-
Lowell Kempf
United States
Chicago
Illinois
-
Back in December, Tanga had Malta for sale cheap. I hadn’t bought anything from Tanga in a while so I was tempted. Unfortunately, there was almost nothing about Malta on the geek. Still, the price was low and the box size was small (Hey, shelf space is precious!) so I decided to get it.
Yesterday, I tossed it in my bag and it made it onto the table. Normally, I’d want to get more plays under my belt before making any comments. However, since there is so little out there about Malta, I thought it would be helpful for anyone looking at the game to put some content out there.
First of all, Malta has absolutely nothing to do with the small Mediterranean country by the same name. Why it was even named Malta is a mystery that I may never know the answer to. 
Inside the small box, you get six pawns, 49 circular tiles that you will use to create the board, and a stack of cards. Seven of the discs are starting points, which make up one edge of the board. You shuffle up the rest of them and use them to build a 7 x 7 board, which will serve as the battle ground for the game.
Each disc is two sides. One side has a number and a shape. Most of the shapes consist of one or more points (or arrows, if you prefer that term), which you will need to consult for the movement portion of a turn. The other side (the side of DOOM) is a zero in a circle. That doesn’t sound bad at the moment but I haven’t gotten to the rules yet.
The cards are all various actions. I didn’t go through them because I knew that Malta was going to be the kind of game where it was going to be more fun to be surprised. In general, they let you fool around with the board, move pawns or muck with your hand of cards or someone else’s.
The object of the game is to not lose. Yup, this is a last man standing game and player elimination is the name of the game. 
Turns consist of three steps: Draw, play, and move. You draw cards equal to the number on the space where your pawn is sitting on. Then, you count the number of cards in your hand, divide by two and round up. You need to play that many cards. As for movement, remember how I said most of the shapes are pointy? You move one space in the direction of one of those points.
You can share a space with another pawn. But you really, really don’t want to. If your move puts you on the same space as another pawn(s), you get taxed. You have to hand over as many cards to that player(s) as the number on that space. And that is something that will hurt like a tire iron to the kidneys.
How do you get eliminated? There are two ways. First of all, if your hand is empty on your turn at any point other than the draw phase, you’re out. Second, if you can’t move on your move phase, that kicks you out of the game as well. Are you on a circle? Guess what, circles have no points. Is the only point pointing OFF the board? Sorry, that’s the edge of universe. 
While we didn’t see it happen, apparently eliminated players can theoretically come back in according to the rules. Since we didn’t go through all the cards, I don’t know how that happens.
My trial run of Malta was with two gamers who are focused on strategy games so I knew that this wouldn’t be the optimal conditions to try out a game like this. Still, you have to try a game out to see how the wheels spin and to know how to teach it in the future.
On a whole, the game wasn’t bad. We agreed that it really would play better with more players. One of the gamers surprised me by liking it. The other one said he would play it over Munchkin every time but he has also said he would rather have hot coals shoveled into his underwear than play Munchkin ever again so that’s pretty faint praise.
If I were to describe Malta in one sense, it would be Malta is Fluxx: The Board Game. It is a very random game where conditions are always changing.
It can be a very aggressive game. There are plenty of ways to hurt other players and a big part of the game is try and make sure folks are in the worst position possible. Folks are not going to just lose on their own. You have to force them to lose 
Would I play Malta again? Yeah. For a larger group that was in the mood for a lighter game and some silly, sloppy fun, Malta would probably be a blast. It falls under what I think of as a gamer’s party game. Sure, you play to win but the real fun is in the random, craziness. You throw the bouncy ball in a room full of cats and see what happens. However, I would never pull Malta out for a group that was in the mood for something serious or meaty.
Malta is DEFINITELY not for everyone. If you don’t like random games, don’t play it. If you don’t like elimination games, don’t play it. If you don’t like games that are all about putting the other players in a headlock and giving them a Dutch rub, don’t play it. But, if you want some fast, crazy zaniness, you might have fun with Malta.
|
|
