Lowlands

EvEvanstar5.9

In this game, players get their own player board with their own worker placement spaces along the side. In turn order you place a worker, then resolve the action you chose with action points to spend according to the number on the back of the worker you placed. Generally these actions involve getting resource cards, buying buildings with those resource cards, raising sheep, or working on the dike. Each round a new dike card flips, and if players collectively haven't worked on the dike enough to hold back the water, then they get breach tokens based on how far behind the leader on the dike track they are. At the end of the game if the dike doesn't hold, then each player will lose one sheep per token they hold. The tension in the game also comes from a mechanism where every time the dike check is failed, a marker gets moved which reduces the value of having sheep, and increases the value of each dike track threshold. Each time the dike check is met, the value of sheep goes up and the value of the dike track goes down. I really loved this game. It's crunchy and players can sort of do their own thing like in a Rosenberg game, but competing for buildings and who chooses to work on the dike when adds plenty of interesting player interaction. I'm hoping to get another game of this in this week if I at all can. That being said, there are some issues. The component quality isn't great. The texture of the cardboard feels rough like a cheap Mayfair game. The iconography isn't amazing either, so throughout the game you'll have to carefully look up each building that flips in the appendix. In particular, there's a rule where when someone works on the Dike, they have to ask another player if they want to take a bonus follow action to also work on the Dike with the same number of action points the active player spent. Some buildings have effects when you work on the Dike, but according to the appendix, only one of them doesn't function during a follow action, yet the iconography makes no attempt to communicate that. The punchboard tokens aren't quite aligned right in my copy at least. Some of the boards it was also difficult to remove the bits without tearing, as the machine didn't cut the boards quite enough. It's not enough to hinder my enjoyment of the game, but it's worth noting. :star: Art, Iconography and components functional :star: Clever or interesting mechanisms :star: Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players :nostar: Multiple plays stay interesting :star: Low or mitigatable luck elements :star::star::star::nostar::nostar: Raw enjoyment

PoPoteetstar9.0

Something about this game is so damn fun. There's plenty of meats on these bones. The dyke is a little flimsy as a mechanic at 2, but it's not awful. Really shines bright at 3-4 and is still great at 2.