Kolejka boardgame review

[Anatoli]

I really like political satire, though it's not always that it works in game - especially if the game only has the satire and no good gameplay to offer. Kolejka is a Polish boardgame that depicts the absurdities that people had to go through under the communist regime whenever they wanted to purchase something. Endless queues, empty stores, random deliveries of goods, people coming up with excuses to get in front of other people in the queue and so on. Kolejka is the polar opposite of Monopoly in terms of theme - but both share the same basic idea. Where Monopoly was intended to educate young people about capitalism, Kolejka is about showing the detrimental effect of communism and 5-year plans.

And it does to in a very good and really entertaining way. It actually blends easy and fast paced gameplay, with historical lessons and requires both tactics, cunning and nerves of steel if you want to win. It also includes a bit of chance and randomness to reflect the chaos and uncertainty of shopping back then - you went out to buy meat and came home with two chairs because that was what was available...

And winning is perhaps not the right word for it either, you see each player has this shopping list of products that he needs to purchase. Maybe you want to send the kids away on a summer camp - or maybe you need to furnish your new apartment. It all comes down to the same thing, standing in line and hoping that you will obtain the goods. The player who actually manages to buy or trade every item on his list wins the game. If by the end of the game no one has fulfilled this condition, players compare their shopping lists and item collections to see who has the least amount of missing products (in other words everyone loses haha) and that person gets to be the "winner".

Check my blog for a full review and more detailed info about this game - along with a lot of pictures of the contents.

http://anatolisgameroom.blogspot.se/2013/08/kolejka-boardgame-review.html

[Westfalia Chris]

"In Soviet Russia, Monopoly plays YOU! 

Fascinating. I'm not at all into board games, but I find the concept of this one intriguing. Also, the graphic design looks rather nice, if a bit colour- and cheerful for the subject.