Page 9 - Spielbox Special 2023 – EN

playing time as forty minutes per player. The box comes with a two-player mode, a separate board for one to three players, and an automa. Age of Innovation is already available. (sd/cs)
FTuntails (3 R124)
he end of the world is near, more and more of the menacing stripes in the sky announce it: Something is coming! In the sophisticated family game Comet, players have to save prehistoric animals
before the eponymous rock hits. Designer Peter Prinz (see interview next page) uses cards to manage this rescue operation. They show, for example, animals hatching at a specified distance from a save cav- ern. If the card is used for this, a marker is added to the board—which must then be moved towards the cave. This works with the alternative action of the animal card, which also shows landscapes that may be entered. Since dinosaurs jump over each other on their path, they can move in a more time-saving manner. Ar-
Maximum Variability
Helge Ostertag (47) lives in Hofheim/ Taunus. When he is not invent- ing games,
he works as an art therapist in a psychosomatic clinic. His game Terra Mystica established the Feuerland publishing house in 2012.
What part of Age of Innovation is so different that you would say: This is a standalone game—and not a Terra Mystica expansion?
Helge Ostertag: The idea was to make the game even more variable. That’s why I developed it in a modular way right from the start. There were changes in all parts of the game. The goal is for everyone to try out and discover many things. There’s still the basic feeling of Terra Mystica, but now every round is a completely new game.
There is the option to draft gaming materials at the beginning. Basic colors and races are no longer firmly connected. And there are inventions, all modular of course, in a jam-packed box. How complex is the new game? The level of complexity has increased only slightly, but the variability has in- creased all the more. Age of Innova- tion is aimed at Terra Mystica players who want even more variety. Our tests have shown that everyone is able to
get right back into it. The new rules are highlighted in the rulebook, so you don’t have to read it all.
When everything can be combined with everything else, fans of asym- metrical games will be happy. On the other hand, this may lead to some im- balances, like it was already the case in Terra Mystica. How can you rule those out here?
We have 1,344 possible combinations of the player tableaus, some of which are slightly more powerful than others, depending on the setup. However, the drafting can prevent any such combina- tions. We spent five years developing the game and put a strong emphasis on bal- ance. The feedback from our playtesting groups for each component of the game was very carefully analyzed. Anything we spotted, we put back into our test groups until it was all fine-tuned.
When you make a sequel to such a successful game, you are naturally judged by its predecessor. Do you feel any pressure?
Actually, I don’t feel any of that. I had a lot of fun developing the game, as I’m an avid player myself. I’m looking for- ward to seeing how it is received. I’ll also be at the booth at SPIEL explaining the game and I’m curious to see how people respond.
Will we see other games from you, be- yond the Terra Mystica universe? For 2024 we have an extension to Gaia Project in the pipeline. But I also have other ideas: I’m working on a new game with Jens Drögemüller. And together with my brother Anselm, I’m current- ly giving an uplift to our old Pfifficus game Kaivai. (sd/cs)
HIJACKED
ERNSTFALL AM FLUGHAFEN
@IDVENTURE_GAMES_AND_PUZZLES WWW.IDVENTURE-SHOP.DE