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And then the winner is the player with the most points and end game. Pretty simple but pretty strategic! Having placed the cloth between you both, shuffle all 108 cards and place them face down in a draw pile. Mandala is played over a series of turns. Each player has three options as to what to do on their turn, but first, there is a bit of explanation needed. The board for Mandala, which is a nice linen cloth, is divided up into different areas. In the middle there are two mandalas, one on the left and one on the right. At any time on their turn a player can play cards to either of the areas. Each mandala is broken up into three areas. In the middle there is what is called the mountain, and on each side of the mountain is a field area where a player can play their cards. Placement rules are fairly simple, there are six different colored cards in the game, and in each mandala, a color can only appear in one of the three spots, either in the mountain, or in one of the player’s fields. A player may only play cards into their field or the mountain, but not the other player’s field. The board also has two additional areas for each player, a scoring line, called the River, and a pile for scoring cards, called the Cup. It’s a game you grasp straight away but then discover more and more as you chip away at the mountain. Like a multi layered film the more time you spend with it the more you see, and because Mandala only takes 20 minutes to play you will more often than not play at least two games in a row. Highly recommended for abstract and two player game fans, but also for anyone who often finds themselves playing at two players. When drawing new cards you must never go over your hand limit of 8 cards. Also you may never end your turn with no cards in your hand. If you were completing the action ‘grow fields’ and you had 4 yellow cards in your hand you would not be allowed to place all 4 cards in the field. Completing A Mandala
Then give each player two cards which only they look at and then place face down onto their own “cup." It's a game where you need to remain flexible and adapt to a situation where control shifts during a round. Mandala Stones is another example of how crunch and colour can make sweet music together. Or, rather, a beautiful work of art!Add a card into either mandala - here you must follow the “rule of colour” which means that the card you lay can either match an existing colour or be a new colour. It cannot be a colour which your opponent has already added into the mandala or their field surrounding that mandala. But you can keep adding to whichever suits are in the mandala, regardless of who laid that colour (suit) first. Rather, this is a how-to-play guide that goes into the nitty-gritty of how this game works in a little more detail to help you decide whether Mandala could also be a game for you. The Line -n Up!
It’s funny, I am normally a person who likes to play games with more than two players. The social aspect of board gaming is probably the biggest pull there is for me. I like sitting around a table full of friends and having fun over a board game. So much so that I normally refuse play games that have higher player counts at two players. I always feel like I am missing something, both in the game and at the table. These two-player games from Lookout, and even previously from Kosmos, are built for two players and you don’t feel as if you are missing anything, the entirety of the game is out there for you to see. My wife and I have had a wonderful time with Patchwork over the years, and Targi, and Agricola All Creatures Big and Small. Those are the games that we reach for when having a night gaming with each other. Mandala gives us another option, another fun, strategic, really well put together and developed option. Over the course of the game, players play their coloured cards into the two mandalas. Building the central shared mountains and laying cards into their own fields. Discard. Place as many cards of one colour from your hand into the discard pile (next to draw pile) then draw as many cards from the draw pile. Starting with the player who played the most cards in their Field, the players take alternating turns to choose one of the colors present in the Mountain of the just-completed Mandala.This is the typical Lookout Games box size for their two-player line, and for the most part components-wise it lives up to the games that came before it. I don’t necessarily like the cards being square, that makes them entirely too hard to shuffle for me — especially given that there are 108 of them. The linen mat is a really nice touch and I love that folks are thinking outside the box as far as what they can make their components from, but every time I unfold it from the box and place it on the table, I feel like I should iron it first, as it’s like playing on a permanently pleated shirt, but that’s just my neurosis. But that’s all the game is, cards and the linen board, oh and the rule book. It almost feels minimalist. Then, the central mandala scoring board and main board are placed within easy reach. And believe me, you are going to want to be up close and personal with those gorgeous stones! One very important rule to consider when taking the first two actions is the rule of Colour. Each of the 6 sand colours can only be in exactly one of the 3 areas of the mandala (the mountain, your field and your opponent’s field). This basically means that if your opponent has a red sand in their field you cannot play a red sand into that mountain or your field. However you may be able to play it to the other mandala. Keep in mind you may play it to an area you have access to. So if red sand is in the mountain or your field you may add it to the same one (just not a new area). Hand Limits
Once a mandala has been destroyed and all the colours in the mountain claimed, cards played in the fields are discarded, two new cards are dealt face up into the mountain, and the game continues. From the cards each player collects from the mandala, one of each colour will go into their river and the remaining cards will go face down into their cup. Note that you have to put any new colour collected on the lowest available spot in your river. Those colours are now set in terms of the multiplier they will score when you reveal the cards in your cup at game end. Any cards collected which already match a colour present in your river go straight into your cup. That is not to say you can’t simply score tiles – you can. You could, for example, use your turn to score a single stone of any colour, or several random top stones. But that will only ever get you one VP per stone. As will be seen, however, that can sometimes be a handy tactical move! Most of the time during play, a player is going to either want to place a card in the mountain area of a chosen mandala, or on their field of a chosen mandala. The rules of placement are a bit different for each.Mandala has grabbed me with its immediate gameplay and variety. In fact it’s easier to play than it is too explain! I didn’t expect a game like this to have so much variance in gameplay, but the subtle changes to scoring and colour value added to the mind games that transpire makes this one of the best two player games I’ve played. It is a game I can play with my mum and my friends, and one that they have a chance of winning too. As players lay cards into their fields or onto the mandalas, there will come a time when one of the mountains contains all six colours which means it has completed. The only other element of the linen cloth to note is the wider circle around each mountain. That space immediately below a mandala is called the “field." This is where a player may place cards on each round in the hope of controlling the connected Mandala. You are doing this in an effort to gain cards to your personal supply that will score you the most points. Each time that a mandala has all six colors in it, that mandala is evaluated. The players look and see who has the most cards in their field, that person gets to have the first choice in what cards to take from the mountain. You take cards of one color of your choice from the mountain and if that color is not already on your River, you place the first one of that color on the furthest left spot. The spots are numbered from one to six, those numbers are the points that each card in your score pile that matches will score. So the first one you take goes to your one spot, but any time that you take any more cards of that color, they go immediately into your Cup. You can only have each color represented once on your River. After the first player chooses card(s), the second player get to choose as well, as long as they have cards in their field when the mandala is evaluated. If they don’t, they still choose card(s) from the mountain, but they discard them instead of gaining them for their scoring. Once the mountain is empty, discard the cards from the field, and draw two new cards and place them in the newly empty mountain and play continues. On each turn, you will be trying to gain cards that are of value to you by taking them from one of two central mandalas being built up over the course of a round.
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