The Colonists

MeMestremutenstar8.0

Rating: 5/5 Production value: 2/4 too many erratas in the first edition Is the game in my collection/Love to have?: 1/1

EvEvanstar4.6

The game seems intimidating, but in essence, it's move your pawn to an adjacent spot, then do the thing is says. The AP moments simply come from having to plan out three of these moves in a row, with the end goal of being able to advance your engine in some way, usually by pickup and delivering something. The game is very long if you play through all four acts, which is a little unfortunate because the effects of buildings and tiles in act 3 and 4 are much more interesting than 1 or 2. Knowing the later building requires is very important for proper planning. I highly advise printing out the page of the rulebook that lists all the costs and building functions for each player to have their own copy. Gameplay wise, the game is fairly repetitive. You start the game hampered by your capacity for storing goods, which is frustratingly restrictive. You wander the board gathering what you need to build more storage, production buildings, more workers, or a certain number of special buildings. Somewhat annoyingly there never reaches a point where you can produce the advanced form of the resources without having to carry the basic resources back to the conversion spot, which runs into the storage issue. I think I would like this more if the engine building aspect went a little farther, OR if the game was a little shorter in length. ★ Art, Iconography and components functional ★ Clever or interesting mechanisms ☆ Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players ★ Multiple plays stay interesting ★ Low or mitigatable luck elements ★★☆☆☆ Raw enjoyment