In Bakong you experience a hunt for the most beautiful emeralds in the Cambodian primeval forest. You start from your base camp to reach a temple where you collect precious jewelry.
Players carry a rucksack with items for their survival and later on use it to return the jewelry. But the pathway through the jungle is insidious because routes are changing all the time and traps are laid out for you. The goal is to collect as many emeralds as possible and return them to your base camp.
This game attempts to mirror life events many people go through from going to college, raising a family, buying a home, working and retiring.
The intent of the game is to have the most assets at the end of the game, assets are earned primarily by working and earning tokens with dollars amount on them. Additionally the first person to complete the course gets additional money tokens.
There is a very linear board that you move along by spinning a wheel or landing on spaces that tell you to move to a specific space or forward or back. There are a handful of intersections where you can choose to go one direction or another but they ultimately have similar spaces and meet back up quickly. There are a handful of choices regarding insurance and investments but for the most part it is a game of luck.
(from publisher)
Egypt 1926. The Valley of the Pharaohs holds many secrets, but none so great as the Scepter of Amun-Ra. In this grand adventure you play a character tasked with collecting the legendary Scepter. As you make your way to the Valley of the Pharaohs you will face desert bandits, blinding sandstorms and the ill wishes of your fellow players. But safe haven and good fortune can be found within the oasis of the friendly Bedouin. If you’re feeling lucky you can spin the Wheel of Fate. Collect resources to overcome obstacles or lay obstacles to hinder your opponents. Roll doubles and you control the mummy, but beware no one masters the mummy for long. Valley of the Pharaohs comes packaged in an authentic wooden book-box and is played on a beautifully illustrated map of Egypt. Cast metal playing pieces, metal coins and individual character cards provide rich context and detail to this exciting game of fortune and peril.
User review: One player has twelve red frogs; the other player has twelve purple frogs. There is a yellow frog that can be moved by either player. The gameboard is a six-by-six grid. The perimeter squares are called the Outer Path. The Outer Path surrounds the squares called the Inner Path. The center four squares have been merged into the Pond, which is the goal area. Players roll both dice on their turn with the goal of getting one’s own frogs into the pond to win. The frogs may be stacked but an opponent whose frog rests on top of the stack can freeze a stack of two. An opponent can not freeze a stack of three. The stacking limit is five (except for the root and pond, which have none).
Playing Pictionary may remind you of Charades, but with drawing on paper instead of acting out the answers. In Pictionary, though, both teams' (or even all three teams') clue givers may be drawing at the same time as players strive to be the first to guess the correct answer. When the answer is not designated "All Play," one team simply tries to come up with the answer before the timer runs out, which is usually but not always possible thanks to the varying difficulty levels of the answers. No great drawing talent is required; instead, players gain an edge if they have a good imagination when guessing, empathy for their team mates, and/or a general ability to communicate in restricted circumstances. A board is provided, just to keep score on, which focuses the competition. Pictionary was a big hit when it first appeared and has been a classic on the party game scene ever since.
Microbadges related:
- Pictionary fan
- Pictionary Man fan