Grab Your Sunscreen & Live the Island Life with ‘Blue Lagoon’
Use resources wisely and strive to be the strangest tribe on the archipelago in Blue Lagoon, the area control game from Blue Orange Games.
Welcome in, fellow gamers! There’s no shortage of area control board games on the market. Powerhouses like Settlers of Catan and Risk rub shoulders with Ticket to Ride and Terraforming Mars. However, they aren’t the only players in the great game of games. Sometimes, you want to head to the beach with your boys and build a fire. While you probably shouldn’t start a fire in your house, you can get a similar experience with Blue Lagoon, the tropical area control game. Will your tribe be the last one standing?
What is Blue Lagoon?
Blue Lagoon is a whimsical area control game for 2-4 players set on a tropical archipelago. You aim to take your group of settlers from a small tribe to a sprawling island empire. You’ll do this over two phases: Exploration and Settlement. Send your scouts to other islands to secure food and supplies for your growing tribe. But be warned: other tribes are gunning for the same resources and space you are, and there’s only so much to go around. You must be thoughtful and careful with your moves to come out on top.
Dr. Reiner Knizia created Blue Lagoon in 2018, with art by Tomer Larek. Though it has been printed in many languages, it was initially developed in French. As with many other games produced by Blue Orange, Blue Lagoon is designed with younger players in mind.
How Do You Play?
Blue Lagoon is divided into two phases of play: Exploration and Settlement. After each phase, players tally their scores, offering multiple chances to pull ahead in a single turn. The game developers recommend skipping the Settlement phase for the first few turns to get the hang of the rules.
Setup
- Place out the Game Board, then put the twenty-four resource pieces and eight statuettes into the linen bag and shake to mix them up.
- Draw the pieces one at a time and place them on island spaces with stone circles.
- Place the Score Pad within easy reach of all players.
- Have each player pick a color and give them the Villagers and Settlers of that color. In a 3-player game, all players return five Settlers to the box, and in a 4-player game, all players return ten Settlers.
Exploration Phase
- The youngest player plays first, and then play continues clockwise.
- On their turn, each player must place a single piece on the board, they have two options:
- Option 1: The active player may place a Settler onto any unoccupied space in the sea with the boat side facing up. This creates an entry point onto the island for that player.
- Option 2: The active player may place a Settler or Village token on an island space that is next to another one of their pieces.
- When players place a piece on the board, they take any Statuettes or Resources on that space.
- The phase ends in two ways:
- When all the Resources have been collected.
- When all players have placed all their pieces on the board.
Scoring the Exploration Phase
- Islands: Players with pieces on all eight islands score 20 points. Players with pieces on seven islands score 10 points.
- Links: Each player checks which of their links connects the most islands. Each island in the link is worth 5 points.
- Control: The player with the most pieces on an island scores the corresponding points for that island. If multiple players have the same number of pieces, they divide the points evenly, rounded down.
- Resources: Players score 20 points if they have four or more matching resources, 10 points if they have three, and 5 points if they have two. In addition, if they manage to collect all four resource types, they get an additional 10 points.
- Statuettes: Players score 4 points for every Statuette they have.
Settlement Phase
- After tallying points, remove all Settlers and any remaining Resources and Statuettes from the board, then remove all Villages from stone circle spaces.
- Shuffle and redistribute the Resource and Statuette tokens on the stone circle spaces.
- Players return all unused Villages to the game box.
- Play continues clockwise, starting with the player to the left of the last player in the Exploration phase.
- Just like the Exploration phase, players take turns placing Settlers on the game map. However, in this phase, they may ONLY be placed next to another piece they own.
- This phase ends in the exact same way as the Exploration phase, and is scored the same way as well.
Winning the Game
The player with the highest combined score from the two phases is the overall winner of the game!
