Traveling is the best way to make everyday life gray. Distant journeys give color to life, sometimes in a very literal way. If you have heard about the island of Burano famous for its colorful houses, you definitely have it on your list of places to visit. Thanks to the newest game from Nasza Księgarnia publishing house, you can now admire the charms of the Venetian Lagoon. A Walk in Burano is a family card game that takes players for a stroll through the streets of a beautiful islet.
This little card game captivates at first sight. The artwork on the game’s cover looks like a postcard. It is beautiful and it reflects the atmosphere of a Venetian town very well. A small box contains several dozen nicely illustrated cards, building permit tokens, wonderfully shiny coins, a first player marker, a notebook for writing scores and a factual instruction full of useful examples.
Become an architect
The task of the players in the Walk around Burano game is to build five tenement houses in such a way as to attract the attention of as many tourists and inhabitants of the town as possible. Each of them gives you victory points at the end of the game, and each pays attention to different details. The person whose houses are most liked by the characters on the cards will score the most points by becoming the winner.
A player’s turn consists of two phases. First, he chooses one of the columns in the draw area. From it, he draws from 1 to 3 cards of houses of I, II and III levels to his hand. He must choose cards from the top or bottom, never from the middle. Depending on how many cards the player has drawn, they receive 0 to 2 coins. In the next phase, he may place up to 3 cards in his play area by paying his build cost. At the end of a turn, everyone may have a maximum of 3 cards and 6 coins in their hand.
When expanding tenement houses, you need to remember a few rules. A player may have a maximum of 5 buildings in front of him, built from the lowest to the highest level, from the corresponding cards. The exact card must be placed adjacent to an already existing building element. The finished tenement house should consist of three levels of the same color, and buildings of the same color cannot be adjacent to each other. The scaffolding that can replace the missing storey is a great help. Everyone has two of these cards. The player may bypass the rules of constructing tenement houses by using building permits. After returning the chip to the box, it is allowed to discard the card contrary to the rules. There are as many as 4 such tokens. They are worth 3 points at the end of the game, so make sure to use them sparingly.
When a player completes the house, he places his chosen character card underneath it. It scores points at the end depending on what the selected person points out to. Some visitors admire, for example, the vegetation, others appreciate the company of cats. Passers-by are important to the mayor, while Santa Claus appreciates the chimneys on the roofs. There are many characters, so sometimes it is difficult to decide which one to invite to your tenement house. A player can have any number of tourists of a given type, but only one resident of each category.
If someone builds a fifth townhouse or the draw pile of one of the building levels runs out, the game is over. Players receive points for character cards, service premises, and unused tokens. The person with the most closed windows in the tenement house receives negative points.
Colorful fun
Walking around Burano is a very enjoyable light family game. Thanks to the simple rules, even beginners can easily play it. Optimal choices can be a challenge for children, but this is how they will learn to plan and choose the best cards. It will also be a good opportunity to repeat the count. The game is fast and the gameplay is not long. Thanks to this, you can sit there at any time and play a game.
Despite the simplicity of the rules, the initial turns may be difficult for laymen. Taking coins and paying with them can be a bit of a mess. Shifting the chips from place to place is a bit annoying, but luckily more attention is focused on townhouses. Building them is not difficult. The problem is to do it in such a way that by choosing one of the available characters, you get the most points. This leads to the fact that the construction of buildings is somewhat dependent on the cards selected earlier. This is disastrous because the part of the house you want to see may not appear or someone else will take it. You should also organize the playing field well. Everyone should have enough space for their buildings and have a good view of the levels and characters available.
It is not the first time that Burano Island has become a battlefield between players. This fascinating place attracts attention with its amazing colors, but also invites you to get to know it better. During the game, we are limited by the rules regarding the colors of tenement houses, which is a reference to the real restrictions that the residents follow. Islanders must obtain a permit not only to change the color of the building, but also to a specific shade. Thanks to this, their houses are known all over the world and could become an inspiration for a new game.
A walk around Burano is a good idea to start your adventure with board games. For seasoned players it may be too simple, but they too should appreciate the different scoring methods and the fact that we choose them ourselves – five times. Those who are obsessed with optimization can take on the solo mode and break their own scoring records, although I think this game is best suited for family gatherings or casual board games.
