Amritsar: The Golden Temple

Amritsar: The Golden Temple arrives with a rather awkward rulebook and some curious graphic choices, belonging to the same mildly overloaded visual family as Sabika. Its information design is less helpful than it ought to be, and the rules tire the reader before the game has made its case. Which is unfortunate, because beneath them sits a notably substantial medium euro.

Its central engine is a two-dimensional mancala, where both pieces and colours matter to movement and to the actions produced. The connection to Pilgrim is clear, while Trajan remains the obvious ancestor; here, though, the idea has been put to different work. The interesting decision is not merely where your move finishes, but how its route connects with the apparatus you have already built.

Around that engine, players move an elephant around the board, depositing offerings at the temple in order to establish area majorities by a method that sounds peculiar and proves effective. Interaction does not vanish into private production engines: position, majorities and timing all matter, without reducing the game entirely to multiplayer solitaire. It is tight, synergistic, and broad enough to support more than one viable route to victory.

A first game decided on the final action by a single point says a good deal about its tension. The rulebook still needs editing, and the artwork lacks the clarity a system like this deserves; one cannot, after all, clone O'Toole for every box. Even so, Amritsar is a sound addition to the shelf of any devotee of the genre.