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In this article you will find the review of the board game Mauwi, where we will detail all the kitty aspects of this game, as well as photos of all the cats and components included in this Filler.

INTRODUCTION

Mauwi is a card game with cats as the main characters. It consists of: 80 warrior cards, 5 joker cards, 10 spirit cards (value 0) and 12 expert cards (to add more complexity to the game). The 80 warrior cards are divided in colors of different values. The values of cards of the same color add up to 9.

OBJETIVE

Get as many points as possible. The game ends immediately:

  • When the draw deck and discard pile are depleted and no more cards can be drawn. Note that when the draw deck is emptied a new pile must be formed with the cards in the discard. This way of ending the game occurs very rarely.
  • When a player has managed to form three card columns containing 3 cards of minimum 9 value each.

GAMEPLAY

In a Mauwi normal game the draw deck will consist of 80 warrior cards, 5 jokers cards and 10 spirit cards. The 12 expert cards are only used in case you want to complicate the game a bit. I will not delve into them.

Once the draw deck is ready and shuffled, each player will have to draw four cards. The hairiest player or the one who knows best meow will start and the turn procees clockwise.

During a turn a player can perfom one of the following three actions (Important: whenever you play a card, whatever it is, you have to draw another immediately. Your hand must contain four cards at all times):

  • Reinforce a line (playing a warrior card in your own playing zone)
  • Block an opponent’s spine (playing a warrior card on a opponent’s line of cards)
  • Attacking an opponent’s Warrior (playing a warrior card on a opponent’s warrior)
  • If you do not want to or cannot perform any of these three actions, you have the option to discard all of your hand and draw four new cards.

 

DATA SHEET

  • Name:                              Mauwi
  • Date of birth:                  2019
  • Place of birth:                 Yoka by Tsume, Edge Entertainment
  • Son of:                             Vincent Joassin
  • Genre:                              Board Game
  • Age:                                  7+
  • Players:                            2-7
  • Time:                                15-20 min

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

FREAKISM (Originality, Theme):

Mauwi is another one of those games whose purchase reason was to give it as a birthday gift to someone who loves cats. In my opinion it’s another filler out of the bunch. It has not a remarkable mechanic, except the point of annoying others by reducing the score of its columns by playing on them Spirits or Warriors. In Mauwi the most powerful cards are precisely those of value 9, so it is interesting to cover them to others. Definitely it ends up becoming a nice take that not boring, but does not contribute anything relevant new to the market. The good part is that the turns go very fast, so it is dynamic and the inter-shift does not last forever. I say this because the game supports up to seven players and, as you may already know, many times being many participants implies that the wait for the turn is quite overwhelming.

Freakism score:

 

HYPE (Excitement, Replayability):

Thanks to its dynamism it is quite likely that you will end up playing Mauwi more than one game in a row, in case you like it, of course. As I mentioned earlier, if you being many players is not a problem, since the turns pass quickly and you can also be attacked at any time, having to act in response. The grace of this game is in its speed when playing it, rather than in its complexity.

Another point in favor of the title is the possibility of adding or not the expert cards: Kiwi, Ninox and Tuatara. It is not that they modify the rules in excess or that they complicate them a lot, but they contribute to add diversity.

Mauwi is also possible to play in teams. Members of the same side can help each other using Warriors in defense when attacked by rivals. When scoring, the members of each team must add their individual scores to obtain a final result, winning the one that has achieved the most points.

Hype score:

SANITY (Difficulty, Rules):

The Mauwi’s rulebook are bad. The game itself is easy but the manual gives the feeling that it lacks structure. There are details that are important to know that I think they should be in other parts of the manual is difficult to find it. Other points should have been somewhat more specified. For example, it doesn’t clearly tell you that the defender can draw a card from the draw deck after using one to defend against an attack. Still, there is a clear rule that tells you that players must always have four cards in hand at all times. I adhere to this last premise, therefore, both attacker and defender must draw a card after each attack attempt.

In conclusion, Mauwi is easy to play, but somewhat messy to put into practice during its first games due to its inconsistent manual.

Sanity score:

DELUXE (Components, Design):

For people who have vision problems, Mauwi can fit them perfectly: first, the cards have the numbers drawn in large; second, the colors of the cards help to identify the numbers; Third, the cats’ own drawings also help identify what color and what number each card is.

I do not put the 10 in this section because the box should have a little more thickness and because the quality of the cards can be improved.

Puntuación Deluxe:

(Sobresaliente)

GALLERY

Expert cards

Spirit cards

Joker cards

CONCLUSIONS

Mauwi is not one of the essentials in any game library, unless you are a collector of beautiful games and especially kittens. It can fit into any family, as long as you are willing to put up with the instruction manual with drowsiness during the first games. The positive part is that if you like it you will enjoy it for its dynamism, it is not a game that you are going to play only one time, because you will want more. Recommendable? It is, as long as you keep in mind that it does not contribute anything special. It is one more filler within the wide range that currently exists.

Our BGG Fina score:

The Doctor Frikistein® reviews are made without any sponsorship and with games purchased for our property.

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Cristian Becerra

Author Cristian Becerra

Cristian Becerra Porrón is born in Barcelona, currently living in Viladecans. Founder of the El Dado Dorado (The Golden Dragon) association, he has been writing reviews since 2010, taking advantage of the great economic crisis in Spain that began there in 2008. Since he was a child he already played classics such as Monopoly, Parcheesi, Goose game ... but the funny thing is that, as he did not always have friends willing to play with him, he ended up playing alone, playing several players at the same time. By the time he was fourteen, the Wise Men gifted him Game of Thrones and Warcraft. These games served as a base to fall in love with the world of modern board games and as a point of entry into it.

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