A board game inspired by Vyasa's Mahabharata, designed for 2 to 5 players. Each player assumes the role of one of the five Pandava brothers, journeying through four episodes: Gurukula, Indraprasta, Vanavasa, and Kurukshetra.
The goal is to reenact the Pandavas' legendary lives, from mastering skills and escaping traps, to establishing a kingdom, enduring exile, and finally waging war to reclaim their land.
Game Setup: Players set up the game board for the current episode, prepare decks of Well-wishers and Krishna's Helping Hand Cards, arrange various tokens, and determine player roles based on the number of players. Each player receives a Pandava Card, corresponding miniature, skill tokens, and health tokens.
Gameplay: Played over 16 rounds, each round has two phases:
- Dice House Phase: Players roll dice and collect resources (cards/tokens) based on the outcome.
- Combat Phase: Players engage in fights or battles using their collected resources. Fights are individual challenges, while battles are collective efforts.
Combat Mechanics: Combat involves positioning miniatures, assessing required resources (tokens/cards), and attempting to meet these requirements. Success leads to gaining rewards, while failure can result in losing tokens or elimination from the game. The "Forever Together Token" allows eliminated players to rejoin.
Friendly Missions: These are collaborative tasks where players work together without the fear of losing resources.
Scoring: The game concludes after the last round of the Kurukshetra episode. Scores are tallied based on collected Shankha tokens. The game has different win levels (Brotherhood Lost, Win, Great Win, Spectacular Win, Legendary Win) based on the collective score.
Game Variants: Advanced players can include "Karma of Past" cards, adding twists to the game by altering resource requirements in combats.
In essence, "Jaya" is a strategic, cooperative board game that combines role-playing elements with resource management, set against the backdrop of the epic Mahabharata narrative.
