Details: Written by: Amanda Jones; Category: Game Preview; Published: 14 September 2020

Review Copy Provided

Welcome to Hawaii; please make yourself a lei and have a relaxing time here at the Lucky Luau!

Lucky Luau Cover

Lucky Luau (2020)
Designer(s)	Jeff Boltz	Artist(s)	Anastas Ermolina	Publisher	CardLords
	2-6		8+		10-20m

Lucky Luau is a quick to learn card game where each player is designing their own lei and hoping to achieve the highest points to win the game. The flower, leaves and kukui nuts cards form the lei to provide points to the player depending on how they fall in the line up in your lei set up. Whoever ends the game with the most points is the winner and has made the most beautiful lei anyone has feast their eyes on.

Box and Components

The box is made of a heavy plastic card box material which has enough space that allows owners to remove cards as well as rules without damaging the materials. The cards are a sturdy cardstock that should last through numerous plays. There is a total of 78 cards in the game that is broken down as such:

Flowers: 4 Red Flowers, 2 Purple Flowers, 2 Orange Flowers, 2 Green Flowers, 5 Blue Flowers, 6 Pink Flowers, 7 Yellow Flowers, 2 Rainbow Flowers
Leaves: 8 Ti Leaves, 2 Mega Leaves
6 Kukui Nuts
16 double sided character cards (this will provide bonus scoring during the round)
Player Cards: 6 Fish Hooks, 6 Knives, 6 Spacers, 6 Point & Scoring Reference Cards (double sided)

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Mechanics

Lucky Luau 03 The game is super easy to set up and play.

Set Up

Give each player a point & scoring reference card as well as one of each of the following: knife, fish hook, and spacer. The remaining player cards can be placed back into the card box.
Shuffle and lay out 3 character cards. These will be used for bonus points at the end of the game; the remaining cards can be placed back into the card box.
Shuffle the rest of the cards and scatter them face down across the table within reach of all players.

Game Play

The first player is the player that has the highest scoring example card on their reference cards and play continues clockwise.

Draw 1 card from anywhere in the pile of cards, either face down or face up (more on this in next steps)
The active player has a decision to make; they either keep this card and add it to your lei, from left to right OR add it back to the pile of cards face up so all other players may see it.
- If you add it to your lei, it must be added to the previous one played going left to right, and they can not be removed once the card is played.
Active player may also utilize their "knife," "fish hook," and "spacer" cards once during the entire game.
- Knife ability: may cut 1 card from your lei and remove it from the game.
- Fish Hook ability: add it to your lei. At the end of the game, the player will receive 10 points if it is the center card on your lei OR 5 points received if it is off center by 1 card.
- Spacers ability: string at anytime to act as a placeholder; during a future card, the drawn card can replace the spacer card. The spacer card is then returned to the game box.

The game ends when there are no cards left to take from the center of the table

End of Game

Scoring takes place by going card by card, reading the descriptions on each card, and adding up points from the upper left hand corner if the card is able to be scored.
After calculating the lei points, players will review the bonus character card and award points based on their abilities.

Whomever has the most points wins. If a tie takes place, flip the first character card and compare scores with this new ability. If another tie results, flip the next character card and so forth through the next if still a tie until the tie is broken.

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Lei not included; just a fun prop used for the picture.

Final Thoughts

This game is so much fun. The artwork is amazing and really adds to the theme of constructing the most beautiful lei. I like the ability cards that you can potentially modify your lei to help achieve a higher score. The character cards are a nice touch to provide additional goals you are trying to achieve throughout the game. The character card art is really nice; I really enjoy the one card with the dog since I'm a dog lover.

The game is coming to Kickstarter on September 15, 2020 so be sure to check out their campaign when it goes live. It will be a great game to add to your collection for as a nice, quick game and as a filler game between other games. Children will also enjoy this game!
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