Naturelich Games

Klaus Teuber signing his game Candamir, Spiel 2004, Essen

If you like board games you are certainly familiar with Settlers of Catan (Die Siedler von Catan) - one of the most successful games ever. The game has evolved and become the basis for an entire merchandise. The latest addition to the world of Catan is Candamir - Die ersten Siedler (engl. probably: Candamir - The First Settlers). The game leads the players into the world described in the novel by Rebecca Gablé. It combines some well-known gameplay elements from the original game with a character-based role-playing approach. Players can improve their character's talents. This is achieved by sending the character away from the security of their village into the wilderness and reaching a selectable, pre-defined target field. Raw nature is naturelich the place where the character is confronted with obstacles (wolves, bears, snakes, other tasks), special adventures or different kinds of collectibles. In the wilderness, collectibles are called herbs, I guess :-). If the character fails to overcome an obstacle or adventure he looses stamina and slows him down. Stamina can be regained by converting several collectibles into healing potion (there's of course other potions).

The raw materials - also available on the target fields - can be converted into higly sophisticated equipment: chests, swords and parchments. If you deliver one such equipment to another inhabitant of the village (in a full role-playing game, we'd call em Non-Player Characters-NPCs) you gain a victory point (I'll spare you the additional options on how to gain victory points). The player reaching 10 victory points wins the game.

Sounds complicated to you? It did to me at first - and the instructions don't make your live easier. Well, actually they do... Because everything is explained to the most meticulous detail. This results in a long booklet text to work through. But it is really easy to play, once you got the touch of it. And once you have started playing the manual is an excellent piece of documentation offering solutions to all the questions our group could come up with.

But there is not only the board game. Candamir comes with a webpage with some additional goodies. The most noteworthy is a character editor, which allows you to create and print your own character cards. During Spiel 2004 in Essen, Kosmos Verlag offered to take a picture and created a unique character card from that. Naturelich, Naturelich is available as such a character. Not too good looking and charismatic, but at least some decent combat skills ;-) Just like my favorite roleplaying characters (kidding)...

To sum it up: the game takes 1-3 hours (with 3 players) and makes an evening full of entertainment. The game design is marvelous - a lot of attention has been spend on the smallest details and the drawings and characters are wonderful. The wildernesss/movement cards look a little bit strange as they combine photography with drawings. Personally I had prefered to have paitings throughout the game, but this is just a minor detail. The game-play is well thought through and allows for future expansions to come, e.g. new adventures, new characters, new special talents, etc. Definitely a christmas recommendation...