Page 10 - spielbox 4_24 Englisch E-Paper

8
spielbox
Review. Wyrmspan
Dragons, Not Birds
A game that is very similar to Wingspan, but from another designer? So, this is a rip-off, right? No, that’s the wrong impression (see interview on page 10). And the subtitle provides the all-clear signal that this is an official version: “a Wingspan game”.
By CHRISTWART CONRAD
easy access. Those familiar with the bird game will find it simple to slip into the action and quickly grasp how to progress. Newbies may find themselves at a loss at first: how do you obtain resources, dragon and cave cards, when almost everything— depending on the set conditions—is such a scarce commodity?
While that might change over the course of the game, a proliferation does not always come to pass. In general, you just have to deal with the dilemma of how to develop your three cave rows evenly. If you go about it in a balanced way, you are more likely to have all the materials you need at a lower cost. If you focus on expanding only one cave row rapidly, repeated exploring becomes worthwhile to maximize the yield resulting from it. Managing to place many dragon cards with an explorer symbol will profit you greatly—but this can put the patience of the other, waiting players to the test: 90 of the 183 dragon cards show such an ex- plorer symbol, but only a small number of them are ever revealed in any one game, so things may not always go according to plan.
Just like in Wingspan, the large number of cards creates a huge amount of variability, and the right combina- tions as well as a card popping up at the right time are key to winning the game. With suit- able cave cards, for example, you can play a discounted drag- on card, advance two steps on the Guild path or activate a dragon ability in one go. Mak- ing the most of this va- riety undoubtedly has its appeal. From time to time, you peek at the other player boards to see who has fulfilled certain conditions and
I
mechanism has been slightly modified. Before you play a dragon card and pay the indicated resources, you must first have placed a square cave card at the lo- cation. It immediately grants you the in- dicated bonus, usually cards or resources.
The new “Explore” action is derived from the previous process of working through a row of bird cards. So, you now explore from left to right until you reach the last laid-out dragon card. In the up- permost cave, the Crimson Cavern, you are more likely to get resources, in the middle Golden Grotto, it’s all about dragon cards, and in the Amethyst Abyss at the bottom you gain cave cards. Played dragon cards
with an explorer symbol also contribute to the exploration yield. If you explore the same cave several times in the same
round, it gets more expensive.
If you explore and have already placed at least one dragon card, you also advance on the new cen- tral Guild board, which is usually good for a resource or a card. On every sixth turn it even grants you a small selection of considerable ben- efits or victory points. Progress in the Dragon Guild is essen-
tial to win the game.
You typically have six ac-
tions—in the shape of card- board tokens—per round, at the end of which, just like in the orig- inal game, you score according to a pre- defined criterion, like who has the most of the expensive dragons or the most eggs in their display. Similarly, after four rounds at the end of the game, you score for placed and tucked dragons, placed (or in Wyrmspan lingo: cached) resources and eggs as well as for the fulfilled final
objectives demanded by some dragons. The basic structure with a choice be- tween one of three actions offers fairly
nstead of placing birds into one of three landscapes, we are now excavat-
ing three caves for dragons. The basic
where; this is familiar from the original game. At best, your engine is running and you have enough material to convert into victory points at every turn.
But sometimes things are running less smoothly. Dragons with a certain abili- ty that every competitor needs en route simply aren’t available and hidden deep down in the deck. Then the leader in a specific area will rejoice, while the others get frustrated. Due to the many cards, it is largely a matter of luck if you can get hold of dragons with a certain trait. The variable number of moves and extended explore actions can sometimes condemn players to watch inactively for ten min- utes or more. Those who have made their very last move often have to wait patient- ly for the others to puzzle out their final moves, in an effort to squeeze out some last precious victory points. It is only nat- ural that the likelihood of such imbalanc- es increases with the number of players. I
Photos: Becker, Conrad, Feuerland-Verlag, Stonemaier Games