As I'm sure you've gathered from my What to expect from this site post, I enjoy playing games which are easy to learn but offer both a great deal of rewarding and interesting choices and plenty of replay value. This game delivers both in spades.
In Karuba, you are faced with two choices on a given turn. You may either play a tile to set up one of your colorful meeples to get to their temple, or discard the tile you are given to advance a meeple in that direction. This is where this game begins to show its strength. If you choose to play a tile, you might lag behind in getting to your temples, allowing other players to snap up rewards for beating you to the punch. But if you move every turn, you might pass up the chance to play tiles with gems printed on them, which you could later collect for extra points.
The back of the game's box. Haba is a German company, but this is the U.S. edition, and includes English rules. None of the components have any German printed on them. "Glück" means "luck" and "Einfachheit" means "simplicity".
The closest board game cousin to Karuba I know of is likely Scarabya, a game by Blue Orange Games. As in Scarabya, turns take place simultaneously, meaning there's no downtime as players wait for each another to take their turns. And as with Scarabya, everyone creates a matching initial setup by placing their meeples and temples at the edge of the board. Each player is given the same tile to work with on a given turn, just as is the case in Scarabya. But although their setup and the tiles dealt them are the same, each player ends up taking on a different strategy in their efforts to beat their fellow adventurers to the temples that line the board.
Scarabya by Blue Orange Games. Image from https://blueorangegames.eu/en/games/scarabya/
When I got this game last week, I played it three times that day. One after the other, in quick succession. Needless to say, it had me hooked. Although it has a few similarities to Scarabya, it's mechanism – a combination of tile-laying and racing – is thoroughly unique.
This is an excellent game which would work wonderfully with families and friends, including those who have not played board games before or have hardly played any. Haba, the game's producers, pride themselves on their high-quality components and deliver here, creating a delightful visual experience.
My family and I setting up a game of Karuba. Really nice components!
In short, after owning it for only a week, this is one of my favorite games at the moment, and if you're looking for a game to pick up or give a friend or relative, I recommend you choose this one. It was first released in 2015 and nominated for Spiel des Jahres (the German game of the year award) in 2016, so it's hard to find in a store in 2022. I recommend you do what I did and use Target's shipping feature (they act as a supplier for HABA on this game) or buy it directly from habausa.com.
(I'm not paid by board game companies, so don't worry, I'm not actually trying to sell you anything!)
Well, that about wraps it up for my first review! I hope this was helpful. I will be back with a new one shortly, so please do come check that out when it gets posted!
Thanks everyone!
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