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Cost: $39
From: Frankh Kosmos
Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 45-60 minutes
Type of game: Family strategy
Complexity: 4
Skill level: 7
Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 4.2, Winter 1996
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Frankh/Kosmos has always been a publisher to watch. Historically, their games have featured sumptuous production values (Tal Der Konige) making them a delight to unwrap and set up. Until the phenomenal success of Siedler, though, most of their line had met with decidedly mixed reviews. Their latest release Stefan "Linie 1 / Streetcar" Dorra's Marracash, features unremarkable components but engaging gameplay. The buzz on this one has been very positive. And while it lacks the addictive staying power of Siedler, it's a solid game nonetheless.
The game is set in the marketplace of Marrakesh, where vendors hawking their wares try to entice customers into their most humble establishments. The market, depicted on the gameboard's overhead view, is a labyrinth of alleyways lined with shops in an assortment of colors. Throngs of shoppers (colored wooden pawns) wait outside the city walls, eager for a chance to enter the market and spend their money.
Sadly for them, none of the shops in the market are open for business— nor will they be until they're bought by players. Everyone begins with equal cash, and in the first round of play everyone auctions off the shop of their choice. The buyer claims the shop with one of their markers. If the auctioneer didn't buy the shop himself, he gets one of two possible commissions (depending on the final purchase price). Once all players have had their turn with the gavel, the game begins in earnest.
The marketplace is riddled with fountains at various intersections, including the spaces directly in front of the three entrances to the city. Crowds of 2-4 shoppers begin at the entrance fountains and move from fountain to fountain. If this movement takes a shopper past an open shop of the same color, that shopper enters the store and spends money there. How much money depends on how many customers are already in the shop. In Marracash, shops are like roach motels— once a customer enters, he never leaves. Each successive customer spends more money, so players are trying to get as many people as possible into their own shops.
Players can have three choices each turn— they can auction two shops, move two groups of people (or the same group twice), or one of each. A clever twist is that if you move customers into another player's shop, you get a finder's fee in the form of a portion of the money they spend. So if it looks like an opponent is going to be able to get some customers on his next turn, you can decide to usher them into his shop yourself to get a cut of the profits.
If, at the end of a player's turn, any of the city entrances are vacant, that player must fill them in. To do so, he takes 2-4 shoppers from either end of the queue outside the city walls. There's a surprising amount of strategy in this choice. Suppose the shoppers at one end of the queue were RED, RED, BLUE, GREEN. You've got a red store near the city entrance, so choosing those two reds makes sense. But chances are good someone with a competing red store will try to steer that group away from your door. If you include the blue shopper in the group, though, perhaps the player owning the blue store near your red one will move the group closer to you.
The game continues in this manner, each player auctioning and/or moving groups, until the last group of tourists enters the city. After a final round, players count their cash to find the winner.
The dynamics of this game are intriguing. Get too far ahead and you can be sure opponents will collude to keep buyers off your premises. On the other hand, shops with lots of people in them pay hefty commissions. Finding the right balances— when to jump on a bandwagon and when to buck it, when to move groups and when to sell shops, when to buy another shop and when to concentrate on current holdings— isn't easy. There are subtleties in the system which don't become evident until repeated plays. Any game which gets me thinking about how to approach it next time is a winner in my book. As I said, not an addiction, but a solid game.