Lacuna Review

And Now For Something Completely Different

Sometimes a game catches your eye because it doesn’t look like any other game you’ve seen or played, and Lacuna is one of those games. Lacuna is a 2 player only game which revolves around placing tokens and picking up flowers but in doing so you are about to play a game that is like no other but has the feeling of one you’ve always known how to play.

Rather than a standard sized box which stacks nicely on the shelf Lacuna immediately stands out by coming packed in a cylinder which not only houses all the parts for the game but doubles up as the vessel for setting the game up and this adds to the uniqueness of Lacuna.

What’s In The Cylinder?

Inside the container for Lacuna you’ll find a gorgeous mat, dark with colourful flowers dotted around the outside. Then there is a small bag filled with weighty metal player pieces in gold and silver colours, and these are tactile and solid. Then there are the flowers, lots of wooden flowers in a variety of colours and these (after player one has taken a flower of their choice) you pop back into the container and shake out via a small hole in the lid over the mat creating a beautiful display of colour that gives the appearance of colourful stars in the sky. Once these flowers have been spread out, each player takes their metal tokens and you are good to start.

In Lacuna, you play by placing one of your metal tokens somewhere on the mat on an uninterrupted line between any two flowers of the same colour. This line cannot be broken by another flower or by another player’s piece. Once you have done this you will take the two flowers and then it is the other player’s turn to do the same. After both players have placed all of their pieces down, and removed the corresponding flowers, the next stage of the game begins. In this second phase, both players take the remaining flowers that are closest to their pieces, with a handy ruler included to settle any disagreements. Then whoever has the majority in four or more flowers wins the games, and because of the distribution there are no ties. Then you put all the wooden flowers back into the container and go again because this isn’t a game you will want to play once and each game only lasts 10 minutes or so.