Page 37 - spielbox 03/21 - English

THE PIRATES’ ISLAND
Over 1,000,000 copies sold!
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spielbox 35
Title: Designer: Illustration: Publisher: Players: Age: Duration: Price:
Praga Caput Regni Vladimír Suchý Milan Vavron Delicious Games
1 – 4
about 12+ years
about 30 – 120 minutes about 42 Euros
Reviewer
Alan How
Udo Bartsch
Playing appeal
8
6
The obsession with details puts brakes on the gameplay.
John Humphries 9
The 3D models make a positive diffe- rence to the appearance of the game.
Marie Poenisch 7
A classic eurogame with many possibilities, which feels somewhat overloaded, though. The action wheel is great.
There is also a range of bonuses avail- able which include silver and gold win- dows, as well as egg tiles. While the eggs are used to advance along the road and the bridge, some of the building tiles will provide movement on the Hunger Wall or the cathedral. Some of the movement also requires windows, which are resources re- ceived when you improve your position on different tracks. This interlinking of place- ment of tiles to gain bonuses in order to provide movement on another part of the board is one of the key aspects of the game. Gold windows are especially useful as they can buy an extra action, so when you see what use they can add they be- come a resource that is much sought after.
Finally, as if this range of options was not enough, there are two more tracks that help you. The technology track pro- vide a range of technology tiles that give ongoing or one-off benefits as you rise up the track, while the university track de- termines the value of the technologies at the end of the game.
A cube tracker provides the indication of the last few turns of the game, which has been well designed so each player has taken 16 turns. Victory points are added for a range of areas including where your piece finished on the Hunger Wall and cathedral; the number of walls built; buildings linked to plazas; and any leftover eggs.
To begin with, the game seems to pres- ent so many ways to progress you have no idea which ones to follow. Like most games of this ilk, you can’t do everything, so you need to decide on a plan and see how that works out. You’ll always need gold and stone but what mix? How much is necessary? It’s difficult to see the rela- tive worth of walls, upgrades and build- ings as they all seem pretty good. This conundrum is only solvable by playing several games and even then, the way tiles emerge affects your thoughts and strategies, or at least that’s how I felt.
Player interaction is more indirect: tak- ing actions or tiles before other players whether deliberately or not; though there is a race to the end points of the bridge and other areas to get the best benefits. Player interaction isn’t needed in a game of this complexity as there is more than enough for each player to focus on their own plans.
I really enjoyed the action selection mechanism. It’s easy to see what you
want and the benefits that accrue, but planning your follow-up moves as the tiles shift around means that you’ll not be able to get free actions without com- promising your plans.
There are several areas that show how the company production quality has im- proved. I really like these double-page spreads of how to set up the game, and the table presence is really impressive and colorful. However, the construction of the cathedral, Hunger wall and Charles Bridge may well need some gluing to- gether to get them to stand well.
There is a huge variety in the game because of the range of actions that you can take as you explore the possibilities of each path. This means the replayabil- ity of the game is high as you discover the implications of your decisions. Help- ing this is the large number of upgrades, buildings and wall tiles and the different set ups for the Hunger Wall, cathedral and Charles bridge. I think it’s safe to say that no game will have the identical set up which means that each time you play there are different issues to be consid- ered.
The first competitive pocket Escape Room,
where two teams go head-to-head!