Plays: 6 at player counts: 1 - 2
Appearance
The front of the box shows a brightly coloured factory with a very simple design that stands out thanks to spot UV. The back of the box describes the game and shows actions you can take along with what your tableau will look like during gameplay. Inside the box are many cardboard components along with multiple dice and cards. The dice are brightly coloured and have a nice weight to them. The cardboard is good quality with each resource easily identifiable from one another due to the colour and printed image. The personal player boards are dual layered and give a premium feel compared to the rest of the cardboard components. The cards are good quality but not linen finished and the blueprint cards are attractive with a simple design and very clear easy to read costs and effects. The contractor cards again have very simple artwork although I like it less here as they look a little like Lego men without faces, which I find a little disturbing. Overall the card art for this game isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste but I find it charming with the exception of the missing faces.
Gameplay
The aim of the game is to have the most victory points at the end of the game. Each round consists of 2 phases, the market phase and the work phase. In the market phase each player in turn order can either gain a blueprint card from the 4 available in the market or hire a contractor. To hire a contractor you must discard a card matching the tool symbol above the contractor you want and pay any additional costs listed. These have various benefits mostly related to gaining extra resources/cards or extra dice workers for the work phase later in the round. A player can always pay 1 energy or metal to refresh either market row before they take either of these actions.
In the work phase, all players perform actions in their play area simultaneously. At the start of this phase players will pick up their 4 coloured dice (and any additional gained from contractors) and roll them. One of the main actions you can perform is to build cards, these cost various resources including metal, energy and a card with a symbol matching the type of building, which you must discard. You can build as many cards as you wish in a turn but may not have 2 of the same type of building in your area unless explicitly stated on the building. Your dice can be used to take actions on your main headquarter board or on building cards you have constructed. Your headquarter board allows you to generate metal and energy with certain numbered dice and to draw cards no matter what the number. 629
Energy is equal to the number of the dice placed as long as the dice is 3 or below. You gain one metal for each 4, 5 or 6 dice placed. Cards that are drawn must be drawn from the face down blueprint deck not the market row. There is also a benefit to placing matching dice numbers in the same section of your headquarters, with 2 matching numbers granting an additional resource and 3 matching gaining 2 in addition.
You can also activate your buildings once per round. Some require you to place certain dice and others require you to pay resources in order to use. Certain production buildings produce goods when activated, these are worth a point each and can trigger the end of the game if you have 12. After all players have performed the actions they wish the work phase ends with players discarding down to 10 cards and 12 total resources (metal and energy). If any player has built 10 buildings or produced 12 goods the end of the game has been triggered and one final round takes place before end game scoring. Players add up the prestige value of their buildings to their produced goods with the highest number winning the game, ties are broken based on leftover resources. Turns in this game flow very naturally with the majority of actions being performed simultaneously keeping downtime to a minimum. The game plays 1 to 5 players.
Theme and Game Length
The game has some thematic touches and generally makes sense. New buildings cost energy and metal to be constructed and most production building require workers to produce goods. The name of the building generally relates to its action, for example the nuclear plant produces energy and the aluminium factory produces metal using energy. The contractor’s names also relate to their action with an electrician producing energy and a specialist worker being able to be any pip value dice you wish. The average playtime of the game is about 40 minutes for 2 players and 20 minutes for solo. I would imagine the game length would not change much with more players as ~80% of the game is played simultaneously and ultimately depends on each player’s familiarity with the game. For this reason I think the game would scale relatively well with the market refreshing more frequently and ultimately you should be able to construct a better engine. The solo game is played against a machine and you roll 1 of each coloured dice with the green dice choosing the card it constructs from the market. The other coloured dice decide if goods are produced with lower or equal to pip values than the number of buildings in the machines compound producing one good. 629