Clans is a German-style board game

German-style board game

German-style board games, frequently referred to in gaming circles as Euro Games or Euro-style, are a broad class of tabletop games that generally have simple rules, short to medium playing times, indirect player interaction and abstract physical components...

 designed by Leo Colovini

Leo Colovini

Leo Colovini is a designer of German-style board games born in Venice 1964. His most popular game is Cartagena. He is one of the few top board game designers who has owned a game store....

. The game centers on the creation of villages.

Gameplay

At the start of the game, each player is secretly dealt a card that has one of five colors on it - red, yellow, blue, green, or black. Although each player knows their own color, they do not know the color of the other players. The game begins with one hut on each space, the colors being randomly distributed across the huts. On their turn, a player moves all of the huts from one space to another space. When a group of huts is completely isolated (all the surrounding spaces are empty) that space is scored. Scoring is different based on the terrain that those huts are on. The person with the most huts on that space, and anyone tied for the most, gets points. The game ends when the moves have been exhausted.

Awards

• Nominee for the Spiel des Jahres
  Spiel des Jahres
  The Spiel des Jahres is an award for board and card games, created in 1978 with the stated purpose of rewarding excellence in game design, and promoting top-quality games in the German market. It is thought that the existence and popularity of the award is one of the major drivers of the quality...
  
  , 2003
• 3rd in the Deutscher Spiele Preis
  Deutscher Spiele Preis
  The Deutscher Spiele Preis is an important award for boardgames. It was started in 1990 by the German magazine "Die Pöppel-Revue", which collects votes from the industry's stores, magazines, professionals and game clubs. The results are announced every October at the Spiel game fair in Essen,...
  
  , 2002
• Games magazine Best Abstract Strategy Game of 2003