Islebound

EvEvanstar3.5

This is a quick and light path finding game, where on your turn you sail your movement in number of spaces, then choose to either use the island ability in some way, or prospector and get however much money has accumulated from other player's paying island ability costs. The game feels a little uncomfortable, since at the start of the game getting crew is super important, but then the crew pile runs out fast and those spots become worthless. When you reach an island you have the option to conquer it, which requires spending cards that you then roll dice for, in a way that feels more random than I typically like in a euro. You also have the option to take it with diplomacy which requires spending cubes on a diplomacy track. The track itself has different values for the cube spots, and you fill left to right, so maybe you lined yourself up for a turn to get a lot of valuable cubes on your next turn, and then your opponent spends the cubes they had on the track, and now suddenly you are putting into 1 value spots instead of 3 value spots. The way you get cubes is by resolving events that pop around the board randomly, and all require different things, so there's some substantial advantage to being in the right place at the right time with the right stuff, which also feels more random than I like. Overall, this isn't a bad game. I wouldn't say the randomness is detrimental, just marginally annoying. I would be willing to play this more, but I don't think I need to own it. :star: Art, Iconography and components functional :nostar: Clever or interesting mechanisms :nostar: Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players :star: Multiple plays stay interesting :nostar: Low or mitigatable luck elements :star::star::star::nostar::nostar: Raw enjoyment

PoPoteetstar7.4

Scales decently from 2-4, easy to follow gameplay, gorgeous engaging art, pretty good.

MCMitchell Cstar4.6

Pretty standard RRG fair from the designer. The gameplay is a little to straight forward for my tastes.