There are board games, and then there is Catan, the game that has turned “I’ll trade you sheep for brick” into a phrase that can either build friendships or test them severely. Since its arrival on tables around the world, Catan has become one of modern board gaming’s great gateways: strategic without being cold, social without being silly, and just competitive enough to make family game night feel like a minor geopolitical summit.
Its appeal has even reached Hollywood. Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard have publicly spoken about their love of Settlers of Catan, with Shepard once telling People that their post-Golden Globes plan was a strict 8pm Catan game night, while Bell backed him up with the same proudly nerdy commitment. That, really, is Catan’s charm: even after the red carpet, the real drama is still who gets the longest road.
Now two new releases are giving South African fans fresh ways to return to the island.
CATAN: On the Road
CATAN: On the Road takes the familiar DNA of the original and reshapes it into a compact, card-driven experience. Instead of building across the classic board, players work from a deck of 120 cards, gathering resources, expanding regions, recruiting knights and building developments from a shared pool. It is still very much Catan, but leaner and quicker.
The clever twist is that trading is no longer something that waits politely for your turn. Players who trade outside their own turns are rewarded with bonus resource cards, which means the table stays alive between moves. For families and newer players, that makes the game more accessible. For seasoned Catan negotiators, it creates new opportunities for persuasion, opportunism and the occasional shameless deal.
CATAN Zip!
CATAN Zip!, meanwhile, is made for the player who wants the island to fit into real life more easily. This portable edition uses a shared map pad, with players drawing roads, settlements and cities directly onto the island as it takes shape. The result is part strategy game, part creative map-making exercise, and part travel companion. Because the island is created during play, each game feels different, with players needing to adapt as the geography and resources unfold.
“Catan has always been about more than winning,” says Philip Galliford of Solarpop. “It’s about the conversations around the table, the trades, the small betrayals, the comeback moments and the shared fun. These new versions make that experience more flexible, whether you’re playing at home, taking it on holiday, or introducing someone to Catan for the first time.”
CATAN: On the Road is currently available at good toy stores, hobby stores and retailers for R249.99, while CATAN Zip! is also available for R649.99.
For long-time fans, these releases offer a new way to revisit familiar territory. For newcomers, they may be the easiest route yet into the world of roads, resources and very serious conversations about sheep.
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Author: V D from Twiga Communications on behalf of Solarpop.
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