What does the llama say?
The original game called L.A.M.A in German is also an acronym that stands for Lege alle Minuspunkte ab, that is, "lay down all the negative points."
Yeah, "LLAMA" is spelled with only one L in Germany and other countries. Why?
LL was originally pronounced “ly” - like the lli in the English word million. Although many- or even most- Spanish speakers pronounce it the same as the letter y nowadays, many- especially in Spain- still pronounce it "ly"- and that is the way it is pronounced in Quechua as well. So the correct pronunciation of "Llama" is "lyama" or “yama,” not "lah-ma".
Like Lloyd.
That's what I learned today.
Anyway, what about the game?
It is not a diversion to tell gamers we have some heavier games coming soon to the platform; we really like this game. And we wanted your heart to flutter in a light rhythm so you get a warm welcome back from your holidays, before some more serious stuff drops.
So as you probably guessed, the game is about dumping cards from your hand as quickly as possible. However, you might not be able to play what you want, so do you stop and freeze your hand or draw and hope to keep playing?
Each player starts a round with six cards in hand from the deck consisting of llama cards and cards numbered 1-6, with eight copies of each. On a turn, the active player may play a card, draw a card, or stop. To play a card, you must play the same number as the top card of the discard pile or one number higher. If a 6 is on the discard pile, you can play a 6 or a llama, and if a llama is on top, you can play another llama or a 1. If you stop, you place your remaining cards face down and take no further actions in the round.
The round ends when one player empties their hand or all players have stopped. In either case, players collect tokens based on the cards in their hand. Each differently numbered card in hand gets you the number of white tokens equal to the value of the card (each worth 1 point), while one or more llamas gets you a black token (worth 10 points). (You can exchange ten white tokens for one black token at any time.) If you played all of your cards, you can return one previously collected token (white or black) to the supply. You then shuffle all of the cards and begin a new round.
The game ends after the round in which at least one player has forty or more total points. Whoever has the fewest points wins!
Curious about it? Play it right now by clicking here:
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=lama
The game won multiple awards worldwide and is pretty famous, so there is no reason to skip it on Board Game Arena.
The team would like to thank the AMIGO team, as well as Dr Reiner Knizia for their help bringing this game to the platform.
And of course, no Llamas without developers, and this one has been done by the fantastic tsaunat. Thanks to him!
So what's next?
Take your time and relax. Good things will come to those who wait.
Don't forget the LIVE event on MONDAY 6th September at 9PM (Paris time).
See you next week!
