P'achakuna

P'achakuna

P'achakuna takes you on a journey into the heart of the Andes with your most loyal friend – your llama. The game features both black and white llamas, with you controlling one color and your opponent controlling the other. White llamas move alone through the green valleys, while black llamas climb the barren mountains. Whatever the color, you'll want to visit mountain villages to deliver the dye they crave, ideally collecting dye for yourself along the way.

In P'achakuna, each player starts with a llama of their color in the center of the board in the white village, with white dye on its back. The board consists of hexagonal tiles that are either half valley/half mountain, two-thirds valley/one-third mountain, or vice versa. The tiles are extremely thick, allowing you to pick up the mountain portion of a tile and remove it from the board. Six villages are located around the edge of the board, each corresponding to one of the primary or secondary colors. Each village has a random demand tile with two colors, one with high demand and one with low demand; neither color can match the village's color.

During your turn, you may first turn an unoccupied tile; by paying two dyes from your personal supply, you can turn a second tile. You must then move each of your llamas at least one space, but you can move them further if you wish and the terrain allows. You turn tiles to create long paths of valleys or mountains, ideally allowing your llamas to travel far with each move.

When you move a llama to a village, you exchange the dye on that llama. If there's no demand for the dye you have in that village, you simply exchange it for the dye from the village, for example, green for yellow. If there is demand for the dye, you add 1-2 dyes of that supplied color to your personal supply (depending on whether demand is low or high), then place a dye matching that village's color on your llama. If you've collected a color in your personal supply and don't have it on your scoring track, you can place it on your scoring track. Whatever happens, you replace the demand tile in that village and ensure that the village's color isn't on the demand tile.

During a village turn, you can exchange four dyes from your personal supply to receive a new llama, which is then placed in that village with a dye from that village on its back. Each llama moves during your turn, and you can have a maximum of three llamas.

Once you have one dye of each of the seven colors on your scoring track, you win.

To store the question tiles, the game includes a handmade cloth bag from Bolivia and Peru, which supports the local community.