Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Kanare Kato is an independent abstract game designer from Japan who distributes his games through his own company, Kanare Abstracts. His small box abstract games are simple to learn, yet pack a big, thinky punch. As a one-man operation without an international distributor, both Kanare and his games may be unknown to you. However, if you love abstracts, do I have some games for you to check out.
In Borderland, you’ll be trying to create borders, or lines of connected pieces in your color, that reach from one side of the hexagonal playing field to any other non-adjacent side. The object is to block off more territory than your opponent by the end of the game.
Set the cloth board between the players and choose a color to play. That’s all there is to setup.
To play Borderland, each player has two actions per turn, and players may choose the order in which to take them. They are:
Placement: Put one of your pieces on an empty hex on the board, provided it is not within two hexes of an opponent’s piece, nor directly next to any of your other pieces.
Movement: Move one of your pieces already on the board to an empty, adjacent hex. You can choose to take the Movement action twice, but you can’t move the same piece twice. You also can’t move a piece you just placed on the board.
If your connected pieces join two non-adjacent edges of the board, you claim the area inside that border. If your opponent has pieces within that area, they are captured and removed from the game.
However, if that same border fails to capture at least half of the board, the rules of play immediately change. Now, you can place one of your pieces only one hex away from your opponent’s pieces, and you can choose to move your same piece twice.
This accelerates the pace of the game. If you created that border, you may see it being used to great advantage by your opponent. To counter this, you can choose to move one of your pieces in that border. This breaks the border and play reverts to the original placement and movement rules.
Borderland combines the territorial aspects of Go with the connection pathway of Hex. The board is small enough, only 96 hexes, to keep from being overwhelmed by your options. Most games will feature a struggle for control of the center of the board, meaning you’ll see some of the same opening moves. From there, however, you’ll need to keep your options open to create pathways to the edges. Add in the gameplay change that a non-winning border makes, and the strategies of the game become even more complex.
This is another great Kanare game that combines simple rules with an approachable depth of play. My games have taken 15-20 minutes to finish, long enough to battle to victory, while still short enough to want to play it again right away.
If you like small box abstracts, Borderline is one to look out for.
For more information about Kanare Kato’s games, check out his website: https://kanare-abstract.com/en.
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