Wonderful game! The most innovative and creative game in years. Family and friends will love playing this guaranteed! Easy enough to play with children and strategic enough for adults.

The manufacturers sell this as a 3-5 player game but by making one change to the victory conditions, it works fantastically well with two. Remove the possibility of winning with 4 identical gems - you've either got to get one of each of the 5 colours, or 7 of any colour.

This game is only fun if you're really unpleasant to your opponents. As just one member of my family is as nasty as I am, we can only play with 2 - but it's far and away our favourite 2- player game, full of second-guessing, triple-bluff and stacks of surprises. Read your opponent's mind slightly wrong and certain victory turns into ignominious defeat in a couple of moves. We've got about 30 German games and this is the fastest-moving, the most brain-challenging, and the most fun of all of them.

I have played this game a dozen times now and I thoroughly enjoy it. Niagara infuses strategy with a bit of luck. I won't go into the rules of the game but more of the playability.

The game is great for families and those that are introducing new games to novice players. The game can be finished fairly quickly (less than 30 minutes or can last as long as 60 minutes). Niagara keeps each player involved because each round is played fairly quickly. After each player chooses their paddle and then plays it, the river moves. Where your own boat ends up is the unpredictable part.

The cloud is the interesting part. By moving it in the plus direction the river moves at a faster pace. In the minus direction, it moves at a slower pace. Without fail, in mixed company, the women move the cloud in the minus direction and the men move it in the plus direction. I guess it's the risk taker part of men that want the river to move at an accelerated pace. As you play the game more, the cloud gets placed at different times (usually when your boats are out of the water) by the different players.

There has been no clear repeatable winner when we have played. The game mixes its unique qualities with enough strategy to make it a thoroughly enjoyable game.