Keltis Das Mini-Spiel 2010

Another offspring from the Spiel des Jahres Winner Keltis. A mini game of Keltis. Its a bit like the Keltis Mitbringspiel, players must mix-match tiles. The game was a promotion prize by the Landliebe dairy, makers of pudding, milk, ice-cream in Germany.

It consists of a (flimsy) card board board, made out of 2 pieces that will form a bigger board, 3 cardboard playing pieces per player (2 player), 1 scoring marker of cardboard, gemstones, 4 special chits for the board and 33 small cards.

Gameplay is similar to Keltis but simplified of course: From a starting point three paths can be reached. On these paths 9 chits (5 gemstones, 1 chit which grants 2 points, 1 chit which grants 3 points, and 2 chits that move any of your playing pieces 1 space forward) are openly laid. Each player gets 6 cards, the remaining 21 are put in a central card pile. Players lay one card on a private pile of a certain colour. The piles can be ascending or descending, but this choice can only made once. Once a card is legally added to a pile the player can choose to advance one of his playing pieces on one of the paths on the board. If a playing piece reaches a green chit the chit remains on the board and gives points or allows advancement of a playing piece. If the chit is a gemstone, it is taken by the player. When the public card pile is exhausted the game is over. Players get points according to the advancement of their playing pieces (-2 to +10 points are possible on each path) and for each gemstone they collected (0 gemstones = -3, 1 gemstone = -1, 2 gemstones = 2, 3 gemstones = 3 4 gemstones = 6, all 5 gemstones = 10 points). The player with the most points is the winner.