Veleno

About this board game

Veleno is an abstract game for 2–4 players that takes about 15 minutes to play. Players move a silver stone across a hexagonal board, capturing stones and scoring according to their colors and quantities.

The game includes one board with 37 holes arranged in a hexagonal pattern. It also contains 37 stones: one silver, four white, and eight each in red, blue, yellow, and green. These stones are randomly distributed among the holes before play begins.

On a turn, a player moves the silver stone into an adjacent hole that is not empty, then captures the stone contained there. The value of a capture depends on the stone’s color and, for the four colored groups, the number of stones captured in that color.

• Each white stone is worth 10 points.
• Red, blue, yellow, and green stones score the square of the number captured in that color.

For example, capturing three red stones scores 9 points, while capturing five green stones scores 25 points. Because the stones are randomly placed, each game presents a different arrangement for the silver stone to navigate.

Play continues until the silver stone becomes isolated, meaning that it is surrounded only by empty holes. In games with three or more players, a player’s final score combines the value of the stones they captured with the value captured by the following player. This special scoring rule reflects the name Gute Nachbarn, meaning “Good Neighbor.”

With its compact playing time, changing setup, and distinctive scoring system, Veleno focuses on movement, capture decisions, and the value created by neighboring players’ results.