ZhanGuo

EvEvanstar4.6

In this game, you play 5 rounds and each round you get a hand of 6 cards. On your turn, you either tuck one of the cards, which might enhance future actions if the number on the card you play meets the criteria, or you play the card to the board, and do a thing. You compete with other players for board positions for being firsties for achievements. The game is fairly complicated, and your strategy needs to line up between the cards you happened to draw each round and the available achievement tiles and wall bonus tiles. The significant decision point in the game is when to stop tucking and when to start acting. Players can unwittingly block you because of the number printed on the card they last played. Some actions require a card lower than the previous played card, and some want one higher, in order to get to use the bonus effects you spent so much time constructing. This blindly blocking other player's plays seems underdeveloped as does the "corruption" marker mechanic, which can sometimes cause minor trouble for you when you want to add new cards to your board, but otherwise doesn't come into play much. For a game this complicated, I wish it had a little more flexibility, as when I play it I don't feel I have many meaningful choices to make. I just do my best to get the achievements done as fast as I can, and I hope other players don't happen to get in my way. ★ 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

GaGarfieldstar2.0

After reading the rules no desire to ever play it. Just too dry for me.