Tiki Topple,The Tactical Game of Totem Domination - Review.
TIKI TOPPLE - Review. Happy 4th of July to all, and if you are not American, I would say Happy Summer and come celebrate with us anyway. I ...
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TIKI TOPPLE - Review.

celebrate with us anyway. I hope that you get to spend the day in celebration with family and friends. Perhaps you are sitting pool side, a cold drink in hand while the barbecue is heating up. While you are chilling today, why not play a game? For instance Tiki Topple, a game by GameWright designed by Keith Meyers with illustrations by Chris Lee. It has a tropical theme, is easy to play, yet has a lot of hidden strategy behind its gameplay. Lets have a look at what Tiki Topple is and how it plays.
Goal
As the name of the game suggests you are playing with tiki totems. The objective is to score as many as possible over a set number of rounds. You gain these points by getting tikis that are on your secret goal card on top at the end of a round. But be careful, another player might share some of the same tikis in their goal. Do you think you can still beat them or are you willing to sacrifice a tiki in order to prevent the other player from getting points?
Setup

Shuffle and give each player a secret tiki card. This card will indicate your goal for the end of the round, each round you will get a new card. Each player also receives 7 action cards and a pawn, both of the same color. The pawn is used for score keeping while the cards represent different moves you can make during the game.
If you play with 3 or more people, you will remove one card ( "tiki 1 up") for game balancing.
Gameplay
You decide who starts the round and play clockwise. On your turn you must play one action card and move a tiki piece on the board according to what is on the card. Your choices are Tiki Up (1,2, or 3 space) which moves a tiki upwards the exact amount of spaces in the line. There is Tiki Topple, where you take any active tiki and bring them to the very bottom of the line. If this creates a gap, then the other tikis move up to close the line and you continue.
Lastly there is Tiki Toast, a powerful card that takes the last tiki on the totem line and removes it from the game. Players keep taking turns playing their cards in an effort to get their tikis in the top three, without giving away too quickly on what it is they are trying to do.

Once there are only 3 tikis left on the board or all players are out of cards the round ends and the players reveal their tiki card in order to take score. On a tiki card you will find three different tikis that will give you a score. The tiki at the top of the card will score you 9 points if it is at the top of the line, but nothing if it is below that. The middle tiki will give you 5 points, but only if it is on second or better, it never becomes 9 points. The third tiki will give you 2 points, if it is on third place or better. So a third place tiki on the top spot is still worth only 2 points.
Once counting is done, reset the board and the action cards. Take a new secret tiki goal card and start over, this time with the next player starting the round. Play the same number of rounds as you have players so each player gets a turn to start. In case of two players, play four rounds.
The player with the most points after the last round wins the game and is tiki master for the day and entitled to wear the pineapple crown of awesome!!( or so I heard).
Game Experience
As you can tell from the gameplay, this game is simple to understand and quick to start playing. But as you play more rounds it is easy to start worrying about other players and figure out how to block them from getting more points then you, if any at all. The problem is, you do not know the goals of the other player, so all you can do is try to remember what moves they have left and how they could potentially effect you.

What is nice is the minimal impact of random things happening in the game, there are no dice rolls that can go bad throwing random chaos into the game. All changes come from other players, but these are things you can, at least to a point anticipate and react to if you prepared well and played smart.
Oh if only you could get that last play action card back in your hand right now!
Conclusion

For the low price of $14.99, this game can fill your warm summer days and cold winter nights with fun and joy for the whole family.