I almost missed this one at Essen, because the Holzinsel stand was to the left as you went through the entrance and it is fairly standard procedure to go to the right which is where probably 95% of the stands are. However, on the Saturday morning I found it and, as it had nice chunky wooden bits and a promising theme - erupting volcanoes - I decided to give it a go.

Firstly, let's discuss the theme; the board represents the volcanic area, complete with 3 fields of "high activity". The score track round the edge of the board is the "escape route"; the pieces are "volcano stones" and "lava stones" and the players' score markers are the "vulcanists". That's about all the theme there is, so it's easier to refer to everything by their standard game-playing terms - except, perhaps, the lava stones. But, having said that, it turned out to be what I consider an excellent abstract game.

The volcano pieces, in four colours for four players, are of four different heights; the tallest having 3 "peaks" (grooves) in the top, then 2, 1 or 0 for the smallest. The lava stones are black and have either 0 or 1 groove and are placed near the board. The volcano pieces are distributed according to the number of players - 4, 5 or 7 for 4, 3 or 2 players respectively. There seems to be competition among some authors/publishers these days to see who can come up with the silliest idea for deciding who will be start-player; I think it probably began with the one that specified the player with the most sunglasses. But this must be one of the silliest - whoever was last in Iceland begins; if nobody has been to Iceland, the player who most urgently wants to go to Iceland begins. Well, I suppose it ties in with the theme to a certain extent.

The board is divided into a number of square fields, three being circled in red being high activity zones. Each field contains two smaller spaces on which stones are placed during the course of the game. The score track is linked by lines to rows or columns of the playing area (more later). On your turn, you must take one of two possible actions; you can either place one of your volcano pieces from stock or move one (of yours) already on the board. To place a piece, it must go on an empty field, i.e., both spaces in the field must be empty. By moving a piece already on the board, you can then move it to an adjacent field that is either empty or already has one of its spaces occupied. However, if your vulcanist (score marker) is on a space which is linked to a row or column of the playing area in which you have one of your pieces, you can move any one such piece any distance in any orthogonal direction to a field with one or two empty spaces. To enable you to do this, you may move your score nmrker backwards on the score track if you wish so as to line it up with a piece you want to move; although this sets back your score a bit, it is sometimes a good tactical move. Incidentally, there are 12 spaces on the score track which are not linked to the playing area. It can even be advantageous to cause a scoring by which an opponent can be moved past a linked space which he was hoping to use to his advantage.

Scoring can occur after either placing or moving a piece. If there is then a line of three fields which contain pieces with at least 8 grooves in total, and each of the three fields has at least one piece, then it is scored. In both instances, volcano pieces and lava stones are counted in. Additionally, the player must have placed or moved a piece into one of these spaces during his current turn; and the middle field of the three can only have a maximum of one lava stone. If the 8 or more grooves are contained in just two fields with the third field empty, then no scoring takes place - there must be at least one piece in each of the three fields.

You score if you have at least one of your pieces in any of the three relevant fields. You get 1 point for each such piece (double if in a high activity field). The current player who actually caused the scoring also scores 1 point for every groove in excess of 7 on the three fields; so you get 1 point for 8 grooves, 2 for 9 grooves, and so on. This is a typical reason for moving your score marker back by, say, one or two spaces in order to move a piece into a space where the groove total makes it worthwhile.

All volcano pieces (but not lava stones) are removed from the middle field of the three and returned to the relevant players, who may use them again. (This, in keeping with the theme, is an Eruption). A lava stone is then placed in that field - all the zero groove pieces first; then the grooved ones. Therefore, any field can only be the middle field of a scoring row twice, as it will then contain two lava stones neither of which can be removed or replaced. This is a clever but simple way to ensure the same fields are not repeatedly used in scoring, and that forces players to move pieces on the board.

The Rules cite a couple of "Special Case" possibilities. If, after a scoring has taken place and the middle field pieces have been replaced by a lava stone, the three fields still contain 8 or more grooves, the next player cannot cause a scoring without first placing or moving a piece into one of the fields. We have found the second "Special" case is probably more likely to occur, albeit not very frequently. If a player causes more than one set of fields to become scorable with his one placement or move, he decides which set to score first; after scoring that one, he may then score any remaining set(s) - again, one at a time - if they are still eligible. This requires a certain amount of care in deciding which to score first, in case you wipe out any of the other sets.

That's about it, really. The game ends immediately when the last of the 20 lava stones is placed on the board; so 20 scorings in all.

Those I've played Hekla with are split about 50/50 for and against. Personally, I very much enjoy it; I think it's a great abstract game, although I must admit the theme is rather thin and was probably stuck on afterwards. I like the mechanism - tactical but easy to understand. Because of the limited number of pieces each player owns, care is needed in deciding whether to place or move, and which pieces to place and where. It's quite possible to suddenly find you have no pieces available to place onto the board and that most of your pieces already on the board are stuck or can only move ineffectually. It is also quite easy for one of your pieces to become trapped and unable to move until your score marker lines it up. Also, I've always been a sucker for games with big chunky wooden bits (no, no fetishes involved though). For anyone into abstract games, this is reasonably priced and well worth getting; if you're not keen on abstracts, give it a try - you may be pleasantly surprised.