Board game review of Buru: Fun bidding for promotions

Kickstarter The American publisher Crafty Games financed a "highly interactive and tactical medium-difficulty Euro game" that was supposed to score points with premium components and lavish graphics. Overall, the work from the pen of Stephen Wren, Alex Flagg and Taran Lewis Kratz convinced over 1300 supporters and was able to raise almost 113.000 dollars. You can find out in the following review whether the game's bidding, action selection and engine building elements are really convincing in its finished state.

As nobles of the Majapahit law in the 14th century, we were sent to the remote island of Buru on the orders of King Hayam Wuruk and his vizier Gajah Mada. As part of the first expedition, our task is to form alliances and expand Majapahit's power. So we send our scouts, negotiate with the locals and honor the highly esteemed spirits. Only through clever planning and a pinch of luck will we be able to win the respect of the residents and take over the representation of Majapahit on Buru.

earn reputation

Buru is a competitive game for 1-4 players, in which we secretly send scouts into the four regions of Buru over 5 rounds. In these regions we collect resources, recruit residents, complete tasks and pay tribute to the spirits of Buru. All so that we can achieve the highest reputation at the end. We achieve this through tributes to the gods and goals of the elders. We can also collect reputation in various ways during the game.

A game lasts 5 rounds with 5 phases each: dawn, morning, midday, afternoon, dusk. During dawn we prepare for the current round. We place two decrees that give us valuable bonuses if we have the most strength in an area in the afternoon, and we refill the forest cards.

Bidding for promotions

Then it's time for the morning. Starting with the first player, we place one of our scouts face down in each of the four areas of Buru in a clockwise direction. The four areas allow us to perform different types of actions. In the forest we collect resources, on the coast we collect residents, in the village we commission residents we have collected to receive rewards, and at the holy lake we pay tribute to the spirits to gain prestige.

By placing our scouts, we bid on who will be the first to carry out an action in the respective area in the afternoon, as each scout has different strengths on the back of their card. Whoever has the highest strength in the afternoon is the first to carry out an action in the area. The earlier you are allowed to carry out an action in an area, the more freedom you have in choosing from the different options that the actions bring with them. However, only four scouts can be used per round. This means that you are very limited in your bidding options and have to think carefully about whether you want to carry out all actions once and accept that you have fewer options within the action, or whether you don't want to use one or more actions in the round, but in any case have a lot of freedom of action in another action.

The last remaining scout gives us the fish resource in the midday phase, depending on his strength, which can be important for commissioning the residents we have gathered. Then in the afternoon, starting with the forest, we gradually uncover the scouts and compare their strengths. The person with the highest overall strength receives the respective totem or reputation of the area in addition to the right to choose an action. If there is a decree in the region, they also receive the bonus of the decree.

Dusk ends the current round. All revealed decrees are discarded, all scouts are collected, and residents who have been used are reactivated.

Different actions per area

Each region has its own action. These are carried out region by region. Starting in the forest, we collect resources. There are 3-5 cards laid out here, depending on the number of players. Whoever is allowed to carry out the action first can choose one of the cards laid out and take all the resources on it. This card is then put aside and the next person can choose a card.

Once all players who bid in the forest have selected their resources, the game goes to the coast. Here the first person can decide which of the five different action strengths they want to use. For example, on the leftmost field you can buy two cards and renew the entire display once. On the rightmost field, however, you can only buy one card. You acquire inhabitants using the fish resource.

In the village, you can use 1-3 residents of your own, depending on your action strength. Each has different actions that give us certain bonuses and, if used cleverly, give us more opportunities to gain reputation.

Finally, we can pay tribute to the spirits at the Holy Lake. To do this, we pay the resources indicated on the altar. Here, too, there are different levels of strength of the actions. For example, with the strongest action, you can pay tribute to the spirits twice and receive an elder card. The elder card gives us additional prestige at the end of the game if we fulfill the card's objective.

Information about Buru

Conclusion

Buru does a lot of things really well. Bidding for the regions or actions brings with it a lot of interesting decisions. "Do I really need all the actions this round or should I skip this one action in order to have a great chance of winning in another region for its action - which I definitely need? Damn, my opponent has sent two scouts into the region, is he just trying to confuse me or is he really stealing my action? - I think I'll add a third one!" All of these thoughts and considerations are a lot of fun and there are always little teasings when you play your scouts and they are finally revealed.

The choice of actions is also fun. Of course, you always choose the best action first so that your opponents don't get a piece of the pie. But as soon as you come second in an area, you start thinking completely differently: "Do I really want to pay tribute to two gods or just one and get an elder card for it?" This makes the game exciting throughout, because as the last player you might still hope that your opponent might leave the desired action space free. However, this is exactly what only happens with three players. With four players, you are not really in a good position as the last player and only get what you feel are the worse actions. This is not bad, but Buru is much more fun with three players.

But Buru makes one small mistake in terms of game design, which has big, not particularly nice consequences. If you pay tribute to a spirit, you receive the top card of the spirit's tribute pile. The reputation on the cards is in the range of 3 - 5 or 4 - 6 points. So it is pure chance how much reputation you get when you pay tribute. If you are doing well because you have positioned yourself well tactically, then pay tribute to a spirit three times and only receive three reputations each time, it simply feels unsatisfying. Especially when an opponent shows off all of his 5-point tributes at the end of the game. A simple, uniform points system would have been much more satisfying here. One where each spirit brings more points, but also brings with it higher requirements depending on the points.

This small error can be easily corrected with house rules, but Buru itself would be a much nicer and less luck-based game without this component. Overall, Buru is still a great game that I would play again and again. Even solo, because this mode is excellent for a game with a bidding mechanism! Buru also looks great. Both frequent and casual players can have a lot of fun with it and I am sure that I can get my non-gaming family to the table with Buru and we will all have a good time with lots of teasing.

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