JESS: Made In Spain Games (VI)

Some worldwide well known boardgames are published in Spain, by different companies, in Spanish-language editions.

But here we also have a couple of… Made In Spain Games (Part VI)

In this chapter: PatimPatamPatum, Dead End, and Tobynstein (and all of them can be played if you don’t know Spanish).

PatimPatamPatum, by Marià Pitarque & Marc Figueras, published by Vexillum.

On a map of the center of Berga, a litle town near Barcelona, you must find place for all of your pieces. The Patum fair is a traditional festival, recognized by the UNO because its cultural values. In the Patum days, Berga is full of people in the streets, and that is what the game try to recreate.

Your pieces are people in the village, who want to be in the squares (where the party is better), not in the streets. When scoring happened (in some fixed rounds), you score points as you have people in the squares. The most valuables squares are farther away of the center of the board where everybody start. There are also other places to get pionts, the administrator houses, but it’s easier to be pushed from there.

To move, you use cards. Each card could be used to move your people, or to push when your people arrive to a full of people square in the town… The stronger piece stay there and the weaker go out of the overfull square. Each card has a movement value and a fight power or special action – everything explained with no-text icons, difficult to understand at the beginning but clear once you are in the game.

The production is beautiful. All the designs and ilustrations in the game are inspired by the tradiotional Patum: the characters on the cards, the map, some rules… - Ther is no text on the game and English and French rules are avalaible. You can get the game directly on its official website.

Patim Patam Patum is funny game about running and pushing people (maybe a bit too long for what it is, but that is not a problem: you can play less rounds). With this theme and many fights between players, laughs are always on the table. I must say that this game won La Tona conquest 2008, a game design competition in Spain.

The authors have auto-edited their game with the name of Vexillum as publisher company, but all the components are made in Germany or with German quality levels. They have projects for more games in the future, luck for them!

Dead End by Manuel J. Sueiro & Ángel Paredes, published by NOSOLOROL.

Zombies, many of them, and you are trapped in a dead end street… This is a card game with creepy dark illustrations (The cards could have been more beautiful, I think). You manage a group of survivor humans, fighting against the zombies and against the other groups of people – You know, you prefer to survive more time than your neighbour.

You need to find equipment to get away of the city: weapons, vehicles, etc. And of course, there are also event card with many different effects. The cards are used to build different locations (rows) on the table. You can know some of the cards in a location, but usually not all of them. When you enter in one of this location, you will discover what is there. Cooperation is not very useful here, because the other player surely have cards waiting for you, zombie food. Dead End is a take-this-take-that card game, with zombies and some good ideas.

This is another game who wants to go out of Spain, because it is a Spanish-English edition: all the texts on the cards are written in both languages. You can get the game in the official web page of the publisher: Nosolorol - this game is their first boardgame, but they have been publishing role playing games for years.

Zombies are always a good theme… Or do you know any bad game about zombies?

Tobynstein by Josep M. Allué, published by Homoludicus”>Homoludicus & Perra Comics.

A good combination together to make this game:
- Homoludicus, a Spanish game company which publish some well know games (Coloretto, Agricola, Ubongo, etc.) and some Spanish games too (Café Race).
- Perra Comic, a comic shop from Barcelona where you can meet Francisco Bellido, a good cartoon illustrator.
- Josep M. Allué, author of some children games with Spanish traditional game companies.

The results of those elements is Tobynstein, a game about resurrecting pets in the Dr. Frankenstein style. It is a family game, with an humoristic and original theme and funny colourful illustrations.

In a turn, everybody must simultáneamente choose an action: go to the cemetery, stole animal parts from another player, or sew up different animal parts together (if you have them). When you go to the pet cemetery and discovered a card (tomb), you can find there parts of animals, events, powerful objects…

There are different animals: dogs, cats, iguanas and a chamaleon (joker), but your new body could be re-constructed mixing all of them. When you want to sew, you can put together parts of the same kind of animal or parts of different animals if the color of the tables is the same. When you have a full body, you need to find a card with a ray and your pet monster get alive to win the game.

Tobynstein was the first Spanish game presented in Essen even before than in Spain. The game is printed in Spanish and English, you can get more info on the publisher website. Children like monsters, and this game is perfect for the whole family: easy to play, with some decisions to think, interaction betweeen players, funny cards…

To be continued...

¡Nos jugamos!

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