Karmaka: The Game of Transcendence

I've not had the chance to play Karmaka yet as I have just received it as a present. But I thought I should share the top quality of the contents. It's a pity they didn't avoid the 2 little plastic bags which I think are unnessary. Otherwise the cards are really made to last with colouful artwork. The rings are good weighty metal and their are 4 meeple-style characters made of wood. I had to watch a video to really understand the rules, but that could be just me! This is definitely a good value for money game.

This is the second buy of this game and I will buy more. Its not expensive, its beautiful both in the way it plays and its art. When you hurt another player it comes back they get that hurt card and can hit you back if they wish. If you try to reach a higher level with no harm to others - they can help you or not. This is a fantastic spiritual and family game for all faiths and non believers, but do gooders. The game speaks to all about life. And its fun. If I could buy it for you, I would. I give it as gifts. I am a technical program manager age 55, family of 5. Just buy it.

A friend brought this over for a board game night, and it became an instant favourite so i bought myself a copy. The Karma system and the ability to plan for future lives are enjoyable game mechanics that are so simply executed. Better with more players, but still works well as a two player game.

My friend recommended this game and it’s very interesting and fun. You learn so much about yourself and others while you play. It definitely brings out the true character traits of a person in how they strategize to play this game!

I was a part of the kickstarter, and happy to say that this reprint has had improvements.

We've been playing this game for months and I'm flabbergasted that there aren't more reviews on this. When I told my group of the dearth of comments they emphatically pushed me to write up my thoughts. So yes: know that I love Karmaka so much that it's the ONLY board game I've bothered to leave a review for on Amazon. It is without equal and an undisputed FAVORITE in our house.Karmaka is such an obvious labor of love; you feel almost "taken care of" from the minute you open the box. It's beauty without dogma. From the breathtaking art to the high quality components, even the well-balanced gameplay has the fingerprints of someone who bothered to math out all the weird edge cases out so players don't have to. It turns a "take-that" mechanic (which we don't typically enjoy in our games) and gives it an unusual twist: yes, you can play a "take-that" card on another player... with the caveat that it may come back for you in a future life, as that card is then offered to the victim of the attack. That's karma. The same goes for cards you use to benefit YOURSELF: those too are offered to other players to use later in the game. Your plays as a result then become far more calculated and there is built a wonderful tension. You can play as lightly or heavily as you want, and the karma mechanic means there is an equal amount of offensive and defensive tactics available to you. If you're looking for a game to take the mean-spiritedness of "take-that" while also not neutering the competitive experience, look no further than Karmaka.We've played some epic games at two players and it hasn't gotten stale yet, which imo is a common affliction of 1v1 games where the game itself isn't a dedicated 1v1 game. Oddly, and much to our delight, Karmaka even shines at THREE players - an important metric for me as that's the size of our household - and does so especially with the "big bad wolf" variant included in the rulebook. Speaking of, the rulebook itself is clearly written from the point of view of a new player and not someone who has been play-testing it forever. One could stare at the detail in the art for hours, knowing that each painting has gone through several iterations per the illustrator (check out the YouTube interviews on how he painted them). The karmic rings feel phenomenal in the hand and the component quality is high. You don't need a lot of space to play it, either. Form factor is slim and portable with the box, though if we ever take it on a camping trip we no doubt can put all the pieces inside a small bag to make it even easier to travel with. What's not to love?Though not its stated goal, the concepts inside Karmaka have encouraged the kind of life-pivoting conversations that the soul yearns for and makes us proud to be board gamers. Our only regret is not buying this sooner. Much effusive praise goes to all those who had a hand in this treasure of a game. Truly one of the most underrated in recent history.