Go Goa - First Play!

​2nd April 2023

Sunday is here again and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming fun.

'Goa is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region' according to Wikipedia.
If you've ever fancied a holiday to that region of India, now's your chance to game it, visit beaches, historical sites, forts and more in... Go Goa.

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Caveat: We have only ever played this game digitally.
What's in a game?

• Player sheet: This sheet displays the titular region using a hex map while around the outside of the map are a number of holiday themed illustrations.
  The majority of the hexes are blank but the remaining are coloured and contain icons which represent tourist destinations.
  The top of the sheet contains a day tracker which actually serves as a turn tracker, the bottom contains a score tracker for the game end.
  There's also a direction guide or 'compass' hex at the top - more on compass later.
  The physical version of the game has 2 slots on the left side of the sheet to align 2 'tour plan cards'. Again, more on these below.

• Tourist destinations: This is basically a set collecting tracker.
  It looks like on the physical version, this would be on the sheet but for the digital version it's kept separate.
  ​This tracks the 5 different types of destination a player will visit and will score Victory Points (VPs) for them at the game end depending on how it's filled in.

• Local guides: Again, this would be part of the player sheet in the physical copy but is kept separate here.
  ​During the course of the game, it's possible that players will be able to hire a guide to help with with their travels and that is tracked here.

• Tour plan cards: Each player will have an itinerary dictated by these cards which will earn VPs if completed.
  ​They come in 2 types, 20/30 VP cards and 40VP cards. Each card lists 3 destinations to visit. The higher value will have destinations further apart that are harder to all visit.

• Dice: Go Goa comes with 3 normal six-siders.

​Go Goa has a nice art style to it. Much of it has a sort of simplistic cartoony nature which is colourful, cheerful and bright that I think fits the game's holiday theme quite nicely.
The illustrations on the tour plan cards look more 'realistic' but equally bright and have a postcard quality to them. They seem to depict various locations and I'm sure that they're referenced or based on locations in Goa.

A few icon/colour combinations are used to represent destinations and scoring opportunities throughout the game. Fortunately, everything they reference can be found on the sheets, for the most part it's all readily apparent and shouldn't represent a problem.

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How's it play?
Setup

• Player sheet: Give each player a player sheet.
• Tour plan cards: Sort the tour plan cards into their 2 types, shuffle each type into a face-down deck and deal 2 cards from each deck to all players.
  Each player should choose 2 to keep and discard the remaining 2 out of the game.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Go Goa, players are attempting travel to as many destinations on the hex map over 12 rounds which will earn them VPs. This is done by using the result of dice rolls which will determine their direction, distance and err uhh deviation!

There's no typical turn order in Go Goa, instead all players play out their turn simultaneously.

• Game start: All players begin the game on the hex marked 'start here'.
• Round start: At the start of each round, all players mark a day off of their day tracker.
  Dice: The first player now rolls all 3 dice.
• Assign dice: Players must now assign 1 die each to direction, distance and deviation as per the rules below.
  First player: The first play can assign any 1 die to direction, then they can assign any of the remaining dice to distance and deviation.
  Other players: The other players cannot assign the same die to direction that the first player did, they must assign a different die to direction. After that, they can assign any of the remaining dice to distance and deviation.
• Resolve dice: Now that all player have assigned dice to the 3 criteria, hey must be resolved and when done so will determine where each player ends the round
  • Direction: As per the the compass hex, the value of the die assigned to direction will determine the direction the player leaves their starting or current hex.
  • Distance: The value of the die assigned to distance determines exactly how many hexes the player moves in a straight line. Although that can be potentially altered by...
  • Deviation: The die assigned here allows a player to change direction once or twice when moving their distance. This is dependant on the die's value
    1-3: If the assigned die has a value of 1-3, the player can change direction once.
    4-6: If the assigned value is 4-6, then the player can change direction twice.
• Mark destination: Now that players have ended their movement, they can potentially mark off the destination they have reached.
  Blank space: If the player ended their day on a blank space, then obviously, nothing is marked off.
  Destination: When a player ends their day at 1 of the 5 different types of tourist destination, they should mark off a spot on the corresponding line on their destination tracker.
  Tour plan: additionally, if they have reached one of the destinations named on either of their tour plan cards, they should also mark it off.
  Tour guides: If a player stops at one of the three listed spots on the tour guide, then they should record which destination they have reached. Tour guides can provide help to players.
• Additional rules:
  Tour guides: If a player has recorded a tour guide destination, then they can mark that destination off in order to alter any one assigned die roll by +1/-1, this can make a die roll 'wraparound'.
  This can only be done once per tour guide destination - thus 3 times only.
• Next round: Once all players have resolved their movement and recorded the result, the round is over and play progresses to the next round.
  The player to the left of the first player becomes the first player for the subsequent round and begins it by rolling the 3 dice.

Endgame
Once the 12th round is completed, the game is over and goes to scoring.
Players can acquire VPs from several sources in Go Goa.

• Destinations: Each destination visited earns a flat 10 VPs.
• Sets: The tourist destination sheet provides 2 ways for scoring VPs.
  Set of 5: Each completed set of the 5 different types of destination will score VPs. Players are essentially scoring for completing a vertical line.
  3/6 of a kind: If a player reached 3 of the same type of destination, they score some VPs. If they managed to reach 6 of the same kind, they score more VPs. Players are scoring horizontally here.
• Tour plans: Each fully marked off tour plan will earn the player 20-40 VPs dependant on the individual card.
• Bonus: There's 20 bonus VPs or reaching the hex with the camera icon.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

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Day 1, headed to the Panjim Church

Holiday is over, managed to reach 8 destinations out of maximum possible of 12 and didn't manage to visit all the destinations on my tour plans, although I did manage to get the photography bonus. Will have a better holiday next time!

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Overall
Go Goa's theme is kind of crazy and has players essentially randomly travelling throughout the titular state looking to find various holiday destinations in what would be a fairly chaotic holiday. I imagine this to be the opposite to what most people want actually on their vacation.
Having said that... choosing your holiday itinerary based off off some dice rolls might have some appeal but I digress. 

Mechanically, Go Goa is straightforward.
Firstly, players need to pay attention to the tour plan cards they receive and if possible select cards which work well together, that is potentially have their destinations close to each other. I like how the cards provide players will asymmetrical objectives.

After that; the game's central mechanic will have players assigning to dice in order to try and move to their selected locations. 
'Try' is the operative word here, at times randomness will scupper a player's plan, it means they must spend a fair amount of time adapting to the options presented to them by the dice. This might involve going to alternate destinations or trying to reach objectives in a different order and so on.
This provides players with somewhat meaningful decisions when selecting their dice but makes future planning a little futile. YMMV on whether you find this frustrating or not.
It's also interesting that the game forces some asymmetrical decision making on players in the form of the rule whereupon the first player will have different destination die to their opponents.
There is some flexibility in assigning dice though and also how to score destinations on the tourist destinations sheet (Which is welcome.) but even so, Go Goa is fairly harsh in this respect. Players only have 12 turns and thus only 12 opportunities to reach destinations, each time a player stops in a blank space, they'll drop at least 10 VPs .

I should add that this is also a game with no interaction between players, who will be acting simultaneous but whose decisions will have no impact their opponents.
This makes Go Goa all about players optimising their moves to reach as many destinations as possible.

More casual gamers might find the unusual rules a little obtuse but I think they would learn them quick enough. Additionally, the theme gels with the mechanics well. Everyone should understand the concept of visiting tourist spots while on holiday.

But for seasoned gamers I'm not convinced they'll find Go Goa engaging. While Go Goa is easy to pick up but it comes at the cost of being perhaps a bit too simplistic for my liking, I also feel that luck plays too big a part in the game and a lot of my decisions felt out of my control. All of this contributed to make the game a little frustrating.

If you're looking a lightweight, roll-and-write game with a strong theme and a fair amount of randomness, then maybe Go Goa is worth a look.
​I'm not sure it's one for me though.