If you live in a cold-winter place, Blue Lagoon is the perfect game to bring back memories of sand and sunshine. It’s an area control/set collection game where players try to collect resources and spread their settlements and villages as far and wide as possible.
Game components include settler discs and village huts in four colors, 4 types of resources (coconuts, bamboo, water, and precious stones), and 8 statuettes.
The little wooden village huts are…adorable. So so cute!!
The game is set up by shaking the resources and statuettes in the little blue bag and placing them at random on all island spaces that feature a circle of stones.
Play happens in 2 phases:
- Exploration Phase
- Settlement Phase
In Exploration phase, players may place a settler onto ANY unoccupied space in the sea, boat side up. (Settler tokens have a boat/water side and a land side). Every island settlement has to have a point of entry on the sea, so place carefully!
Exploration phase has a second option: place a piece (settler or village) on an unoccupied island space next to another piece that was played during a previous turn.
Players collect any resources or statuettes that are in spaces they place a settler or village on and leave them visible in front of them so all other players can see who has what.
The exploration phase ends when all the resources have been collected OR all the settlers and villages have all been placed on the board.
Now it’s score-time!
After playing through the Exploration phase and scoring, it’s time for the Settlement Phase.
All settlers, resources, and statuettes are removed, but villages remain unless they were placed on a space with a circle of stones, in which case they are discarded and out of the game. All unused villages from the Exploration phase are also discarded and out of the game.
Basically, make sure you place lots of villages in the first phase to survive in the second!
Resources and statuettes are mixed back up in the bag and placed out randomly on the board again.
Players can now only place their SETTLERS onto unoccupied spaces next to a piece they played during a previous turn or a village left over from the previous phase. The phase ends when all resources have been collected or all players have placed all their settlers.
Scores are tallied and totaled in the same way, added up to the score from the first round, and the best settler wins!
This is a great simple strategy game for beginning game players. It’s bright and cheerful, colorful and quick, with plenty of opportunities to practice analytical and strategic thinking, do simple arithmetic, and learn to play well with others. It’s a favorite with my 7 and 9 year olds – they feel like they’re playing a big kid game because they are!
Thanks to Blue Orange for another really fun family game!
