Image Courtesy of <PERSON>
This review continues my series of detailed reviews that attempt to be part review, part resource for anyone not totally familiar with the game. For this reason I expect readers to skip to the sections that are of most interest.
If you liked the review please thumb the top of the article so others have a better chance of seeing it and I know you stopped by. Thanks for reading.
Summary
Game Type - Abstract Game
Play Time: 30-55 minutes
Number of Players: 2-5
Mechanics - Tile Placement, Hand Management
Difficulty - Pick-Up & Play (Can be learned in 10 minutes, takes 1-2 plays to get a grasp of the powers)
Components - Excellent
Release - 2012
Designer - <PERSON>
Overview and Theme
Voluspa is the oldest poem of Norse Mythology and serves as a creation myth as to the origins of the creation of the world. It tells of the struggles between the gods and every time the tale is told it provides an opportunity for yet another god to prevail.
This is the thematic backdrop for Voluspa, a tile laying game with an abstract nature to it. The theme is integrated pretty well here and although it will diminish after several plays, it does give the game a nice reason for some great artwork and makes some of the god powers make good sense.
As far as themes are concerned Norse Mythology has been utilised fairly often over the past few years. Follow me to the tree of creation and I will tell you of Revuspa...a poetic tale of this very game. Oh boy that was worse than usual.
The Components
Voluspa is a tile laying game, so tiles are pretty much all that are needed here, but they are very nice.
Tiles - The tiles are only minimally smaller than a tile, which works well. All tiles are black bordered and this serves to allow the gorgeous artwork to really pop. Each god has a unique background colour and artwork to help differentiate them and small icons help to summarise their power.
Each tile features a numerical value (all gods of the same type feature the same value) and these are important to the scoring rules.
Really the artwork is somewhat understated due to the size of the tiles but it is very good indeed. 299
If I had unlimited wall space I would be seeking out some larger prints of several artworks as they would look lovely framed.
In all there are 60 tiles in the base game with a further 25 tiles in the included Edda expansion.
Image Courtesy of <PERSON>
Score Track - The score track is actually a board, not unlike that offered by . It is simple enough but it does the job. Given the box size needs to be this size to accommodate the number of tiles anyway, I appreciate the inclusion of a score track rather than making the players keep track on paper.
Image Courtesy of <PERSON>
Scoring Markers - The game offers wooden discs to serve as scoring markers. In addition the game provides a '+50/+100' token to account for when players surpass a lap of the 50-point score track.
Image Courtesy of henk.rolleman
Rules - The rules are very concise and are offered in multiple languages (in my edition anyway). Like many a good abstract game, the rules are to the point and leave little room for ambiguity. The only time I had to check a few times was with the wording of the Fenrir tiles and the Sea Serpent tiles, but by 2/3rds of the way into my first play I realised the intent of the rules as written.
Image Courtesy of <PERSON>
For a game of this nature, Voluspa is beautifully produced and offers good value for money for the artwork alone.
Image Courtesy of <PERSON>
Set-Up
I almost feel embarrassed to include this section as there is so little required. The tiles are placed face-down and mixed up, each player draws a starting hand of 5 tiles and a tile is drawn at random and turned face-up to act as the starting tile. The only tile that must be re-drawn if it is revealed is the Troll, which will become clear as to why in due course.
That's it - get to it after choosing a starting player.
Oh both players should place their scoring token near the score track (as it doesn't offer a '0' location).
The Play
Image Courtesy of henk.rolleman
The play to <PERSON> really couldn't be any simpler as the game is really all about the implications of each move on scoring. Abstracts are known to have relatively simple rulesets,, which allow the moves themselves to create the intrigue. Voluspa is a perfect example of these design principles.
Place a Tile - On a player's turn they must place one tile from their hand into play. 84