EvilDirtyDave on Games: Oasis

It's midnight at the Oasis the time is........wait no that's not it but this game is called Oasis and it is really fun! It is one of my acquisitions from the Unity auction this past week. It's got camels so how can you not like it just simply for that!

The designers are Alan R. Moon and Aaron Weissblum. There is no current US publisher sadly but I am hopeful that someone will once again pick up this interesting game.

The objective of the game is to score the most points this is achieved by several means:
multiplying your largest section of camels on the camel path by your commodity tiles
multiplying your steppe tiles by your horse tiles
multiplying your Oasis tiles by your water well tiles
multiplying your Stony Plains tiles by your ovoos tiles
If you don't have both types of titles then you don't score for that item so if for example you have stoney plains tiles but no ovoos tiles then you do not score for stoney plains.

At the start of the game each player is dealt five cards from the main deck a the edge of the board these will be used for bidding. In turn order starting with the first player the player flips over 1-3 cards to entice the other players to take their cards and order number token. You cannot choose your own cards and order number token unless you are the last player to choose and yours are the only ones left. As the players take their choices they get to perform the action on the cards, weather it's placing camels, terrain tile types, adding cards from the main deck to theirs, or getting the multiplier tiles. After all players have chosen their cards and performed the card actions on them the player that chose the first player token gets one free placement of a terrain tile or camel. Then the process is repeated all over again. The game ends immediately once one terrain tile type has been has no more tiles left then the round is finished and you figure out the score.

The theme of the game is outstanding and having all those camels everywhere is cool by anyone's standards. The quality of the board, the tiles, and the wooden player markers and camels is fantastic! The playtime of an hour that is on the box is accurate for the first time you play but after you will get done in less time then that. There is good player interaction and you can cut player's off in their expansion or just work on you own expansion and play in a non-confrontational manner.