This will be a brief article with my thoughts on the board game Kites. Because it is a very small and simple board game, but it’s successful enough that I’ve been able to play it a surprising number of times in a surprising number of different places.
How To Play
Place the sand timers on the table and deal everyone 3 cards.
Take clockwise turns playing a single card.
- If the card shows 2 icons, flip those 2 sand timers.
- If it shows 1 icon, flip that sand timer and the white sand timer.
After executing your turn, draw your hand back up to 3.
If any sand timer runs out, you lose. If you play all the cards before that happens, you win (as a group).
That’s it!
Below are two more rules that are part of the game, but which I consider optional if you want to simplify further:
- Once the deck is empty, you are not allowed to flip the white sand timer anymore. As such, you must time the emptying of the deck to give yourself as much time as possible to finish the whole game. => Good rule, but easily forgotten or “too much pressure” in a first game.
- You’re not allowed to look at your cards until the white sand timer is set upright and the game actually starts. => It’s no fun reminding excited players about this all the time, while it does not really make a difference. When someone eagerly picks up their cards and looks before the game started, I don’t want to “scold” them for, you know, having fun and wanting to start.
High As A Kite
In my Colt Express review, I mentioned how much I like games that are fundamentally different. That actually provide a unique kind of gameplay or mechanic, instead of just slapping slightly different images or numbers on the same cards and tiles.
Kites is such a game. I can barely find other games to compare it to.
- What other games are as simple as playing a single card and flipping two sand timers?
- What other games use multiple sand timers at all?
- What other games are so incredibly tense and under time pressure?
- And when looking at time pressure games, how many of them are cooperative?
- And how many are completely textless and numberless?
The game is elegant and quick. Quick to set up, quick to play, quick to reset after the inevitable failure.
It’s even quick to expand. The game includes three simple “action cards” that you can add to increase the challenge once you start winning as a group.
In fact, the game is also quick to “simplify”. You can leave out a few timers if that feels right for the group. Those unused colors can simply “do nothing”, or “turn the white one”, or “turn any one you like”.
The number of sand timers, and their distribution over the cards, feels just right. No turns are ever “easy” or “boring”. There is always one timer you really need to turn around, or really don’t want to touch. And there is always some player that can do the thing you need, you just have to make sure they get to their turn in time.
A game like this could have easily been gimmicky. Far too hard or far too easy, losing its shine rather quickly. But this game seems balanced just right. You clearly get better every time you play, which means failing is never too harsh, and succeeding really means something.
After many plays, I am not bored of the game (with action cards included), though I do wish there was some expansion or something beyond it. The game would easily support it and I hope it arrives someday. Different kinds of timers, different kinds of cards, a secondary objective to go for, and so forth.
In general, I wish there were more games using sand timers. We have the great Kitchen Rush at home and that has been a hit every time we played it. (You take actions by placing your personal sand timer on the space, and you can only take the next action of course once that timer runs out.) It allows simultaneous play (no waiting on turns, quick, always active), while being an actual tactical game where you need to play smart.
Real-time board games, as I like to call them, are this amazing hybrid between an accessible party game anyone wants to play and a more involved and “deep” board game. I hope Kites shows, once again, that this can be done and that its mechanics can be used in different ways in bigger games.
Clearly, this game is not a thinky puzzle or a strategical challenge, not some “deep gameplay” that will stay with you for days, but that’s fine. It’s quick lighthearted fun with any group, and that’s all it’s trying to be.
A Note On Time Pressure
The time pressure is quite real, though. One of my players decided not to play anymore after her first game, because it was just too stressful and she completely locked up.
I am a big proponent of using such experiences as learning experiences. How else will you get better at dealing with time pressure than by playing a game teaching such a thing without any real-life consequences? However, everyone is different and obviously free to make their own choice. Before playing, ask everyone if they think they can handle it, and never “force” anyone to play a game (in general).
At the very least, instruct people not to get mad or domineering if someone screws up. You will screw up. You’ll accidentally knock over timers, knocking over more timers in an attempt to set it right. You’ll accidentally think your Red card is Orange, turning over the wrong timer and confusing everyone. You’ll accidentally move before it’s your turn, again confusing everyone, starting a discussion about whose turn it is actually, which makes everyone forget the red sand timer already ran out.
That’s the funny part of the game. Laugh about it :)
