Yogi Guru Review

Yogi Guru is a card game that seeks to get 3 to 10 players to test the limits of their flexibility for the glory of proving themselves to be a master yogi, designed by Behrooz ‘Bez’ Shahriari and illustrated by Simon Caruso in an expressive cartoony style.

Yogi Guru is a standalone expansion and so can be played with or without the original Yogi and comes with 60 new reinforced PVC cards, simple rules and 2 slanted card holders.

Becoming A Guru

Players will sit around the playing space within reach of the two card holders, taking it in turns drawing cards. Each of these cards has an instruction which that player must then follow for the entirety of the game.

There are four types of cards in the box: green, orange, blue and purple.

Green cards are actions that will be placed in front of a player so everyone knows what they should be doing. These cards have stated instructions such as ‘Place one finger on the playing surface’, or ‘Right hand above right elbow’.

Orange cards will need to be touching somewhere on a player’s body. These cards have instructions such as ‘This card touching forehead’, ‘This card touching right foot’ or ‘Hold the Yogi Guru box on your head’.

Blue cards have actions that must be complied with each round before drawing a new card. These actions include ‘Tapping the deck before drawing a card’, ‘Touching the floor’ or ‘Touching your knee and toe’.

Purple cards have instructions such as ‘Right hand above ___’ or ‘This card covering ___’, where the blank space is filled in by your opponent, as long as the instruction is possible.

Any player that does not comply with any instruction they have been given is eliminated. Play continues until all but one player has gotten themselves into a position where they cannot comply with the all the instructions. The last player left twisting themselves up like a figure-eight is the winner.

Just Like A Yoga Class

Playing Yogi Guru feels a lot like the experience I have had when taking part in a yoga class. I find myself contorting my body into more and more awkward shapes with each new green and orange card I draw. Then the new blue cards make things more dynamic by replicating that feeling of having to move awkwardly between positions, trying not to lose my balance when going from warrior one into tree pose. They add a new element of difficulty as players need to plan more when deciding how to comply with other cards as they need to be free enough to move around.

The new purple cards create that feeling of when a yoga instructor has told you to get yourself into a position and you can only sigh as you try to follow the instruction. They add a level of player interaction as your opponent decides how difficult they want to make the rest of the game for you. In my experience, players are often quite conservative when they have the control but sometimes, they can come up with something that creates a real challenge. An example of this was when I drew the ‘___ hidden’ card where my opponent gave me the instructions to have my face hidden and I played the rest of the round with my t-shirt over my face. They may not have been the fairest yoga instructor, but it was certainly memorable and gave everyone a good laugh as I struggled to read the cards through the fabric.

Yogi Or Guru

The only material difference between the original Yogi and Yogi Guru are the new card types. This means the gameplay feels very similar but there is more variety with Yogi Guru due to these added elements. The deck is split quite evenly among the green, orange and purple with a handful of the blue cards so the changes they bring do not surface quite as often as the others.

When playing with the Yogi Guru cards alone the weighting toward purple cards can sometimes feel a bit heavy as they have a tendency to slow things down a little more than the other card types. Players end up taking some time to try to come up with something and will often fall back on an idea that is very similar to one of the green or orange cards that already exist. This can sometimes mean that they fall a little flat when drawn and can also be easier to forget or go unnoticed when in the fray.

Overall, the added complexity of the new cards does add variety to the game and can lead to some shining memorable moments when used in the right way but other times they can feel like unnecessary complexity.

I think Yogi Guru works best as a combined effort with original Yogi. It adds the new elements and variety to the original game but spreads it more evenly so that the purple cards that require more thought come up that little bit less often.