Gamble in Paradise…
In Buru, you are a noble of the Majapahit empire, a powerful kingdom that presides over the Indonesian archipelago. By order of King Hayam Wuruk, you have set out across the sea to expand the mandala of Majapahit through commerce and diplomacy.
Buru is a competitive mid-weight, Euro-style boardgame for 1 to 4 players from Crafty Games. Over 5 rounds, you will secretly deploy Explorers to 4 different regions of the island to gather resources, recruit Islanders, perform tasks, and pay tribute to local spirits.
The objective is to win the islanders’ Esteem through obtaining the most Victory Points. This is done in many ways, primarily through tributes to the island spirits, but also by pleasing Elders, tasking local Nobles and fulfilling the king’s Decrees.
How it’s Played…
Make your Bid
The key to Buru is in the blind bidding of 4 of your 5 explorer tokens that are placed onto regions of the island. In turn they are flipped to determine who takes the first action with the highest bidder taking the lead.
Regardless of how many you bid in a region you will only take a single action there, and the remaining fifth token is revealed and represents the amount of fish you take into your inventory as currency.
Now Travel the Regions of Buru…
The Forest
Within the Forest you can claim resource cards to pay tribute to the island spirts with clay, palm and ebony.
The Shore
At the Shore, you’ll acquire Islander cards and place them into your tableau. The best actions in this region let you recruit multiple Islanders and cycle the recruitment row, in any combination.
The Village
Your Islanders’ abilities are triggered here at the Village. Some abilities can be chained as an engine and depending on how high your bid is, you can activate up to three Islanders.
The Sacred Lake
At the Sacred Lake, you will pay tribute to the water spirit Banyu, the mountain spirit Gunung, and the ancestral spirit, Manuk. This earns you the Esteem of the Islanders (Victory Points) and Elders can also be swayed here, giving you private goals to pursue…
Bid wisely and reap the rewards…
Bidding gives you the edge to claim the strongest actions of a region first, but you can also lay claim to more bonuses if a Decree is also in that region and this allows you to claim its Spirit Totem…
While you’re in possession of that totem you’ll gain additional Esteem from any players who make an offering to that Spirit – so bid wisely and you can reap the rewards of your opponents generosity!
Buru is a mid-weight blind bid, engine building, resource manager from the talent of Crafty Games, Alex Flagg and Stephen Wren, that is steeped in its Indonesian theme of gathering, trading and paying tribute to the island spirits while swathed in the rich and opulent art of Enggar Adirasa.
While a relatively short game lasting all of five rounds it provides a comfortable 60 minutes for one to four players as they journey around the island of Buru across each day, while vying to become its ambassador through accruing Esteem (Victory Points) with the islanders.
As players journey through the islands 4 unique regions they will blind bid to lay claim to the first spoils of the area and reap the benefits of their bold gambit. And it’s this bidding mechanic that truly brings Buru into its own for player interaction and is one of the best examples of its type I’ve found.
Each player will take four of their five tokens and lay them face down against a region to attempt to win the bid and take the first spoils, while the remaining fifth token represents the in-game currency of fish which is used later on to recruit islanders.
So its either careful planning or pure daring as to whether you play high stakes to get first pick of a valuable yet limited resource, or if its held back to ensure you have the ability to entice the islanders to your side with bartering of fish…
As to gameplay well it’s a breeze to pickup, but with just 5 rounds to gather limited resources it does feel a few extra rounds would benefit the engine builder that is pitched under the hood and to let it really get it into gear.
That said Buru will come with 2 additional expansions in the form of Ukum and Ambelau that add some essential and quirky concepts to the game that will build on the replayability and blend nicely into the base game.
Overall Buru is a highly enjoyable game that delivers on its theme, with fantastic production and artwork wrapped around an engaging bidding system that has a hint of engine building to the mix.
With several routes to victory from the opposing regions you’ll find a lot of strategy can be played out from game-to-game and with the introduction of Jonny Pac to the team as a guest game designer I’m eager to see what spice he brings to the table from his recent catalogue of successful and hugely entertaining games including Merchants Cove, Coloma and a Fistful of Meeples!
Coming to Kickstarter in June 2021 – Buru is a fantastic feast for the eyes and the soul!
