Thames & Kosmos | 692384 | Imhotep - Builder of Egypt | Family Board Game by Thames and Kosmos | Toy of The Year Finalist | Parents Choice Gold Award Winner | Spiel Des Jahres-Nominated | Ages 10+

This is a really cool game. We chose it as it was one of the nominees for the Spiel des Jahres and I think it deserves to win this year. The concept is very simple, you are not so much the Imhotep himself as his suppliers. There are various building projects, the pyramids, a temple, a tomb and some obelisks. What you have to do is quarry the stone get it to the boats via your sledge and then sail them down the Nile to appropriate building site, alternatively you can take them to the market and trade them. The catch is that although everyone’s sledge is exclusively theirs the boats are communal and can be used and controlled by anyone. So just as important as it is to get your stone to where you need it, is the need to scupper your opponent’s plans by sailing his stone to the wrong places or alternatively blocking the harbours up with other boats so he can’t get his stone in.

Great game, easy to pick up and learn and really quick if you want to play something fast paced and you don't have much time

Fantastic game for a party of four! Really simple once you have played the first round, exciting right up until the end. This game is great because it only lasts around 40 minutes, but after each time you want to play again.

Imhotep is a nice design from Phil Walker-Harding, creator of Archaeology, Cacao and Sushi Go! As a builder of ancient Egyptian monuments, you get a bunch of chunky wood cubes in your colour, representing stone construction blocks, and you have to ship them to one of five construction sites, using four ships taken from a group of eight. The ships have from 1-4 spaces on them (there's 2x4 space ships, 3x3, 2x2 and 1x1). Each space can hold one stone block. The subset of ships you will use in each round is determined by means of a "round card" which is revealed at the start of the round.On your turn you do one of the following: add three stones from your supply to a small supply board in front of you (but it can only hold a max. five blocks); or add one block from your supply board to any free space on a boat; or move a ship to one of the construction sites (but only if it's loaded with at least the number of blocks depicted in its prow, and only if the site doesn't already have a ship there - also, crucially, you can sail a ship you *don't* have a block on); or play a special blue card that lets you bend the rules (add a block to a ship AND immediately sail that ship, for example - I'll come to how you get those cards in a moment).When a ship sails, the blocks are offloaded in order from the front to the back of the ship, and placed on the site according to certain placement rules. Each site has a different benefit: most score points in different ways - the Temple has a line of five spaces which are filled from front to back, and once all are filled, a second storey is built on top of the first. At the end of each round players get a point for each block of their colour that can be seen from above - so blocks on the bottom storey, once covered, don't score any more, etc. The Pyramid scores points printed on a small grid corresponding to the spaces where the blocks can be placed, fills from top left to bottom right in columns, and scores immediately (and only when) the blocks are placed. The Obelisks have a stack of blocks per player, and score only at game end, points being allocated based on tallest to shortest tower. The Burial Chamber is a grid of spaces, with three rows and many columns. It too is filled left to right in columns, and scores - again at game end only - for orthogonally connected groups of blocks. Finally, the market allows you to take special cards, 1 per block you deliver: the blue ones I mentioned above, red ones that give you an immediate bonus block placement, green ones that give end of game scoring bonuses, and purple ones that are set-collecting cards, with game end points for your set.Once all the ships have docked, the round is over, Temple scoring happens, a new round card is revealed, the Market cards are refreshed, and the next round starts...unless there's no more round cards, in which case you're done, so you score the game-end stuff, and see who's won.It's deceptively simple, but with many interesting decisions. There's LOTS of player interaction - sailing a ship with all the other players blocks somewhere you KNOW they don't want to go is mean, but rather satisfying :-) . Since there's four ships, but five sites, one site ends up with no ship in each round, so focusing on one site may risk you being cut out by the other players when they realise what you're doing. The blue cards can give you a little edge when you need it, but they need to be timed carefully. It's all a bit of a balancing act, and a rather enjoyable one, for me.

This is a great game - it has in built loads of variable features so keeps it constantly changing and a different game experience every time. Perfect lockdown treat, enjoying it immensely whilst stuck inside all the time!

Short, sweet and clever, does indeed work the ol' decision making brain. Reviews that call this game mean and cutthroat ... funny. You may make the odd move to sabotage an opponent rather than build your own score but most of the time it pays off more to focus on your own point tally. The game leans more towards short-term decisions rather than hving a pan rounds in advance

Excellent strategy game for 4 players. The rules didn't take long to master and kept my teenagers entertained.

Would recommend this game. Quick to play and keeps everyone entertained from 7 year old daughter to adults.