Vejen

EvEvanstar4,6

In this game players walk their meeple around the map, buying and selling goods with the aim of having the most money at the end of the game. Each road you travel has a printed movement cost, and movement points are a resource you gain at the start of the round depending on how much you've upgraded your cart, and they deplete as you resolve your moves. One of the key elements of the game is that the map spans two different countries, each with it's own currency. The values of the currencies fluctuate each round due to the effects of an event card that's drawn at the start of the round. You can see one event card ahead of the current round for planning purposes. There are some satisfying engine building elements. Build houses on the map to get a small benefit when other players sell at those locations, and to give you an extra good worth of income. Additionally, they represent places you can load your goods for delivery. When goods are delivered you gain money equal to the currency rate of that area plus the distance between where you loaded the goods and your destination city. You can also upgrade your storage, build a windmill that lets you turn basic goods to advanced goods, or build a boat which lets you travel between port towns. The game has a satisfying arc. You start the game struggling for every dollar, and at some point you have to know when to stop investing in more engine and just flogging the engine you have to get as much money as possible. Knowing when that moment comes is tough. It takes planning and focus. Overall I really enjoyed this game. However, I'm not sure how strong the replayability is. The event and endgame bonus scoring cards are randomized, and there does appear to be one or two different paths through your builds and upgrades in the game, but there also appears to be a lot of process commonality between those paths in the first half of the game. It's too early for me to say, but this could lead to a feel of sameyness across multiple plays. I don't mind sameyness across multiple plays if there is enough player interaction to keep things feeling fresh. My concern is that this game has a lot less player interaction than I thought it would have. In reality, players pay each other for selling in their cities only a small handful of times per game. A few of the events make positioning mildly difficult by forcing you to pay to move through cities where other players have houses, or by stopping you from going where someone else is standing, but generally everyone is off doing their own thing. That being said, many bonus cards have optional 'take-that' effects on them. My group isn't a fan of 'take-that' as a mechanism, so we didn't use the cards in that way, particularly because the other printed option on the card seemed generally better. It's possible that's where the player interaction is meant to be and I just didn't see it. Definitely need to play more to get a better sense of the design. :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

GaGarfieldstar2,0

Omg, what a crappy game. Never wanted more to leave a game in the middle of playing! It's just a produce, pickup and delivery game. And you repeat that over 12 rounds! And you don't do anything else. Just produce, pickup and deliver. Huge downtime! And too less movement points make this game very frustrating in the first rounds. NEVER AGAIN! [c] Theme: :star::star::nostar::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Ok, you produce stuff that you will deliver --> Gameplay: :star::nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Very boring, rinse and repeat --> Interaction: :star::nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Almost none --> Artwork: :star::star::nostar::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Nothing special --> Luck: :star::nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Nope --> Strategy: :star::star::star::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Obvious strategy --> Components: :star::star::nostar::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Resources too small --> Play duration: :star::nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Far too long for a simple pickup and deliver game --> Easy to teach: :star::star::nostar::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]A lot to teach --> Rules quality: <!-- size 7]not read --> Setup time: :star::star::star::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Ok --> No downtime: :star::nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Even with not AP-Players it can be huge --> Replay value: :star::nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar: <!-- size 7]Not for me --> [/c]