This review continues my series of detailed reviews that attempt to be part review, part resource for anyone not totally familiar with the game. For this reason I expect readers to skip to the sections that are of most interest.
Image Courtesy of <PERSON>
Summary
Game Type - Euro Game
Play Time: 45 Minutes
Number of Players: 2-4
Mechanics - Set Collection, Rondel Movement
Difficulty - Easy (Can be learned in about 20 minutes)
Components - Excellent +++
Release - 2009
Designer(s) - <PERSON> and <PERSON> - (Pergamon)
Overview
Finca in Spanish means estate and more often than not that estate is accompanied by an orchard. Welcome to the Spanish island of Mallorca, where each player will take on the role of a fruit grower, hoping to have bountiful fruit harvests with which they hope to take to market using their donkey drawn cart in order to sell them.
Finca makes use of the <PERSON> mechanism and set collection in order to create a light Euro that is as colourful as it is easy to learn. It offers up a number of ways to score points and in doing so offers an interesting Euro experience.
So don't be an ass and stop reading here...jump in my Donkey Cart and come for a short ride.
The Components
Euros have a habit of trying to look good with their wooden bits. Finca however goes above and beyond and adds a gorgeous splash of colour as well.
Board – The smallish board depicts 10 regions on the island of Mallorca. The island is a lovely green and the graphics display a mixture of orchards and newly ploughed fields.
The top left corner is then dominated by a windmill, which plays a major part in the play of the game. The island is surrounded by a lovely shade of blue, the Mediterannean Sea, and the board is not hampered by any pesky score tracks.
The artwork comes to us by industry legend <PERSON> so it is no surprise that it looks so good.
Image Courtesy of <PERSON> Blades - There are a total of 12 large windmill tiles that are designed to sit upon the windmill blades found on the board. The blades come in 6 pairs with each pair depicting one of the six fruit types used in the game.
When in place on the board the combination of colours is quite appealing and little flourishes such as a brighter finish on either end of the tiles tend to catch the light and give the impression of the sun glinting off the blades of the windmill.
Image Courtesy of EndersGame
Fruit - To give the game just a little more wow factor, each of the 6 fruit types come in lovely wooden creations that use vibrant colours and are even shaped to represent each fruit. 470
the fruits on offer include; grapes, figs, almonds, lemons, oranges and olives.
They really are great and feel nice in the hand too. I love to fondle my game bits...
Image Courtesy of LanaDove
Farmer Meeple - Normally the meeple to any game are pretty memorable, Finca bucks that trend by offering up pretty basic wooden Farmer Meeple, but with the fruit and windmill tokens we can forgive that.
Image Courtesy of EndersGame
Scoring Tiles - Finca offers up a large number of scoring tiles. These range in value from 1-6 and the number denotes not only the score they are worth once collected but also the total number of fruits required to fulfill the needs of the market. Sometimes a token will only require 1 type of fruit, other tokens will require a variety of fruits.
It is these totals and make-ups that the players are looking to fulfill with the fruits they have harvested. Please note that the image below is only showing the upper level tiles.
Image Courtesy of EndersGame
Finca Tiles - The Finca Tiles represent bonus points that are awarded as soon as a region's market has been depleted. These tiles are awarded to the player that has collected the most of a given fruit type(s) on their scoring tiles.
Image Courtesy of EndersGame
Bonus Scoring Tiles - The game offers up 4 long term bonus scoring tiles for collecting regular Scoring Tiles ranging in value from 1-6. The golden number in the center of each tile is the value that can be earned by the players for collecting a tile as they race one another to complete the set first.
Image Courtesy of EndersGame
Donkey Carts - In all there are 8 circular Donkey Cart Tokens. These are collected via movement on the windmill and are needed to take fruit to market.
Image Courtesy of thepackrat
Special Action Tokens - Each player has access to 4 Special Action Tokens that can break the rules in some way. 84