In perusing The Geek I have noticed that most reviews give general game information, and what I really wanted was what exactly goes into the gameplay. Is there area control? Blind bidding? Resource production? Or maybe some good old-fashioned luck? On top of that I really wanted to know was how these elements meshed together to form the gameplay. Like was it a strategy vs. luck game? How about tough choice resource management? Or maybe something like a concealed element blind bidding game. I believe this is the alchemy of the game, the part the makes each game unique. In each review I will go over the usual elements (Theme, Components, & Gameplay), but I will also give the Alchemy of each game, and also a Philosopher's Stone (my own feelings/thoughts) score for each game. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, thanks for reading and enjoy!
The Alchemy of a Board Game -Cartagena
(thanks <PERSON>)
The Usual:
Theme: Each player assumes the role of leading six pirates trying to escape the famous prison of Cartagena. A boat awaits at the end of the escape tunnel for the lucky group of pirates who made it out as a group.
Components: The components for this game are of good quality. The cards are large enough to be easily read, although one of the symbols (the red pirate's hat) is not easily identifiable. I played the game many times before I realized it was a hat, before that I thought it was a ruby. But, that is really nitpicking the artwork. Speaking of which, the artwork nicely matches the theme of the game. The board pieces themselves are made of sturdy cardboard and shouldn't see much wear after many many plays. On each of the board pieces there are six symbols that match the cards in the playing deck.
(thanks <PERSON>)
Starting the Game: Each player starts out with six cards, and a set of six pirates in their chosen color. 336
The six board pieces are connected in any way that the players see fit, and are interchangeable. Then each players set of six pirates are set at the one end of the board, after the six board segments have been assembled. The escape boat is placed at the opposite end of the board from the player's pirates.
Goal of the Game: The goal of the game is to have all your pirates reach the end of game boards, and the board the awaiting escape boat. The first player to have all of their pirates reach the escape boat wins the game.
Gameplay: Each player's turn consists of three actions. The two options that are available for those three actions are:
1) Play a card from the player's hand and advance one pirate to the next available space of the same symbol that is on the card played. Each symbol on the board represents a one space. Any symbols that match the symbol of the card played that already have a pirate (any player's pirates) can be skipped. The player's pirate moves to the first open symbol that matches the symbol on the card played.
(thanks Superfage)
(In the above exmaple, almost all of the "gun" symbols are occupied by at least one pirate. This means that the pirate that is the furthest away from the escape boat, the yellow pirate furthest to the left, would be able to move to the "gun" symbol that is only two spaces away from the escape boat.)
If all symbols that match the symbol of the card played are occupied by pirates between an active player's pirate and the escape boat, the pirate immediately moves to the escape boat. In this way a player's pirate can move from one end of the boards to the other if all spaces of one symbol are occupied.
2) Move one pirate backwards to the first symbol that is occupied by either one or two other pirates. If the space is occupied by one pirate draw one card from the deck, if there are already two pirates on the space the player draws two cards from the deck. There is a max of three pirates per space.
(Thanks <PERSON>)
(In the above example if the yellow player were to move his pirate backwards from the "pirate hat" symbol to two spaces to the "knife symbol" with the one brown pirate the player would pick-up one card. Also, if the brown player's turn they choose to move their pirate that is occupying the "knife" symbol backwards one space to the "key" symbol, that already has a green and yellow pirate, the brown player would be able to pick-up two cards from the deck.)
Any space already containing three pirates, must be passed over for the next symbol that is occupied by only one or two pirates when moving backwards.
These three actions can be used one pirate, and or any combinations of pirates.
There is a variant included in the game that allows for less luck in the game. The above description of play is the Jamaica version. 597