Finca by Rio Grande Games (manufacturer review): Mallorca. Island of the wind. A place of golden beaches and a light-blue sea. The almond harvest is at hand. In addition, juicy oranges, lemons, and figs are ready to be picked and taken to the market. Olive trees bewitch the country with their curled branches and sumptuous vineyards invite passers-by to walk among their warm earth. In the midst of this landscape, your centuries-old natural stone farmhouse provides a home and supports your large windmill: your finca. Listen to the wind, which propels your windmill! Then take in the course of the yearly harvest the sweetest and most valuable fruits from the land. Load them on your old donkey cart and travel around the island, selling them everywhere. If you manage this quickly, you will be soon be the richest farmer on the island.

Finca Board Game by Rio Grande Games

Spiel des Jahres Game Award Runner-Up 2009

A Charis Games Top-Pick from Origins 2009

Finca is a fun, light strategy game for 2-4 players.

Game play approximately 45 minutes.

Charis Games Review: Finca by Rio Grande

Awards:

• Spiel des Jahres Runner-Up 2009
• Nominee "Graf Ludo 2009"

Finca is a fun, light-strategy game published by Rio Grande Games. The fact that Finca is a Spiel des Jahres runner-up for 2009 tells you that this game has substance. We found Finca to be a very enjoyable game that is suitable for most players. The rules are easy to learn (you can begin playing in about 5 minutes), and after a few turns you will have the initial game mechanic down. However, do not let the simplicity of the game play fool you. You will quickly discover that Finca also has built in complexity as well. Since this games plays quickly (in about 30-45 minutes) it requires you to develop a very efficient, strategic system of collecting and delivering fruit. Finca is best played with 3 or 4 players.

The theme of Finca (Spanish for home, specifically a large farm or ranch) centers around harvesting and delivering fruits. Players in the game compete to collect various combinations of fruit, then deliver the fruit to 10 different regions across the game board. On you turn you may take one of three actions: You may move a farmer, deliver fruit, or play an action card.

A large windmill facilitates the movement of farmers and collection of fruit in the game. Essentially, the 12 blades of the windmill form a large wheel which players use to select their desired fruit and collect donkey tiles (or donkey carts). The donkey carts are used to make deliveries to the various regions in the game. The number of farmers currently sitting on a windmill space dictates both how far you are able to move a player and how much fruit you are able to collect (ie. If you land on a windmill space that contains no farmers, then you collect on only one fruit. However, if you land on a space containing 3 farmers, you will collect 4 fruits--one for your farmer, plus three additional fruits). Two spaces on the windmill allow you to collect donkey carts. As you can see, there is a bit of strategy in choosing how and when to move your farmers. Fruit is plentiful in this game, but it can be depleted—and you don't want this to happen. If any one resource is depleted (such as lemons), then all players must return (or dump) their entire stockpile of lemons. This forces players to keep a balance between storing and delivering their fruits.

Donkey carts are used to make deliveries (and collect victory points). Each donkey cart can hold up to 6 fruits and can be used to deliver to multiple regions. For example, you may find yourself delivering 3 figs to one region, 2 lemons to another, and 1 olive to a third region (all in the same turn). As you make deliveries, you collect fruit tiles which provide you with immediate victory points as well as the option to earn bonus points for collecting specific fruit combinations.

Actions cards allow you extras such as moving your farmer to any spot on the windmill, taking an extra turn, or deploying “Super Donkey” (a donkey cart which can deliver 10 bundles of fruit instead of only 6). Each action can only be used once, and players receive a bonus of 2 victory points for each unplaced action card at the end of the game.

Click here to download the game rules for Finca.