Spiel Essen 2019 – Armored Panda

When I start talking about Armored Panda, it will most probable wont ring a bell with most people. Maybe when I mention Tactiki, it will be for more readers sounding familiar. If not you better be reading further, because we met with Gábor Incze and we talked about how it is going with his game.

Meeting with Gábor was a complete coincidence as I only read about him attending Spiel on the Friday before Spiel on my way travelling back home. Lucky for me, because I followed Tactiki for a while and I would like to give it a go. The game is two player game and you play with Tac or with Tiki and it is your goal to get your pieces to the opposite side of the board and build a four pieces high statue on one of the opponents starting positions.

That sound easy and it is, but there are ways to battle, on each backside of the pieces there are numbers not to be seen for the opponent. When you jump on a piece of the other player you battle for that place. The strength has a range from one to four, each higher range winning from the lower ones, but the one beats the four. The game is fitted with a double sides board and has an even harder version, with more pieces ranging from one to five and a no-go area in the middle.

Tactiki has a history already with a cancelled Kickstarter. About this Gábor tells me they could not deliver what they wanted and they had been aiming too high. Before all went wrong they decided to pull the plug and find another way to get Tactiki to the market. One of that ways, is finding a publisher for Tactiki instead of a Kickstarter campaign. I hope Gábor will find one for his marvelous game and we can enjoy this game soon on our board game tables. Who knows, maybe they already found one at Spiel?