LAND UNTER
WATER LEVEL AND SAFETY BELTS
In this new re-edition the game still is one of the best „annoyance games“ of recent years. Number cards from 1 to 60 show half a life belt, one life belt or no life belt. You are dealt 12 weather cards and and are given the number of life belts pictured on the weather cards as safety belt cards - the worse your hand the more safety belts you have. 24 water level cards of value 1 to 12 are stacked face-down.
One turn of the game comprises 12 rounds and each round five steps: For each round 2 water level cards are turned up and you choose one of your weather cards and all are revealed simultaneously. If you did play the highest card, you choose one of the water level cards; whoever played the second-highest card takes the second one; both are laid out and this water level card goes on top of any other water level card you might have taken earlier. Whoever then has the highest water level card on display must discard one of his life belt cards. If you cannot do so you must resign for this turn.
After 12 rounds or with only two players left, you score the turn: Each remaining life belt scores one point, each resigned player scores a penalty of -1, the player showing the lowest water level scores +1 point. Then each player hands his hand to his left neighbor and you play another turn of 12 rounds until each player has played each hand once. Then the player with the highest score wins.
„Land unter“ is a very quick and very good card game, topic and mechanism go together exceedingly well, the rules are simple and allow quick accessing of the game, the fun is huge as is the annoyance, sometimes.
Players: 3-5
Age: 10+
Time: 30+
Designer: Stefan Dorra
Art: Oliver and Sandra Freudenreich
Price: ca. 8 Euro
Publisher: nsv 2012
Web: www.nsv.de
Genre: Card game
Users: For families
Version: de
Rules: de
In-game text: no
Comments:
Easy access to the game
Interesting due to „I will do better with your cards!“
High replay value
Excellent family game
Compares to:
Earlier editions of the game; Santa Cruz and other games using the play-again-with-your-neighbor’s hand mechanism.
Other editions:
Zum Kuckuck, F.X.Schmid, 1997
Land unter, Berliner Spielkarten, 2001
Land unter, Amigo, 2002
Chance (pink): 1
Tactic (turquoise): 2
Strategy (blue): 0
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 1
Communication (red): 0
Interaction (brown): 2
Dexterity (green): 0
Action (dark green): 0