Thrift Treasure: Polli Hop Memory Game
Just because we purchased a ton of games at Geekway to the West, it doesn’t mean we stop looking. Our weekly trip to our local Goodwill yielded one, almost two, new games for our collection. We had to return one to the shelves after discovering a sizable number of parts were missing. It was disappointing since we’ve wanted to find a copy of The Magic Labyrinth for quite some time.
We did end up spending $1.88 on this copy of Maya: Polli Hop even though the rules were not printed in English. We were also surprised to discover the game wasn’t listed at all on BGG! All the pieces were present, so it would only take a few minutes to capture photos of the rulebook and allow Google to quickly translate them. Then we could upload the details to BoardGameGeek.
Polli Hop is a memory game themed in the world of Maya – a German language book about a young bee and her transformation into a responsible adult member of bee society. In Polli Hop, everyone is playing as Maya as she collects pollen and delivers it to her friends. Your job is to remember how many pieces of pollen have been delivered to which flower.
Each player begins with a few wooden marbles depending upon the number of players. The marble tray is placed in the center of the play area along with a custom die and a pile of coins. On a player’s turn, they will roll the die and then decide where to deposit their pollen. They may either place it in the hole depicted by the die roll or give it to Ant Paul (the left-most hole).
The object for each round is to have the third marble in a hole without overloading any holes. The exception is Ant Paul, whose collection isn’t counted. So, you must remember how many marbles are in a hole before deciding whether to add yours!
Players take turns rolling the die and making the decision of which place to put the pollen until everyone is out of marbles. When you deposit the pollen, the marbles slide underneath the board, preventing everyone from seeing how many and which colors are there. At the end of the round, the board is lifted, revealing the marbles and the round’s results.
First, check to see if anyone has marbles equal to or higher than the fourth position. Those players will not score anything for the round. This is true even if they have a marble in the correct position in another slot. Anyone who has a marble in the third position receives one coin. Marbles in position one or two do not score either. Polli Hop is played over three rounds in the exact same manner but switching the starting player. The person with the most coins at the end of the third round is the winner. If there is a tie, those people share the win!
Surprisingly, this kids’ game had us thinking a lot about where to deposit our pollen. I suppose our memory abilities have faded over the years and I’m sure our kids would dominate us with this game. Polli Hop is no longer available new and there are no copies currently on eBay. If you happen across an example at thrift or a yard sale, it’s worth grabbing!
What is your favorite non-English board game?
