INTRODUCTION
I’ve sometimes wondered how many currently self-published games there are in the top 500 ranked games on BGG. To me it seems quite remarkable that Dr. <PERSON>’s "Scripts and Scribes," published in small batches for people who take the effort to subscribe to his email list, currently sits at #328, has a rating of 7.33, and has had nothing but positive reviews. The rumour is that the game has recently been picked up by a bigger company, so perhaps we’ll see this game rise even higher. What makes gamers so excited about a game that comes in an old VHS case and has fairly poor graphics? Let’s find out.
COMPONENTS
Let’s take a closer look at what you get in this game. Whereas the first edition of the game came in a cardboard box, later versions have come in a black VHS cassette case:
Inside we find the following:
87 cards, 1 value board, 5 standard dice, 2 reference cards, 1 rule-set.
None of the components are particularly spectacular. I’ve since sleeved my cards, as I think they’ll see a lot of play, and I don’t want to add creases and smudges to what are - let’s be honest - fairly lousy graphics.
THEME
But what’s this game about? Well, the theme is a medieval one, although it’s fairly thinly pasted on, and any theme would have worked. Well maybe not any theme, but you get the point. So, in the game you are an abbot of a medieval monastery competing with other abbots to amass the greatest library of sacred books. Don’t worry, you don’t need to take out any insurance against Vikings who might come by and pillage your library. To build your library you need workers and resources, as well as some gold, and you have to be on good terms with the local bishop. It also helps to draw the right cards in the right sequence, but that’s not really part of the theme.
GAMEPLAY
Instead of telling you all the rules in fine detail - for which I am much too lazy - I will give you the core ideas. That’s really all you need to get a pretty good sense of whether this game is for you or not.
To win you need to score points by coming first in one or more categories on the value board:
There are five different categories in which you can score:
1. Scribes
2. Illuminators
3. Manuscripts
4. Scrolls
5. Supplies.
Don’t worry about what they represent - just memorize their colour and you’ll be fine. 386
They could be different species of rats for all you care. In that case you could be competing for who can start the next plague, but that’s a different story.
Each category is worth 3 points at the start. This is what the dice are for - they can be moved up or down with the bishop cards. The bishop cards look like this:
When a player takes a bishop card in the game he has to use it right away. So for instance, in this example, the bishop card allows two categories to be moved up by one pip each:
Nifty isn’t it? Okay, but we’re getting side tracked here, because most of the cards look like this:
They come in different values (1 and 2 for the resources, 2, 3, and 4 for the workers), as you can see on the handy little card distribution aid:
The numbers are key, because you need to know what will win you a majority in a category. By the way, this game will have a particular appeal to mathematically inclined people who like to count cards and figure out what their odds are in a category. But don’t despair if you’re not. I suck at math and I still enjoy the game. I just trust my gut instinct, and I lose.
Back to the rules - you should know that there are two parts of the game:
1. The Donation Phase
2. The Auction Phase
In the donation phase all the cards will be distributed. Players will take turns to distribute the cards - which are face-down at this point. You get to look at a number of cards equal to the number of players plus 1. I invented that little formula and I’m pretty proud of it. I hope you’re smart enough to understand it.
Okay, so let’s say we’re playing a 4 player game. I will look at five cards sequentially and in secret. For each I will decide whether to do one of three things:
1. Add it to my own hand
2. 633