Lucha Lucha 345
- Board's Eye View
- 12 minutes ago
- 2 min read
For the uninitiated, a luchador is a Mexican wrestler, and Liu Xianmiao's Lucha Lucha is a game that's notionally themed around Mexican wrestling. It uses terminology taken from the sport but we say it's 'notionally' themed because the core game is essentially an abstract tactical two-player game where you're landing on your opponent's pieces to 'lucha' them.
Each player has 10 discs, two each numbered 1 - 5. Tho' Whales Entertainment have packaged the game in a commendably small box, they haven't skimped on the components: the translucent plastic discs are very solid poker chips. The game is played on a 5 x 5 grid, and rather than the usual cardboard, the 'arena' board for Lucha Lucha is made of sturdy crumple-free cloth. Players each lay their discs out in the first two rows on opposite sides of the grid so that they are in ascending order in one row and descending order on the other. From here on, the discs are referred to as 'stacks', albeit they are initially just stacks of one disc.
Play is disarmingly simple: on your turn you move one of your stacks orthogonally so that it lands on an opponent's stack. Your move can incorporate turns but you can't move diagonally and you can't pass over any of your own or your opponent's pieces. The number of the pieces on top of a stack affect how it is treated. If you 'lucha' a higher-numbered stack with a lower-numbered stack, the new stack simply has your lower-numbered piece on top. To use the wrestling lingo of the game, that's referred to as a 'deadlock'. If you stack with which you 'lucha' has a higher number than your opponent's stack, it's a 'tackle-down' and the stack is turned upside down! A 'lucha' with a stack of the same number is 'show time': you choose whether or not to flip the stack.
From this description you might imagine Lucha Lucha to be a chaotic free-for-all but that's not the case because no stack can ever exceed five pieces and players can each only have one stack of three, four and five pieces... These limitations make this a surprisingly challenging abstract strategy game that you can play in around 15-20 minutes. The game ends when neither player can lucha. At this point, stacks are valued by multiplying the strength of the piece on top by the number of pieces of the same colour. The winner is the player with the highest total.
Whales Entertainment still have another eye to the theme, however. The game incorporates a deck of 18 Luchador cards that introduce variant rules: some single use and some in place for the whole game. You can optionally include these by dealing three to each player from which they choose one to apply to their side for the duration of the match. Abstract game purists will probably prefer the unadulterated core game but the varied wrestling special abilities undoubtedly add to the fun while reinforcing that notional Mexican wrestling theme.
