Crown of Emara

EvEvanstar4,6

The central board here is made of up two four-space roundels. Each player gets three action slots and a symmetrical deck of bonus cards. Each of the three action slots has a movement value which is either 1 2 or 3 steps. You place a bonus effect card into a slot, move one of your two pawns that many steps to resolve the action in their ending space, and gain the bonus printed on the card you played in whatever order you like. There are also bonus actions that allow you to place workers into production spaces increasing the output when you go there, or pick up special ability cards that give you various bonus effects. This game is raw efficiency where the only player interaction is competing to be the first to get cards or production spaces. Never the less I did enjoy the puzzle presented. I felt like I had interesting options every turn and both short term and long term goals. The game ends once each player has played every card in their deck twice so once you are used to the engine of the game you can plan out your moves well in advance. The only downside is that the experience while short feels a bit limited. There are minor engine building aspects that you can take advantage of, but the game runs a little too short for them to feel satisfying. To a certain extent you are also on rails with the game as the places to get points, and the way you gt those points don't feel substantially different game to game. Only the details of which special cards are in the mix change, and most of those cards have one time, or very limited effects. It's overall a good game that feels like it had a little more potential than it realized, that I got tired of quicker than I'd hoped. Perhaps a little more player interaction would have been welcome to spice things up. ★ 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