LONGANA

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OBJECT OF LONGANA: The object of Longana is to be the first player to score 100 or more points.

NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 2 to 4 players. 

MATERIALS: A double 9 domino set, a way to keep score, and a flat surface.

TYPE OF GAME: Connecting Domino Game

AUDIENCE: Adult

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OVERVIEW OF LONGANA

Longana is a connecting dominos game for 2 to 4 players. The goal of the game is to reach 100 points before your opponent.

SETUP

The dominos are shuffled, and each player takes a hand of 8 tiles. The remaining dominos are not used for the round.

Special Tiles

The only special tiles for the game are the doubles. They can be played on any player’s arm at any time. They are played sideways but do not branch an arm.

GAMEPLAY

The player with the highest-ranked double starts the round. They will lead that double to the center of the play area. For future rounds, the winner of the previous round starts and may lead any double. If they do not have a double the player to their right may lead a double, and so on.

If no player has a double to lead, then the round is redealt.

After the first domino is led it becomes the spinner. Each player will play off one of the sides and have their arm to play on. For a 2-player game, there are two arms, for a 3-player game there will be three arms, and for a 4-player game, there will be four arms.

The game is played anticlockwise and continues with the player right of the spinner player.

On a player’s turn, they have 3 options for playing. They may play a tile to their arm, play a double to any arm, or play onto another player’s arm if their arm is open.

If playing to your arm, you must match one end of your tile to the open end of the previous tile. If the spinner was a [7-7], then you will need to play a tile with a 7 on it to extend your arm. The other number on the tile will be the next number you need to extend.

If playing a double, you may play on any arm. You play the double sideways, but it does not branch the arm. Future plays are played in line from the center of the double.

To play on another player’s arm they must have marked their train as open (described below). If their train is marked open, then you may extend their arm as you would your own. If multiple arms are open with the same number needed to extend you must play on the arm that has been open the longest first.

If you cannot play a tile to any arm on your turn then you must open your arm and pass. You can mark this by placing a token near the end of your arm. Once you can play a tile to anywhere on the layout, you immediately remove the token, and your arm is closed.

Once you play a token or open your arm you pass the turn. The round ends either when a player dominoes, and plays all their tiles out, or when the layout is blocked, and no more tiles can legally be played. keonhacai

SCORING

The winner of a round is the player who dominoes or has the fewest pips left in hand if the round is blocked. The winner scores points equal to the sum of the number of pips in each player’s hand. these points are added to that player’s cumulating score and if no player has won at the end of the round the next round begins.

END OF GAME

The game ends when a player reaches or exceeds 100 points at the end of a round. This player is the winner.