Dec
25
Merry Christmas all! I’ve had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends and fortunately I got also some games in. This is especially great because my December has been nothing else than work and stress and there hasn’t been time for games nor the blog.
I’ll give my thoughts on some of the new releases I’ve played during the last few days and I’ll begin with the latest Ystari game Sylla. Ystari has brought some really quality games to the market such as Caylus, Yspahan and Mykerinos and company has good reputation. Thus Sylla was obviously on my radar when Ystari anounced it’s coming out in Essen. But what I have to say is that it definitely isn’t the best game in the Ystari line.
Sylla by Ystari Games
In Sylla players basically auction of turn order, workers and prestige buildings which makes Sylla pretty much an auction game. There’s actually also quite a few other mechanics involved but they are more in the background. The rules of the game weren’t good and we had to take a look at them all the time during the game. Sylla is also very mechanical game where player interaction is low and the game is somewhat repetitive because the rounds are always more or less similar to each another. I also feel that the game takes too long for what it is; not a deep strategy game but more of an medium heavy family game. We played probably over 2 hours which is twice as much as it should have taken.
I hope that Ystari can keep up the great record thay have with the games produced in the future. Sylla felt much like other Ystari games but it didn’t bring anything new with it and the old stuff had not been incorporated in the game in the best possible way.
The other auction game I played during Christmas delivered better the expectations that I had for it (which is much due to the fact that I didn’t have any). Byzanz is a Amigo Spiele card game which inevitably means that it’s a bit lighter than most of the board games on the market. We were a bit confused in the beginning with the game but got a hold on it rather quickly. In the game players try to form sets of cards same color to their hand by auctioning of cards. Interesting mechanic in the game is that players have to pay a single card for on top of the bid from those cards that are on sale and in the end of the round all the cards are given back to players. The players who bid first on the first phase gets more cards than the last player but the last player is the first one to pick cards of one color from those cards that have been used as money during the auction phase.
Byzanz by Amigo Spiele
This mechanic doesn’t make game more strategic and there’s luck heavily involved but sometimes it offers possibility to some nice moves and that’s what makes the game interesting. I hope that I’ll be able to play thisone again sooner than later.
Castle for all Seasons is a totally different game from Sylla and Byzanz while it’s main mechanic is not auction. CfaS looks much like Stone Age and feels much like it too. Actually, it also plays very much like Stone Age eventhough there obviously are numerous dissimilarities in the game. In CfaS players gather resources (raw materials) and turn them into buildings and money using their workers. Players have eight different action cards and theres 12 rounds where player play one of those cards. Therefore CfaS is not a long game and there aren’t that many desicions in the game: all players gather first resources and then build. This also speeds up the game but might make it a bit dull in the end when you have played the game more.
Castle for all Seasons by Rio Grande Games
CfaS had also a badly written rules which made it a bit hard to get the game going in the first place but after you’ve gotten a feel for the game it’s rather simple and streight forward. Components and board are also top notch with the small exception of the scoring markers that don’t fit in the scoring track too well.
I’ve played several of the games which were released in the Spiel 2008 fair and I have to say that the crop this year hasn’t been spectacular. Most of the games I’ve played are average (which is usually the case every year) but there hasn’t been any real hits this year for me.
Dominion is probably the best game I’ve played this far and it is a good game but still a bit of from being an exellent game.
Space Alert is also very promising but I have to play it more to give it the final judgement and the
expansion for Galaxy Trucker is awsome (but not a complete game). What this means is that I probably should visit some of the old games in my shelf which I know I enjoy a lot and hope that next year will bring better games than this year 