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And Now For Something Completely Different
Sometimes a game catches your eye because it doesn’t look like any other game you’ve seen or played, and Lacuna is one of those games. Lacuna is a 2 player only game which revolves around placing tokens and picking up flowers but in doing so you are about to play a game that is like no other but has the feeling of one you’ve always known how to play.
Rather than a standard sized box which stacks nicely on the shelf Lacuna immediately stands out by coming packed in a cylinder which not only houses all the parts for the game but doubles up as the vessel for setting the game up and this adds to the uniqueness of Lacuna.
What’s In The Cylinder?
Inside the container for Lacuna you’ll find a gorgeous mat, dark with colourful flowers dotted around the outside. Then there is a small bag filled with weighty metal player pieces in gold and silver colours, and these are tactile and solid. Then there are the flowers, lots of wooden flowers in a variety of colours and these (after player one has taken a flower of their choice) you pop back into the container and shake out via a small hole in the lid over the mat creating a beautiful display of colour that gives the appearance of colourful stars in the sky. Once these flowers have been spread out, each player takes their metal tokens and you are good to start.
In Lacuna, you play by placing one of your metal tokens somewhere on the mat on an uninterrupted line between any two flowers of the same colour. This line cannot be broken by another flower or by another player’s piece. Once you have done this you will take the two flowers and then it is the other player’s turn to do the same. After both players have placed all of their pieces down, and removed the corresponding flowers, the next stage of the game begins. In this second phase, both players take the remaining flowers that are closest to their pieces, with a handy ruler included to settle any disagreements. Then whoever has the majority in four or more flowers wins the games, and because of the distribution there are no ties. Then you put all the wooden flowers back into the container and go again because this isn’t a game you will want to play once and each game only lasts 10 minutes or so.
And Relax
What I love about Lacuna is the calmness you feel while playing it, there is something delightful in placing down your metal pieces and taking the flowers and the game seems to bring on a zen-like state where before you know it you’ve played eight games in a row and time just seems to have stopped. This is not a heavy big game with hundreds of components and a complicated set up time burdened with a weighty rulebook, this is a quick, simple, beautiful and elegant game.
Lacuna is unlike any other game in my collection, it stands out on the shelf, calling for you to play it. It’s the perfect game to start or end an evening and you may even spend the whole evening playing it. Where some games elevate your stress levels and load you with complex decisions, Lacuna lives in a space that is so far removed from that and I hope you can also find space for this in your home too.
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