Indigo

I was recently sent a family board game from Ravensburger to review. I must admit that when I looked inside the box, I was a little perplexed. The game is called Indigo. It is very beautiful with lavishly illustrated playing pieces and board based on tessellating hexagons with glass beads that look like jewels. It has an exotic, almost other worldy feel to it but I was at a loss as to what it was all about and how to play. I left it to two of my teenage daughters to puzzle it out.

As with just about every board game I have ever encountered, the instructions are quite difficult to get your head around. Usually, the best way is to start playing a trial game with instructions close at hand and work it out as you go.

Indigo is for 2-4 players aged 8+. The idea of the game is fairly simple: to collect gems using route tiles to move them across the board towards your gateway. However, the route tiles create intricate pathways along which the gems are moved. The player with the highest value of gems at the end of the game is the winner. It is a game of tactics with the potential for collaborative play in the best interests of more than one player.

It did keep my girls amused for some time and everyone agreed that it is visually stunning which makes it a pleasure to play (as long as your brain can cope with those convoluted pathways!)