Solenia

GaGarfieldstar2,0

What a crap. The cards playing your game. You always can buy something. Totally waste of time. And just because there is a Zepelin included it doesn't make it a good family game. Theme falls flat. 16 turns and in every single turn you do the same boring thing. [c] Theme: ★☆☆☆☆ <!-- size 7]Where? --> Gameplay: ★☆☆☆☆ <!-- size 7]Boring as hell --> Interaction: ★☆☆☆☆ <!-- size 7]No --> Artwork: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Ok, nothing special --> Luck: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Drawing cards --> Strategy: ★☆☆☆☆ <!-- size 7]The game plays for you --> Components: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Ok, nothing special --> Play duration: ★☆☆☆☆ <!-- size 7]Far too long for what it is --> Easy to teach: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Ok --> Rules quality: <!-- size 7]Not read --> Setup time: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Not much to setup --> No downtime: ★★★★☆ <!-- size 7]Plays quite fast --> Replay value: ★☆☆☆☆ <!-- size 7]Noooo --> [/c]

EvEvanstar4,6

The puzzle of this game is short but reasonably compelling. Each player gets a symmetrical deck of 16 cards. On your turn you place a card into a space next to the central airship mini, or adjacent to a previously placed card of yours. If it's a resource spot you produce tokens equal to the number on the card played (0, 1 or 2). If it's a star spot, you get VP instead and can then spend your accumulated resource to complete a recipe. The trick of things is that there are bonuses printed at the bottom of every card, and those bonuses pay out to owners when the board moves. When a player plays a 0 card, it comes with a mandatory board movement effect. You pay out the effects of all the cards sitting on the back part of the map, move the airship one space forward, then flip the back part of the board over and stick it on the front, simulating new terrain for the ship to pass by. The spaces also alternate from day to night, with the key element being that you fulfill recipes from a different display depending if you are sitting on a day or a night space. The basic game is a little too basic. The advanced game reduces your goods storage by a few spaces, and has you draft reward tiles to replace some of the pre-printed reward spaces on your personal board. It also has you place your completed recipes in a tech tree fashion, where putting one in a 1 slot unlocks a 2 slot ect. This is a welcome addition to the game, and I don't see going back to the regular mode. Overall the game is very pleasant. I could do with some method to track how far the ship has moved, since with symmetrical sets of cards, there's a fixed number of 0s in the game. I'm happy with it, but not blown away by it. ★ 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