Paul Dale
Australia
Moggill
Queensland
2.219531669
You are only as old as you feel. How old is soft and squishy?
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We've had Bamboleo for quite a while now and we still bring it out periodically to test our balancing skills. We have access to a large verity of dexterity games and this is the one we always come back to. I'll note up front that we play with three children aged 9, 11 & 12 currently and 2 - 4 adults.
Visually, Bamboleo is quite impressive. Black and Red pieces on a bright yellow circular board. There is a cross shaped board available but I've not played that so I'm not going to comment on that version.
The board is made of fairly rough plywood which helps it balance on the ball. This sphere made from cork which is itself held in a tall black supporting wooden piece.
The game consists of piling the various shaped wooden pieces onto the board. Then the players take turns each removing a piece from the disc. The one who removes a piece which causes the whole assembly to topple over loses. Okay, strictly there is some kind of point scoring and the ability to pass but we never play this way -- it is far more exciting to just take pieces off.
The pieces are of a large variety of shapes. There are cylinders, cones and blocks. The pieces are of different sizes and weights. The really impressive thing about this game is that the disc will balance at surprising angles and often all the players think it will fall on the next removal but it doesn't.
We've never gone as far as finishing with all the pieces removed, however we often get to five or less. Our best thus far is two pieces left, with the removal of one toppling everything. Surprisingly, three pieces left isn't uncommon.
As for strategy, take off the light pieces and those that will roll easily at the start. Often the removal of a heavy piece early on will topple the assembly. Removal of such a piece later in the game is more tolerable. I suspect this has something to do with the steep angles and the likelihood of one of the pieces starting to slide (a sure loss for the unfortunate player who took the previous piece).
To sum up, a good clean fun dexterity game - highly recommended.
If you only buy one dexterity game, buy this one!
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John Farrell
Australia
Aspley
Queensland
Averagely Inadequate
Buster Keaton from 'Go West'
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The first time I played this was with you, and we removed all the pieces and I thought "well this seems easy enough!". The round version you have is called the pizza and that's the only version you can get these days. The other version is called kleeblatt, which I have a copy of.
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