Bakari (2002) by Tactic - Vintage African Abstract Strategy Board Game Review - Totem 

Thanks, good to be back to making videos again! :)

Thanks - over a chest infection that was stopping filming, so back to it now! :) You're right, the pieces are all nice and chunky and difficult to lose!

Yep, I love working out the best tactics in games. Doesn't stop me getting beaten though!

Very true - most of the abstract startegy games I have only accomodate two. It's not a game that will blow everyone away, but it is a good game worth playing.

@@AtticRaidersRetroReviews I ended up acquiring both Bakari _and_ Totem. What I called Totemʼs black spaces-termed _special_ spaces in the instructions-are actually dark‐colored with a black crossed‐arrow symbol, and they are indeed the only provided means of changing the blocker card. How special indeed! I look forward to giving both games a whirl. Thank you for putting them on my radar.

@@Erik.Miller Glad I could highlight a lesser known game. :) Please let me know if there are any other differences in Totem that you notice!

@@AtticRaidersRetroReviews I have noticed some additional differences-but first I will note a difference between my reading of Bakariʼs rules and yours, particularly in what happens to a piece thatʼs reached the “finish line” end of the board. I have not found anything in the English or French instructions about removing the piece-which made me wonder at first whether the piece can continue moving, which in turn made the end/​win condition a little vague and perhaps hard to track (would all the winning playerʼs pieces have to be at the finish side at the same time?). I then worked out that the Dutch instructions explicitly say that a piece thatʼs reached the finish line cannot be brought back into play; since I still found nothing about removing the piece, I concluded that it simply stays put, preventing any other pieces from entering that space. (Alas, the Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish instructions remain opaque to me.) Totem works according to my Bakari interpretation and is a little more explicit: “…that piece has reached the finish line. You cannot move this Totem piece again.” Now, then, on to other gameplay differences between Bakari and Totem:  • Whereas Bakariʼs is a 12×12 board, Totemʼs is 10×10.  • Totem provides exactly four pieces of each of the player colors (which in some cases can be a little hard to distinguish); so, in games of 2 or 3 players, any of the colors may be chosen-and they correspond to specific starting sides of the board. As in Bakari, the total number of pieces used depends on the number of players: in a 2‑player game, 4 pieces per player; in a 4‑player game, 2 pieces; and in a 3‑player game, 3 pieces for the players opposite one another and 4 pieces for the player between them, presumably to mitigate the both‐sides‐against‐the‐middle problem.  • Your starting spaces are the four middle spaces of your starting row; those spaces are outlined in the color of your pieces. If you have fewer than four pieces, you choose which starting spaces to use. I believe that rounds out the functional differences. 😌⁠💦⁠

Oh, I forgot a difference: Bakariʼs rules state that a player with no legal move passes, whereas Totemʼs rules are silent on the issue; my house rule for Totem would be for the player to pass as well.