What is Catan: Big Game?

The Big Game is more than just Catan made large. It isn’t just an oversized version of Catan played with big pieces on a giant board. Rather uses the Catan system to bring a shared collective gaming experience. It’s a single game that allows for 6 or more players to participate in one game, and by “more” we mean that the number of players is only limited to the room you have and the number of Big Game kits you have access to. The largest game that we’ve seen to date is 1040 participants in Essen Germany.

How Can The Big Game Work For You?

People love Catan. If you run events at game conventions or through your store, you have a built-in audience excited to discover that there is a new way to participate in the Catan experience. A Catan: Big Game event allows for you to host a large number of participants with relative ease. We’ve created a system that allow for infinite growth. This game is designed to handle any number of players that you are capable of throwing at it.

It also allows for you to expand or contract the number of players with relative ease. So, if your numbers change at the last minute, you can manipulate the seating with little worries. All you need is an even number above five.

How Does It Work?

Catan: Big Game comes in individual kits. You can play one of these kits by itself for a different take on the Catan experience. The kit works with 6 players. You share an island with an opponent directly across from you. Each kit comes with three different islands preprinted on a paper board. Each island board is connected at their ends over water. You can build across the water with ships into other player’s territory.

Every turn is timed and the dice are rolled for all players. Historically with Catan, there is only one active player at a time. With Catan: Big Game everyone on one side of the table has the possibility to build and trade. After the time is up, a new number is rolled and then the other side of the table goes. When it is your turn you can trade with the people sitting to your left and right, to the player across from you, and to that opponent’s left and right. On your island you compete with the player across from you for Longest Road and Largest Army, so you might want to trade with the other players around you. What you get is a wave of trading. You are able to directly change the boards of those sitting directly around you and with trading and your builds, each of your neighbors will be changing the way they play and so on. This creates a ripple effect through the whole chain of islands.

The first player to get to 25 points wins, so it’s a race to get ahead of the curve. You not only compete against the people building around you, but with the tempo of the whole room.

What Do I Need?

Right now, we have kits that have three boards in them that play a total of 6 players for each kit. At the end of each table you will need to have a ghost board that can reflect what is happening at other connecting boards on other tables. So, you will have to dedicate two boards as ghost boards for each end that connects to another area. You will need people to staff ends of two matching table so that you aid trades and keep the ghost boards properly reflecting what is happening at the other table. At the far ends, if you can’t figure out a layout to wrap the tables back to the beginning, you will need two people with walkie-talkies at both ends.

We have a computer program and information that you can download that will help you with all the details:
http://www.catanstudio.com/catan-big-game-download/