Page 7 - Spielbox_Special_2021_gesamt_EN

duplicates of himself. However, his travels create rifts in spacetime, which create ter- rible turmoil and could ultimately destroy the entire universe. In The Loop, it’s up to us, the Time Agents, to stop Dr. Faux.
The agents have a total of 21 moves to stop the mad scientist. He travels through all seven eras three times per game. The destination is determined randomly per card draw. If this creates too many rifts, the corresponding era is lost. During the given time, the agents must complete four tasks for which they also travel from era to era, take out Dr. Faux’ clones, re- move rifts, and use artifacts they’ve col- lected everywhere, such as the Holy Grail, Torch of Prometheus, or Timenado (What- ever happened to “Sharknado”? Well, nev- er mind), in order to sabotage Dr. Faux’ plans. Once four out of seven revealed missions are completed, the team wins. Once Dr. Faux plays through his card deck three times, creats two rifts in spacetime of the same era, or creates four in total, everything is lost.
The game by Maxime Rambourg and Théo Rivière was published by Capture Games last year. It has an insane story and has been depicted in an amazing and appropriately crazy comic style by Simon Caruso. Of all the new releases by the Swiss publisher, this is their boss Michael Zimmerli’s favourite. Together with his wife, Swetlana, he decided at fairly short notice to cancel his stand in Essen. “Out of consideration for staff, we decided to cancel our booth because of the Corona situation,” they announced in late September. (ab/dm)
Board Game Circus
Last year, Korea Board Games published Four Gardens. This year the work by Martin Doležal is released in German, localized by Daniel Theuerkaufer and his team under the name Im Schatten der Pagode (In the Shadow of the Pagoda). The oversized pagoda that gives the game its name is eye-catching, but also has a function in the game.
The goal for the up to four players is to build the most pristine garden around the pagoda with the help of cards. While the back of the cards depicts a section of one of four landscape pan- oramas, the front provides three op- tions. During a turn, a player can
play exactly three cards from
their hand and activate
one of the actions on
each card.
First of all, you will
want to plan at least
one garden section by playing a ground-
work card that in- dicates what resources are needed. You then either collect a single resource which is immediately placed on the gar-
den card to match,
or you acquire several
for your supply. To do this, the card deter- mines the pagoda
floors will be rotat-
ed by 90 degrees.
This causes the type
and number of resources to show and are then placed onto your planning tile, which works as your storage either from the top floor-down or from the bottom floor-up, depending on the card instruc- tions, until they are all collected. With another action, the storage gets emptied and resources assigned to cards.
As soon as a garden receives all re- sources indicated on the groundwork-side of its card, you flip it over and get to ad- vance by one on the god’s track of the col-
or marked on the card. Additionally, the gods show their gratitude by rewarding the completion of each garden in a pan-
orama. On top of that, each completed panorama earns one of the three bonus tiles: Planning Tile Ex- pansion, Victory points, or extra resources. At the end, everyone adds their progress on the god
tracks to their victory points. Four Gardens challenges the intellect on several levels. The goal is to optimize purchases by manipulating the pagoda to your liking, score points in the race to complete panoramas, profit from gardens that have already been created, and outpace the competition on the god tracks. The amount of branches on the decision tree are hard to grasp the first time around. By game two, you start to
Advertisement
In Prague of 1584, Rabbi Loew wanders restlessly around
the attic of his synagogue: a giant clay figure in human form needs only the words ״truth“ on its forehead and ״God“ in its mouth to come to life as a GOLEM.
Flaminia Brasini, Virginio Gigli and Simone Luciani embed the fascinating legend in a complex strategy game for one to four players ages 13 and up. As scholars, they set out to breathe life into a golem themselves. To do this, they use their know- ledge to study books and melt down collected gold for arti- facts. In the end, they get to instruct golems with important tasks – but their creators only retain control over them if they also use their students and apply all their knowledge. (th)
spielbox special 5