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Genial Spezial
Author: Reiner Knizia
Publisher: Kosmos
Year: 2009


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When a game is called ‘Einfach Genial’ (‘Simply Genious’), the responsible persons, publisher and author, obviously fancy themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that, one does not get a slap on the back that often, so why not tickle yourself, must have been the underlying thought. When after this a sequel titled ‘Genial Spezial’ (‘Specially Genious’) appears, we expect a game of unearthy height, after all, the previous version was kept simple - and besides, because of that, or despite of, genious, but now we are really going to witness something; boys, pay attention, this is going to be tough!
Will this expectation be fulfilled?
On a gameboard of two large connected hexagons lies a grid of smaller hexes on which at predefined locations at the start of the game two kinds of plastic towers are placed, some small ones and some taller ones. On top of each of the towers numbered chits are placed face up with their lower value, a ‘1’ or a ‘2’. The chits are randomly divided over the towers andcome in four colours.
In a turn a player plays one of his pieces, two connected hexes in his colour, and tries to connect two and more towers because each connected tower scores the stated points for that colour; each player has his own track to mark his score in each of the colours.
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The first time when two towers are connected by a players playing pieces, the chit on the towers are turned over to its higher value, a ‘2’ or a ‘3’; when any player connects his chain to this tower, he gets the higher score. The same player may score multiple times at each tower, but it must be done with a new chain not connected to a chain that already has a connection to the tower. Bonus points are awarded from and when two taller towers are connected; a player advances one step in each colour for each connected tall tower.
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After twenty rounds, when all pieces have been placed on the board, the score of all players is compared: players compare the advance their lowest colour has made on their track, the player who has advanced the most has won.
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Towers can be scored multiple times so a player has to be careful not to just extend his existing chain as this will not give him new points but start a new one. There also are bonus fields where a player can score in any colour, these vaguely resemble the bonus fields in ‘Scrabble’. Hindering another player sometimes is necessary, but doing it too often and other players will benefit simply because they keep on minding their own business.
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It may not be very decent to put it this way, but Reiner Knizia invents games like inhabitants of India suffer their stool. Lots of his games resemble earlier published work, and with ‘Genial Spezial’ no secret is made of it; understandable, because ‘Einfach Genial’ was a cash succes and the consumer brain may very well be massaged according to the principle of the prompted awareness as it is called in marketing language.
The winning mechanism ‘most of the least’ was already used in ‘Euphrat & Tigris’ (Tigris & Euphrates’), and connecting a chain to objects on the board was already done in ‘Durch die Wüste’ (’Through the Desert’).
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It would be a good thing, to continue the somewhat inappropriate metaphore, when for some time Knizia would be troubled with constipation, so all his small ideas would come out in a truely new game like the two earlier mentioned. Knizia is capable of this, but he seems to prefer to bite in his own tail and present earlier small brain waves with a small alteration as ‘new’. This is a waste of the talent he unquestionally disposes of. And when he does not do it, the publisher should do it. Give the man a sabbatical, and let him return with a truely great and genious game. Herr Doktor can do so much better...
© 2009 Richard van Vugt

Genial Spezial, Reiner Knizia, Kosmos, 2009 - 2 to 4 players, 10 years and up, 45 minutes


Not a bad game, but too abstract so not my cup of tea
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