Just for a second, forget Mallorca as a very popular destination for summer holidays. The soil is very fertile, and there was a time that farmers cultivated all kinds of tropical fruits and transported their harvest in donkey carts over the island. In Finca, the players temporarily erase their holiday-memories of Mallorca, and they jolt around in their fruit-filled donkey carts on the dusty dirt roads. Of course they don't hesitate to beat their opponents to the punch; no game without an element of competition!

Each player receives three to five farmers in his colour, depending on the number of players. The farmers are positioned on the sails of a windmill, each sail depicting one of the six available types of fruit. In his turn, a player may move one of his farmers a number of steps in clockwise direction equal to the number of farmers on the sail where he departs. Subsequently, he takes as many pieces of the depicted fruit as there are farmers on the sail where he ends his movement. If he passes the horizontal line in the middle of the windmill, he takes one donkey cart from the stock.

In each district there is a stack of four fruit tiles, and only the top tile is visible. In addition, each district contains a bonus tile depicting one or more types of fruit. As soon as the fourth tile is claimed, this bonus tile is awarded to the player with the most pieces of this type of fruit depicted on his collected fruit tiles. When a number of districts, determined by the number of players, is completely empty, the game is over. All players add up the value of their fruit tiles and bonus tiles, and the most industrious farmer wins the game!

The brightly coloured pieces of wooden fruit and the nicely illustrated game board give Finca exactly that cheerful, sunny look that fits the theme. The rules are very simple, which makes Finca easy to explain and easy to understand for more and less experienced gamers alike.
Admitted, the game idea of collection fruit and delivering it for victory points is not revolutionary, but luckily Finca has an original addition in the shape of the windmill. The mechanism where the movement range is determined by the number of farmers on the departure sail, and the collected fruit by the number of farmers on the destination sail results in many tactical options.

In many cases it does not seem to matter which fruit tile one claims, since victory points are victory points. But when the districts are getting emptier, the focus shifts towards the bonus tiles. Preferably, a player would like to claim the last fruit tile in a district, and also receive the bonus tile. He can influence this by first claiming an additional fruit tile in another district, that will give him the majority of the requested type of fruit. This makes Finca, in all its simplicity, reach a certain strategic level that will charm many players.
© 2009 Barbara van Vugt

Finca, Ralf zur Linde & Wolfgang Sentke, Hans im Glück, 2009 - 2 tot 4 spelers vanaf 10 jaar, ca. 45 minuten