Evan Tschannen
United States
Virginia
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Before the review, a word to the wise for all potential owners of Bausack. The first time I asked my friends to play it, I walked up to one of them and excitedly asked "Do you want to play Bausack?". They stared back at me with a shocked looked and said "PLAY WHAT???". Only then did I realize the name is easily confused with male genitalia. Learning from my past mistakes, I now make sure to put extra emphasis on BAUUU, and pronounce the end more like "sick" rather than "sack".
Overview
Considering I own both Bausack and Sac Noir (Sac Noir is a different edition of Bausack, I will explain the differences), its safe to say I love the game. But I was not always in love with it. The first couple of plays, played by the rules provided with the game, left me ready to leave this one on the shelf. Luckily after reading some of the variants on BGG, and then honing them over time, Bausack overcame my initial impression of the game. Now it is one of my all time favorite games, so I thought I would share my experience.
Components
Bausack
6 rectangular starting blocks with the word "Zoch" printed on them
~60 wooden blocks of various shapes and sizes (red and tan)
1 bag of plastic gems used as currency
1 bag for the wooden blocks
1 height measuring tool
A box which contains all the pieces
Sac Noir
2 rectangular starting blocks (no printed words, just the same size as the Bausack starting blocks).
~90 wooden blocks of various shapes and sizes (red and black)
1 bag of kidney beans used as currency
1 bag containing the wooden blocks
1 height measuring tool
Bausack has three advantages over Sac Noir. The first is the inclusion of the six starting blocks. The key aspect which I believe makes the bases essential, is that it ensures everyone will have plenty of room to build (the base is a medium sized flat rectangle). The ability to stack multiple pieces on the base makes the game last longer, and allows for more strategic decision making.
The second advantage is that the red blocks in Bausack are slicker than the red blocks in Sac Noir. This adds an additional level of difficulty, because you need to consider both balancing pieces, and whether there is enough friction to prevent a piece from sliding off your tower.
Also, in Bausack the red color is much more indicative of the difficulty in placing the piece. In Sac Noir there does not seems to be the same association between the colors and the difficulty. For instance, the huge pawn shaped piece is red in Bausack, but black in Sac Noir.
The final advantage of Bausack over Sac Noir is the non-block components. The plastic gems from Bausack are very nice, by comparison I threw the kidney beans which came with Sac Noir away immediately (I contemplated cooking them  ). Also, the fact the Bausack comes with a box is very nice compared to the bag you get with Sac Noir.
The only advantage Sac Noir has over Bausack is the number of pieces. Getting 33% more pieces is not trivial, especially since I found not having enough hard blocks near the end of a game was an issue with Bausack.
Overall, if I was just going to buy one set, I would buy Bausack. The lack of starting blocks in Sac Noir is the deal-breaker for me.
For people who already own one of the two sets and are considering buying the other, one thing that surprised me was the number of duplicates I got. Only around 30% of the blocks I got in Sac Noir were different from the ones I had in Bausack. That being said I do not regret buying Sac Noir. Having duplicates and a third color opens up the door for a lot of interesting variants, and makes the game playable with more than four people. One other thing to note, when I bought Sac Noir I found it necessary to buy some plastic tubs to store the blocks in. The bags are not very durable, and all the pieces will not fit in the Bausack box.
Problems
The variants provided with the game have a number of problem which I will go through, however over time my group have fine tuned the rules to our own variant which address many of the problems.
The first problem with the stated rules is the games are too short. There is not enough time to get attached to your tower, or feel like you accomplished something when you win. Furthermore, very simple mistakes (for instance one small piece falling down accidentally) are too important in determining the winner.
The second problem is that dexterity plays too large a role in the game. I know that is a weird critique for a dexterity game, however I feel like what makes Bausack shine is the strategic element to the game. With the printed rules there is the ability to play strategically, however the winner is often decided by shaky hands rather than block choice.
The third problem is player elimination. Because the games are short this is not too big of an issue, however in the occasion of a longer game, combined with one person getting knocked out early, someone may be sitting around for half an hour with nothing to do.
Rules
Our group plays with a wide variety of different variants, and if there is enough interest I will post them, however for this review I will just post our most popular choice. The variety addresses many of the problems listed above, and (in my opinion) upgrades Bausack from a good game to an outstanding game.
- Each player starts with 5 gems and a starting block.
- Play moves around the table in a clockwise fashion.
- On a player's turn they select two blocks and simultaneously give them to two different players, in the event only one opponent is left only one block is given.
- A player who has been given a block has two choices, they can either keep the piece and stack it on their tower, or spend one of their gems and return it to the player who gave it to them. If a player moves the piece which has been offered to them towards their tower the must accept the piece.
- When placing a piece the player may only touch the base of their tower and the block they are placing.
- In the event that any piece besides the block the player is currently placing falls off the tower, the player must spend one gem to rebuild their tower.
- When rebuilding the tower all of the blocks must be placed in the relative positives they were in before the tower fell, however the blocks may be slightly shifted or rotated.
- A player may touch any of their pieces while rebuilding. A player has five minutes to rebuild their tower, after which they must spend another gem for another five minutes.
- If they do not have any more gems they are eliminated. Play continues while the player is rebuilding, and pieces may still be offered to the player during this time. In this case, or if it is the player's turn, they stop rebuilding, their time is paused, and they make a decision before continuing to rebuild. A player my only lose one gem per rebuild, if their tower falls down a second time while rebuilding they just keep going.
- After a player has successfully rebuilt their tower, but before they have placed the piece that caused the tower to fall, the player has the option of spending an additional gem to return the piece to the player who offered it to them. Therefore, as long as you have two gems you generally cannot be eliminated by a single block.
- The last tower standing wins the game.
I know I said I was not going to post other variants, but just to give a flavor some additional rules we occasionally add to this variant are:
Additional Choice
On a player's turn instead of offering piece they may choose as many blocks as their are players in the game. Then each player in a clockwise fashion either selects one of the blocks, or spends a gem to skip selection. The player who chose this option must take a piece (although they if it causes their tower to fall they can spend 1 gem for the rebuild and then 1 gem to skip the piece).
Special Abilities
The player with the most red blocks can hold (not move) any of their blocks when placing a piece.
The player with the tallest tower can keep one block offered to them next to their tower, and place it whenever they want. If a different player makes a taller tower they must place the saved block immediately.
The player with the most blocks directly on top of one of their blocks (physically touching) does not lose a gem if only one piece falls off their tower.
The first problem I mentioned before about the length of the game is resolved with the variant. Generally games last a little over an hour with four people.
The second problem related to strategic decisions is also resolved. First, because you cannot be eliminated from simple mistakes you are able to take riskier moves even if you are not very confident in your placing ability. Because you can touch all of the blocks when rebuilding, it is much easier to place an offered piece after rebuilding. This variant also has a psychological aspect to the game. The best players at stacking will generally get offered the most pieces. Going after a player that is nearly out may cause them to want vengeance so they start giving you tons of bad block with their remaining turns. The best position to be in is where your tower looks less stable than it actually is. All of this has to be considered when offering blocks to other players and when deciding if you should accept a block which has been offered to you.
The third problem was player elimination, and this variant does not solve this. The problem is mitigated though, because you are not eliminated early from simple mistakes, and there is a tendency to give blocks to players who are ahead. Even so, I will still only play Bausack when it is the last game, so people can leave after they lose.
Strategic Decisions
My favorite moments in a Bausack game are either placing a block my opponent thought for sure would cause my tower to come crumbling down, or offering the perfect piece to my opponent, which they have no hope of placing, however if they return it will actually improve the stability of my tower. The second option takes careful planning and generally revolves around taking advantage of block combinations. For instance, my favorite combo is the spike and the large egg. The spike is generally a bad piece, however the egg has a small hole is one end which fits perfectly on the spike. If I can get someone to return the spike to me, then I am able to also give them the egg, generally costing the player two gems, which sacrificing too much stability on my tower. The other common tactic is to get an opponent to the point where they cannot accept large flat pieces. Getting an opponent to return a large flat piece is generally a game winning move if you have a good place for it. The final strategy is death by small pieces. By giving an opponent nothing but small pieces, they never want to return any of the pieces, however they gradually run out of buildable space, and are much more suseptible to accidentally knocking a block off their tower.
Critique
For my final thoughts on Bausack I will compare elements (of the described variant) to other games I love.
Bausack is similar to El Grande in that people tend to pick on the lead. This allows for some spectacular come-from-behind wins, but some people feel that it detracts from making good moves because they are negated by other people.
Bausack is similar to Ticket to Ride in its usefulness as a gateway game. In fact a majority of my non-gamer friends prefer Bausack over Ticket to Ride. The rules are simple, and the towers have an ability to instantly draw people in.
Bausack is similar to Galaxy Trucker in that they both have a component of racing-against-the-clock. Rebuilding your tower in five minutes near the end of the game will get your heart racing, especially when you reason you now have to recreate that "brilliant" placement made earlier in the game. I have had a number of rebuilds completed in the final seconds of time.
Bausack is similar to Age of Empire III in that as the game progresses you feel an attachment to your tower, you don't want to even contemplate that it will at some point come crashing down. Some people I have played with have taking a picture after every piece they placed (near the end of the game) for fear that it would be the last one and they wanted a picture of their final tower. In Age of Empire III, I get a similar satisfaction as my abilities grow over the course of the game through my trade goods and builds.
Overall Bausack is a staple of my collection, great for both gamers and non-games alike.
Edit: Figured out how to upload some pictures I took of the components.
Edit 2: If this review was not enough to convince you to buy Bausack I will leave you with one more tantalizing idea: Combining Bausack and Galaxy Trucker! I don't want to post the rules yet because I am still playtesting them, but so far it is amazing. The only downside is that you need to print off tiles with pictures of each block (or type of block) so it can be a lot of work. I am currently trying to come up with rules that work without the tiles.
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I love the feel how the word Bausack rolls off my tongue.
Wanna play with my Bausack? My Bausack! Bausaaaack! bau-SACK! BAU-sack! Bhuausaque!
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Wesley Kinslow
United States
Piperton
Tennessee
Seven and a switchblade...
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I just went with Sac Noir and made some of my own starting foundation blocks.
Home Depot, what?
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Posted Mon Aug 16, 2010 6:11 am
