Free Trip to Hawaii with Board Game Purchase

Day 38 - Hawaii
Designed by Creg Daigle

Are you in need of a serious vacation? I know that I am. One place that I desperately would like to go is Hawaii. Lucky for me, Rio Grande Games provides a chance for everyone to experience a bit of Hawaii without breaking the bank to get there. When playing Hawaii, one experiences traveling to the main island as well as seeing the smaller islands by boat, watching hula dancers and surfers, you go fishing and see the different statues to different gods, and you can taste the sweetness of fruit and trade goods using clams as currency. Tikis are essential and kahunas are very nice to have on one's own little paradise island as well. This trip only has a limited number of seats though! The game is made for 2 to 5 players and the trip will last about an hour or hour and a half.

Each player is tasked with providing for their island. As chieftain, you have the responsibility to go to the main island and retrieve certain buildings, plants, and people etc. to keep your villages happy and flourishing. Hawaii has a lot of great components to the game including many wooden and cardboard pieces. The theme is fun and the artwork is perfect for the game. The game also includes some nice little huts that players can put together to keep their supplies secret from the other players. Players score points throughout the game, at the end of each of the 5 rounds, and of course at the end of the game there is a final scoring as well. While I played Hawaii, I caught myself finding similarities between Hawaii and a few other games such as Agricola (to be played soon) Pantheon, and even Royal Palace.

During each round, you are limited by your resources and by what the other players choose as well (each round, there are only a certain amount of each item that can be purchased or obtained). The game might seem a bit overwhelming at first, and I thought the rules were a bit confusing in some areas, but once you have played through a round it becomes pretty clear (and after one game, the scoring makes a bit more sense). One thing I really do appreciate about the rule book is the fact that they have multiple examples given of turn taking and scoring (this helps out significantly in my opinion and I wish some game rules had more of this). Hawaii is definitely a high quality game in its pieces and in its gameplay. Worked well with 2 players and Lou finally takes the lead on the big scoreboard.

A big SHOUT OUT again to Rio Grande Games for making this review possible as well as 4 other reviews previous to this one! A big SHOUT OUT to everyone following this blog as well and thank you for supporting me in this A Game A Day project. I am now less than 2 weeks away from my 50th straight day of playing a different game each day. Board games are marvelous and that is How Lou Sees It.