and settling down in a land of lakes. The gameboard is a randomly arranged series of hexagonal playing pieces with roughly three land spaces per lake. You have two goals while settling: (1) claim the most land around fish-filled lakes (presumably so that you can claim the fish for dinner) and (2) connect lots of your caravans together (perhaps so that you can share that precious fish more easily).

Players take turns claiming empty land spaces around the lakes, starting with lake #1, then #2, and so on through lake #12. (If any land spaces are surrounded by land and not adjacent to a lake, they are claimed last.) Instead of placing a caravan on a turn, you can pass; the other player automatically fills any empty spaces around the current lake with his caravans, then you get first shot at the next lake.

Once all the spaces are filled, whichever player has claimed a majority of spaces around a fish-filled lake scores as many points as the number of fish in that lake. Players then score for their groups of caravans, with a single caravan worth 1 point, two caravans worth 3 points, three caravans 6 points, and so on.

Players then play a second round, starting at lake #12 and counting down. Twice during this round players can place two caravans on a space, and those extra caravans count toward both lake majorities and group scoring. After the second round scoring, the player with the higher total wins.

While fish are good for a few points, the real money is in ginormous groups of caravans. After all, two groups of three are worth 12 points while a group of six equals 21 points. To form those huge groups, though, you need to either play against someone who won’t block you (unlikely, except for those learning the game) or you need to plan your passes and caravan placements wisely in order to grab prime real estate. Since Gipsy King contains no hidden elements, the game is all about evaluating positions on the landscape, figuring out when to place and when to pass, and outmanuvering the opponent who is of course trying to do the exact same thing.

Even with everything in the open, you’re still confronted with a big unknown in what your opponent will do. How far ahead is he thinking? Will he give up spaces around the current lake to secure first choice around the next lake, knowing that you can then connect a large group if you can claim these two spaces? At the same time, he’ll then have two connected caravans with lots of open land around them, which means I’ll be fighting him for position around these other four lakes. What to do, what to do…

Gipsy King is theoretically calculable, but the options branch so quickly that I typically look ahead only a few lakes at a time, then go with my gut. As I’ve gained more experience, I find that I’m better able to see possible growth in each player’s positions, along with choke points to cut off the opponent and vital spaces that I’ll need to claim for my own groups. As fate would have it, these spaces are often around the same lake, which means that I need to choose between helping myself or hurting my opponent—assuming that he doesn’t pass first, that is.

No matter how much you feel you learn from one game, the variable playing board gives you a new challenge next time. You have a different combination of lakes and land and a different order of which spaces can be claimed when. Experience definitely helps; my brother is a smart guy and a strong player of abstracts, yet I walloped him in the first two games we played. Having fifty games on your opponent will usually let you do that.

Mo’ Nomads
One way to balance games against someone with experience is to invite others into the game. With three to five players, you add lakes #13-15, each on their own hexagonal playing boards with additional land spaces. The fishes magically divide and multiply, which means that players tied for majority around a lake both score the points for fishes.

Aside from the extra ground to fight over and fish filleting, the only other change is to the order of play. Before the game begins, you randomly determine a playing order and represent this by lining up one caravan of each color. When you’re at the top of the line, you either place a caravan (which moves you to the bottom of the playing order) or you pass (which means you’ll place first around the next lake); to represent a pass, you separate your caravan a bit from the group and now the second player in line faces the same options: play or pass. If he plays, he goes to the bottom of the order, which means that he’ll no longer take his turn directly after yours; if he passes, he’ll be second in line behind you. If everyone passes, the player in the back claims all open spaces around the current lake.

This shifting player order makes a huge difference in how Gipsy King unfolds. Instead of the steady back-and-forth of the two-player game, in which I know that whichever spaces the opponent doesn’t claim will automatically be mine, you suddenly have to make room for everyone else’s plans. If we’re on lake #6 and I desperately need a certain position on lake #9, I might want to pass for several turns in a row in order to guarantee that placement—but I might be able to place a caravan anyway and still pass later to claim that space. How many spaces are open? And who wants to claim what when? If I don’t play now, will someone else start forming a big group?

With more than two players, Gipsy King can veer into weird group dynamics, mostly of the type where a player can either help himself or hurt one other player. Two players have passed and now the player going third can either block the fifth player or lay down an isolated caravan and fall back in the player order. For the most part, players decide to help themselves instead of kneecapping someone since the first action lets you gain ground on everyone else, while the latter helps you against only one player. (If you can engineer those situations somehow, you’ll benefit greatly. I haven’t yet played enough games with three-plus players to see how to do so.)

Some players will find Gipsy King too dry and analytic. Sure, the player pieces are chunky wooden caravans, but the only way you’ll feel like a gipsy while playing the game is if you’re actually playing it in a caravan. As for the pondering problem, when playing online, I take time to run through the opponent’s options to figure out what to do; when playing in real time, I keep my thinking limited to other players’ turns in order to keep the game moving. One or more deep thinkers would bring the game to a halt if they wanted to work through the caravan calculations, and although you have only a few possible moves on a turn, the subsequent moves that branch off those multiply quickly and present plenty of opportunity for slow play for those with such tendencies.

As you might have gathered, I’m not one of those players mentioned in the previous paragraph. I’ve played Gipsy King online for months and am delighted that I can now easily introduce it to others. I expect to do so for years to come.

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