GIZA is a tile-laying game where players aim to build the best of the 3 great pyramids of Giza. Players each have their own gameboard, where they build their own pyramids but they can also place tiles on another player's gameboard. Of course, they'll want to place the good tiles on their own gameboards and the nasty tiles on their opponents' gameboards! It is this element of being able to influence your opponents' gameplan, with its huge "take that" element, that makes this game shine as a fun filler when it's played with many people.

Contents and components

The game consists of:
- 6 mapboards
- 83 tiles
- 1 rulebook

All this fits into a small box, about one-third the size of an Alea full-size game like Princes of Florence. That makes for a game that's easy to carry anywhere. The fact that it's made up of stiff cardboard boards and tiles also means that it's quite hardy for outdoor use. No need to worry about cards flying about and such! The quality is excellent throughout. The gameboards are sufficiently thick; not flimsy stuff. The graphics are great too. A nice touch is the representation of the Giza location itself as a map, with the pathways and other buildings as decoration, and gives a historical feel to the gameboard. Each mapboard also has a table showing how many of each of the different tiles there are in the game- for those 'tile counting' gamers. The tiles are of decent size and the 3-D graphics give a more 'easy on the eye' pictorial representation. This is an improvement from the prototype, which had 2-D graphics. The rulebook is well laid out. Simple rules lend to easy description but as an added touch, color picture examples are used liberally in the rulebook, which is good for those non-gamers who are easily put off reading even one page of words in a rulebook.

Rules

The aim of the game is to score the most points and end the game. There are 4 construction sites on which players may build: the 3 pyramids and the Sphinx. (The Sphinx is a little special and I'll deal with that later.) For the pyramids, points come from good construction material and treasures (which give positive scores) that you want for your pyramids. The pyramids are built by placing 1 segment on top of the other; players can only place a smaller segment on top of the largest segment although levels in between can be skipped. There are five different sizes of pyramid segments from 1 to 5. While the good construction material gives positive scores (from +1 to +5), the poor construction material gives negative scores (-1 to -5). The game ends either from one player having the capstone (either the -1 or +1 point pyramid segment) on all 3 of his pyramids or when the tiles run out.

Players start with four tiles. During a player's turn, he may either play a tile on his own or another player's board and then he draws a replacement tile, or he may discard up to 4 tiles and replenish an equal number of tiles. Obviously, a player will want to place the good tiles on his gameboard while placing bad tiles, like the poor construction material or a scarab (which prevents players from adding more tiles to that construction site) on the player's board. Players can also play a demolish tile on their own construction sites or that of another player, removing the top most tile on that construction site.

The Sphinx is where the game throws in some more uncertainty on top of the uncertainty of the tile draw. The Sphinx is made up of 3 parts, legs, body and head. The legs are worth -5 points, the body +10 points and the head +15 points. So having just the legs would be bad. However, while there are 3 leg tiles, there are only 2 body tiles and only 1 head tile! So a player is never sure about the true value of the leg tiles. Even if he has the body and head tiles, they can be demolished by other players, leaving him with only the legs, and -5 points!

How the game plays

The game plays quickly because of its simple rules. This is especially so for a 2-3 player game- about 15 minutes to play. With fewer people, the strategy is less random, with less "human interference"; the tile draw being the main uncontrollable variable. The gameplay is simple and can be boiled down to "good tile- for yourself, bad tile- for your opponent". Like most tile-draw games, while the tension is in waiting to draw the one tile we really need, it is also about making the best of what we have. Nevertheless, the tricky part comes when all you have are beneficial tiles yet none that you really want. How can this happen? Because there are more good pyramid segment tiles than bad ones (There are 7 of each type of good pyramid segment tiles and 3 of each type of bad ones). Thus one agonising decision players have to make is in placing a +2 tile on their +5 tile or wait and hope to get a +4 or +3 tile! The demolish tile gives players flexibility although players must weigh carefully whether it's better to demolish a bad tile on their own board or a good tile on an opponent's board. As players are not allowed to see what's under the top tile of another player's stack, this game is also an exercise in memory. Players who miscalculate their opponent's points may end up losing a game by ending the game prematurely!

With more players, the game takes longer, perhaps about half an hour to play, and has a less controllable feel to it, as there are more players that can mess with your plans. But that's where the real fun is. Trash-talking is de rigueur in such games! Given that players may not remember all the tiles in their opponent's stack, there is also an element of bluffing. And the winning player may be the one that's able to fly under the radar of his opponents!

Replayability

Because the game is simple to play, plays quickly, and offers the variability of tile-drawing, it is immensely replayable, particularly as a light filler. I've not played enough of the 2-player game to know how fast that would tire out but in a large group game, GIZA offers a lot of fun, with high unpredictability and player interaction. Players will want to play it again and again.

Overall, I rate this game an 8. It really shines as a filler in a large group setting and its simple rules allows non-gamers to pick it up easily, making it also a good party game. At the same time, it also provides a challenge in 2-3 player games. There is a level of randomness, like most tile drawing games, but that's what adds to the variability and replayability of the game.


- Elijah Lau, Game Reviewer