Who doesn’t love Kiwis, those small animals & fruit well known for their fighting, territory and explosions.
Explosions? Yep Explosions. Part of this game is to overfeed your kiwi and then make them explode. I can already hear PETA screaming about this. Luckily these kiwi’s are just rolling off towards Kickstarter now so I don’t think the explosions hurt them… Much.
The game is complex but fun – it feels like a much brighter version of something like Scythe. Your big aim is to control as much area as possible! With lots of ways to move the characters around (from exploding kiwis to forcing others off the board with little speed boosts)
How Does It Play?
Whilst most turns involve moving, growing or exploding your little token kiwis (I really hope they’re made of wood, I feel like they’d have such a lovely feel) you also have a super powerful kiwi that can beat others out of the way. I like to think this just a really chonky kiwi – it makes me happy.
The biggest stress with it is purely the number of pieces – Whilst we played on tabletopia I can already feel all the little cardboard pieces falling onto the floor and us loosing a handful, but honestly it’s a non-issue for most groups!
I really appreciate that they are getting Māori consultancy on this game to make sure that its respectful – it’s a nice touch and it’ll be good to have a native set of eyes on a very modern and pretty game!
This is definitely not a game to play whilst a few beers down – around the 1h mark, a tinny was opened (Pimm’s obviously) and this was a big mistake. There’s a lot of strategy involved and whilst its fun to make mistakes, the “utterly destroying someone just before the end of the round” was very fun. The game takes around an hour to two, depending on how quickly you play. I feel I could pick this up with my go-to game group and we could play a game in a couple of hours.
Overall it’s a fun game – despite its bright colour and cutesy aesthetic (I literally laughed so much I cried when I realised the wildcard is a kiwi on its head with a hat on its butt), this is a relatively complex game, with multiple strategies. I can totally see this suit a table both at a simple family game night, but also hit up a more serious event – its definitely one to get a game night for!
You can follow Kiwi Chow Down on Kickstarter here