Review of Pacru

Pacru or more properly the "Pacru Game Set" is a set of components which can be used to play three different games: Shacru, Azacru, and Pacru itself. The components have been sold in various different formats. This review describes the "series 302" set of game components, which is what's currently available.

Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 15-90* minutes
Difficulty: 2-5* (of 10)

* In each case, depending on which game you play.

The Game Components

Pacru comes with a core set of components used for all three games. They are:

• 1 gameboard
• 16 chevrons
• 200 field markers
• 4 boxes
• 1 rulebook

Gameboard: A four-panel gameboard with a very basic, abstract layout. It's divided into 9 rows and 9 columns, and thus 81 spaces, which together form 9 3x3 borderlands.

Chevrons: Chevron-shaped wooden bits in the four player colors (red, green, yellow, black).

Field Markers: cylinders in the four player colors. Both the fields and the markers are very good quality wood bits, deeply dyed to produce very bright pieces.

Boxes: Each player also gets a small box to hold all of his pieces. The boxes are color-coordinated, and look quite nice, and also serve as an easy reminder of which color each player is.

Rulebook: A 16-page rulebook that describes all three games. It's full color and has lots of examples. Its one flaw is small, but notable: the rulebook insists on calling the chevrons "pieces" and the field markers "markers", which is one of the most confusing bits of nomenclature that I've ever seen. When one rule said that you couldn't jump "pieces" and a nearby example showed a player jumping over field markers, it took me a good 5 minutes to figure out that they didn't mean piece as in a game piece, but rather as this very specific sort of game piece. Ugh. In any case, watch out for that, and the rest of the rules are fine.

Overall the components are all good quality and they look nice when they're in play. The price point is quite high, but nonetheless the game earns a "4" out of "5" for Style: well done.

The Gameplay

The gameplay of Pacru is somewhat hard to describe because of the fact that it's actually a kit that supports 3 different games. As a result I've summarized each type of gameplay, rather than trying to give an exhaustive description of them all.

General Concepts: Some concepts generally apply to all the games.

First, you have a board. It's divided into 81 spaces, and each of those spaces is the base movement unit for the game. The board also has a larger unit: the borderland. There are 9 on the board and each contains 9 spaces. A borderland is notable for two reasons. First, when you cross a border (from one borderland to another) special things tend to happen and second, in the two advanced games, the numbers of fields you have in a borderland controls your movement speed.

Second, you have chevrons--three to four of them depending on the number of players. A chevron will always be pointed in a specific direction, either toward toward the edge of a space or toward the corner of a space. You'll move chevrons around the board based on the direction they're pointed in: either straight ahead, or 45 degrees to either the right or the left. A chevron moves just one space as a base, but potentially may move more in the advanced games. Afterward it ends up pointing in the direction that it moved. A chevron can never move onto another chevron or onto an enemy field marker (except via special rules).

Third, you have field markers. These are created as you move your chevrons around. They block the movement of the other players and ultimately you win the game based on how many fields you have on the board.

Setup: Each game is set up identically. Each player gets either 3 or 4 chevrons placed along the edges of the board, facing inward, in a specific symmetrical pattern.

Shacru: This is the simplest of the games. The movement works pretty much as described, with a chevron never moving more than one space. When you land on a space you place a field marker there. There's just one special rule: the borderland twist.

When you cross a borderland you can twist your chevron 45 degrees off of its direction of movement.

The game ends when no one can make a move (due to being blocked by chevrons and fields) and the player with the most fields wins.

Azacru: This is the medium game. You have all of the Shacru rules, including the borderland twist, but now chevrons can potentially move more than one space: you count up all the fields in your current borderland and that's your limit for movement. However when you do a long move, you still only get to place one field, on your landing space. And, you can't do a long move over any chevrons.

There are two special moves, the "connection change" and the "connection jump", each of which depend on you starting and ending a move on a field of your color. If you do a "jump" you get to leap over another chevron (the only way to do so). If you're not jumping a chevron, you're instead doing a "change": you get to place a field marker in every space between your start and end, even changing other peoples' field markers to your own. However, if you do swap over another players' field marker, you must remove your chevron from the board.

When one player can't move, each other player gets a last turn, then the player with the most fields wins.

Pacru: This is the heaviest game. Movement works the same as Azacru, including long moves, connection changes, and connection jumps, except there's no longer a borderland twist.

In addition, it's now harder to place field markers. You don't get to place them at all for a standard move. Instead, to place a field you must: cross a border (which lets you place a field anywhere in the new borderland--or change a opponent's field marker to your own if the borderland is already full of fields), do a connection change, or do one of two new, special moves: the pincer or the meeting.

A pincer occurs when two of your pieces are each able to move onto ("attack") an opponent's chevron. You move one of them onto the enemy space, remove his chevron, and place a field there (or change it if your opponent already had a field there).

A meeting occurs when two of your chevrons land in two adjacent spaces directly facing each other. You get to place a field marker anywhere on the board.

You win this game by having 24 to 42 fields (based on the number of players) or by eliminating all enemy chevrons.

Relationships to Other Games

The Pacru series of games are definitely symmetrical abstracts, with everyone starting from the same position, and each player trying to make the best through skill and strategy alone. Unlike most abstracts of this type, the Pacru games allow for 2-4 players.

Shacru is a very simplistic game that reminds me somewhat of the old arcade game Qix where you're similarly trying to block off areas of terrain. It looked a bit basic for me, and so I didn't actually play this variation of the game.

Azacru is a more complex game that still doesn't get too deep. I suspect it's the variant most likely to appeal to Eurogamers.

Pacru drew comparisons to Chess, as our players all felt like it required pretty deep levels of concentration and pretty careful look-ahead to play well.

The Game Design

It's a bit hard for me to weigh the design of the Pacru games because this sort of abstract game really isn't my forte. I like the simple, geometric abstracts like Punct and Rumis (and to a lesser extent, Blokus), but more strategic abstracts are more likely to leave me cold.

With that said ...

When I said that Azacru, the middle game, was more likely to appeal to Eurogamers, that's because my group enjoyed it when we played. It's very abstract, but it's simple, and it's elegant. There's a lot of careful positioning in the first part of the game. When you start to clash with your opponents, you can sometimes make very clever moves involving connection changes and through that the game is often won. It's not too deep, but it allows for some fun tactics, and in that incarnation I think you have a fairly average game, and probably something nice as a change of pace if you like light abstracts.

Pacru, however, is clearly the heart of this set of games, and its aesthetics even appeal to me, despite not liking this sort of game. It's a complex abstract that takes lots of thought, and, hand-in-hand with that I'm pretty sure it rewards players who are able to play more thoughtfully.

Moreso than Azacru it really felt like a game of strategy, because you were often setting things up many turns in advance. Yes, you could make a sudden and brilliant one-turn move, but it was often based upon many prior turns of careful setup. The special moves (the connections, the pincer, and the meeting) offered just enough meat for you to hang those clever plans upon. There were never any meetings in our game, but a few pincers were successfully conducted, and they helped turn the game.

As a deep strategy game, and a contender for the same brainspace as classics like Chess, I suspect that Pacru has real legs, and suggest it to a serious abstract player.

On the whole, I've given the Pacru series of games a "4" out of "5" for Substance. It might go higher if I got really deep into the game, but that's beyond me. I'll also add the caveat that though there are variants of the game for casual and intermediate players, I think that the advanced game is the best for its particular audience.

Conclusion

Pacru is a set of components that can be used to play three related abstract game, varying in weight from very light to heavy. It works the best in the last incarnation, as a Chess-weight abstract that will doubtless be played very seriously in tournaments. If you like that sort of game, I suggest giving Pacru a look.