Pharaoh’s Gulo Gulo

About this board game

Pharaoh’s Gulo Gulo is a 2–6 player board game that takes about 20 minutes, challenging adventurers to gather scarabs and cross a desert and pyramid before reaching the burial chamber.

Players begin by laying face-down tiles along the desert path, inside the pyramid, and in the mummy’s burial chamber. On each turn, explore by revealing the closest unrevealed tile or choosing the color of a revealed desert or pyramid tile. Then attempt to pull a boulder of that color from a wooden bowl.

The bowl contains twenty wooden spheres and a thin Pharaoh’s staff standing upright among them. A successful grab lets you move forward or backward to the next space of the chosen color. Scarab spaces provide valuable tokens, though each player can hold a maximum of four.

• Careful boulder pulling: dropping a boulder or knocking the staff onto the table causes a landslide.
• A landslide sends you back to the desert’s starting space or the pyramid entrance, depending on your location.
• Mummy-head tiles make the mummy advance, potentially forcing players to discard a scarab or retreat.
• Entering the burial chamber requires at least two scarabs and two successful grabs in a row.

The mummy moves back and forth between the burial chamber and the entrance, so every journey carries a risk. If it passes a player or lands on the same space, that player must lose a scarab or immediately return to the pyramid entrance.

In Pharaoh’s Gulo Gulo, haste can be just as dangerous as hesitation. The first player to complete the burial-chamber challenge breaks the mummy’s curse and wins.