Stats:
No. of players: 2-4
Amount of time to play: 45 min
Age requirements:9+
Set-up time: 5-10 minutes

Asara Rules Description:
Asara is a game about building towers. As an architect you must send buyers to get parts and try to build the tallest (or most) towers as you can.

You start Asara with some Asari (dollars) and a handful of cards. The number of Asari and cards will depend on your starting position and the number of players.

Each turn you will place a buyer and then execute the action for the space you placed him on. If you are the first player to place a buyer you may place any color you wish. If not you must place the same color buyer as was previous placed. Alternatively you may place two face-down buyers of any color.

Most actions allow you to purchase different parts of towers. Towers come in five colors and are priced according to color. You may also place buyers to get more Asari from the bank. You may build the parts of tower you have bought (scoring one point per tower section). Some tower sections you buy have decorations on them. These sections score more points.

After all players have placed their buyers you evaluate your towers. Each tower built scores you one point and each decoration also scores you one point. Also being the starting player scores you one point.

You then collect all the cards and shuffle, deal then start all over again. After four rounds the game is over.

There is a final evaluation phase and you’ll score points for the tallest towers based on color as well as the overall tallest tower and most towers. Score the most and you win the game.

A Quick Review of Asara:

Asara, published by Ravensburger Games, is medium weight strategy game with some nice nuance. It is easy to teach, plays pretty quick and fun.

First let me say, Asara is beautiful. The art work and components are great. The rules are straight forward and easy to understand and read. The cards can sometimes get a bit lost on the board when you go to collect them. But the board looks so nice you don’t really care.

Asara starts fairly calmly but as each round goes by the tension builds. You wait for the tower section you need and near the end are crunching numbers to see what you can accomplish. This game has a great blend of resource management with set collecting and worker placement.

That said the game is not too heavy. There are enough meaningful decisions to say it is medium weight and Asara can be enjoyed by non-gamers and gamers alike. That might be one of the best things about it. It won’t bore you or scare off your non-gamer friends.

Asara is a game you enjoy the more you play it. After a play or two you’ll begin to see when and how best to build your towers. You figure out to pay attention to what other players are collecting. Do they need to hit up the bank? While none of these are rocket science, they all add up to help you strategize your way to a win.

If you are looking for a medium weight game to introduce non-gamer friends to more euro-style games, Asara is for you. It fills a nice niche and will introduce many common mechanics to new game players. It is even a nice game to play on game night with gamers that don’t like filler and don’t want to jump right into a brain-burner.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 4 out of 6
Player Interaction 5 out of 6
Replay Value 4 out of 6
Complexity 3 out of 6
Fun 5 out of 6
Overall 5 out of 6