Tahiti, designed by David E. Witcher and published by from Minion Games, is a light pick-up delivery game that’s perfect for families.
Recently we had friends over who brought their eleven year old daughter and as soon as she saw the game box she wanted to play Tahiti. Everything from the colors to the overall art design screams warm and friendly.
Tahiti begins at the start of the growing season and over the course of the game you use canoes to explore a chain of islands. The goal is to bring back various goods to feed your village.
During the growing season, each player gets to move the powerful god Haumea, which determines where new tiles are placed. When doing so they also get to draw items from a bag and those items match a blank spot on the board then they get placed. Otherwise they get put back in the bag.
Once all the tiles in the game have been placed, the growing season ends. This kicks off the end game where instead of new goods getting placed, depletion tiles appear, making it so that goods can no longer grow.
In addition to the regular goods, players can also fish.
Other than the basic pick-up deliver aspect, there is a push your luck element in the game. Whenever a player’s canoe crosses a reef they risk hitting and losing some of their goods. This means players have to decide if they are better off going the long way and not losing any of their goods or taking a risky shortcut.
The heart of the game is really the player mat. So far in the games we’ve played they’ve been really tight with someone winning in only a matter of a few points. Although it feels like an almost solo game you really have to pay attention to what everyone else playing is doing. Each player has a secret objective that gives them bonuses and if you see player going after only a specific kind of good it’s often in your favor to stop them from getting a monopoly on it.
Tahiti is a simple game that plays fast and is great for families or those new to gaming.