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Zanzibar box art
2007 Ranked #20,558

Zanzibar

This task-fulfillment game has players move merchants, occupy spaces, meet spice goals, and finish with the most points. Faster small merchants and stronger large ones create tradeoffs, while rejecting tasks can mean a negative score for better options.

Economic Pick-up and Deliver

Players

2-5

Play time

Not listed

Age

10+

Complexity

2.18/5

Rating

5.58

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.4/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 4.1/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.7/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.4/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.7/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

The newest game in Winning Moves Deutschland's series of small square boxes (Spielvergnügen im Quadrat). Each player has a similar deck of 10 tasks but only two cards are in hand at a time.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

The newest game in Winning Moves Deutschland's series of small square boxes (Spielvergnügen im Quadrat). Each player has a similar deck of 10 tasks but only two cards are in hand at a time. Each player also has up to six merchants (depending on the number of players) of different height and with different numbers on them, which are distributed over the islands and seas of Zanzibar. After the inital set-up, the players draw their two hand cards, and have to fulfill the tasks on these (either to occupy as many spaces in a certain area as possible or as many places with a certain spice scattered all over the island). The merchants have different characteristics. For example, smaller ones are faster but the larger ones are stronger, so they can displace them. Points are gained by fulfilling tasks. The better you fulfill the task, the more points you get. But you also have to decide, wether to reject a task or score quickly, even if you get negative score, just to get a better task and force the game to its end. Each player must also reject one or two tasks (depending on the number of players) during the game. The game ends when one player has fulfilled 9 (or 8 with 4 or 5 players) of his tasks. The player with most points wins.

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Category

1

Mechanism

1

Family

1

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Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
No editions imported yet.

Player resources

Rulebooks, player aids, FAQs, and solo resources.

No files imported yet.

Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
2–5
Best with
2–4
Play time
45 min
Age
10+
Complexity
2.2/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
Franz-Benno Delonge

Artists

2
Claus Stephan Mirko Suzuki

Publishers

1
Winning Moves Germany

Linked items

No published linked games yet.