Ok so I played it on my lunchbreak... And it took longer than I wished (45 minutes).
I did not go with the provided solo mode, for several reasons:
- it has you print some stuff. I don't print stuff.
- I don't like automas
- it requires to remove from the game a lot of stuff (that's fiddly, and I don't like it as a rule)
- it seems more bothersome than it's worth
- one of the main criticism is that there is 0 interaction multiplayer, so it didn't seem to require any specific adjustment (I just went the BYOS way)
So I went with a "variant" of my own. Basically play as the 2 players game, but when the "dummy" player has a pick, roll a die to randomly decide which one will be taken. Almost effortless. Then forget all about that dummy player and just try to maximize your score.
My verdict? Honestly, I think you are better off it. The game just isn't interesting enough. The thematic veneer, past the art, is non-extant. You move along a board for whatever reason, draft some cards with cute illustrations and names straight out of a silly random name generator, that does stuff because. At some point I didn't even look at the illustrations, just the various bonuses it would get me.
Once this draft part is done (once per round), it's a dice game, but with next to 0 mitigation. Or rather the mitigation is very costly (you pay with VP) and later in the game there is just no reason to re-roll (because it costs too much), so it's basically a random activation of your cards. As for the board, I wonder why they threw in this game components in the mix. It feels wholly inessential and tangent to the core play (draft cards so that they are complementary, so when you roll dice, good things may happen).
Unless you badly want a pretty game on your shelves, there are easily better dice rolling games.
Just a quick note: this is not what the inside of the box looks like. All the pretty little boxes for the corresponding components are a creation of whoever owns that particular copy of the game. They did some amazing job on that and I am really in awe, but don't expect any of it if you get the game! Just a plain white cardboard insert.
Gorgeous, but boring? That's not the combo I was hopin' for. 🙁 Maybe I could glue all the pieces to a large board and just make a 'work of art' out of it?
Ok so I played it on my lunchbreak... And it took longer than I wished (45 minutes).
I did not go with the provided solo mode, for several reasons:
- it has you print some stuff. I don't print stuff.
- I don't like automas
- it requires to remove from the game a lot of stuff (that's fiddly, and I don't like it as a rule)
- it seems more bothersome than it's worth
- one of the main criticism is that there is 0 interaction multiplayer, so it didn't seem to require any specific adjustment (I just went the BYOS way)
So I went with a "variant" of my own. Basically play as the 2 players game, but when the "dummy" player has a pick, roll a die to randomly decide which one will be taken. Almost effortless. Then forget all about that dummy player and just try to maximize your score.
My verdict? Honestly, I think you are better off it. The game just isn't interesting enough. The thematic veneer, past the art, is non-extant. You move along a board for whatever reason, draft some cards with cute illustrations and names straight out of a silly random name generator, that does stuff because. At some point I didn't even look at the illustrations, just the various bonuses it would get me.
Once this draft part is done (once per round), it's a dice game, but with next to 0 mitigation. Or rather the mitigation is very costly (you pay with VP) and later in the game there is just no reason to re-roll (because it costs too much), so it's basically a random activation of your cards. As for the board, I wonder why they threw in this game components in the mix. It feels wholly inessential and tangent to the core play (draft cards so that they are complementary, so when you roll dice, good things may happen).
Unless you badly want a pretty game on your shelves, there are easily better dice rolling games.
Just a quick note: this is not what the inside of the box looks like. All the pretty little boxes for the corresponding components are a creation of whoever owns that particular copy of the game. They did some amazing job on that and I am really in awe, but don't expect any of it if you get the game! Just a plain white cardboard insert.
Gorgeous, but boring? That's not the combo I was hopin' for. 🙁 Maybe I could glue all the pieces to a large board and just make a 'work of art' out of it?
It's a French game indeed. I own it. It's on my "to try soon" stack!
Apparently, the consensus is that it's absolutely gorgeous, but boring.