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The Island of El Dorado is a tile laying, resource management game where the goal is to be the first player to control the shrines. Two to four players can play and it has a play time of around an hour once you have learnt the rules.
Coming to Kickstarter on August 29, Daniel Aronson has done a great job with the marketing and getting people involved in the build up to the Kickstarter launch.
Set-up
The Island of El Dorado is very easy to set-up and you will be ready to play after these steps:
- Players choose which explorer to take control of and take the player board and its matching pieces. These all have unique abilities, giving each explore a tactical edge at one strategy.
- Separate the wood, food and gold resource cards and place on the table.
- Place the cave exit tile on top of the shuffled cave tile stack.
- Shuffle the EL Dorado tiles and place the stack on the table. Turn the top tile over and place this in the centre of the table, this is the start tile and all players put their explorer piece here.
- Each player takes one of each resource.
- Roll a dice to see who goes first.
How to play
Like the set-up, The Island of El Dorado is very easy to pick up and play. On your turn you only have three actions to complete. These are:
- Roll two dice and choose which one is your speed (movement) and which one is your gather dice.
- Take your gather dice and take that number of resources.
- This is the meat of the game and has multiple choices of what to do, including Explore (move), buy or attack.
Exploring is where you will uncover tiles and traverse the island. During movement, you can spend resources to get more villagers or maybe even build a fort.
The last option you can do during the explore phase is attack. Attacking happens when you move onto a tile occupied by an opponent.
- Roll two dice and choose which one is your speed (movement) and which one is your gather dice.
- Take your gather dice and take that number of resources.
- This is the meat of the game and has multiple choices of what to do, including Explore (move), buy or attack.
Exploring is where you will uncover tiles and traverse the island. During movement, you can spend resources to get more villagers or maybe even build a fort. The last option you can do during the explore phase is attack. Attacking happens when you move onto a tile occupied by an opponent.
The game itself plays at a great pace and every game will vary in length as the tile stacks are random, which aids replay-ability. Having unique player abilities will again add to the reply-ability and each player really does make the game feel different.
The way you travel the land is and uncover tiles is very thematic. Players are kept engaged and interaction starts of slow but soon ramps up when one or two shrines have been uncovered.
Final Thoughts on The Island of El Dorado
The Island of El Dorado is quick to set-up and play time does just fly by. I played a few games with my partner and kids, and they seemed to handle the rules and understand the different tactics involved so I would say it’s a game that would suit families.
Underneath the surface of a family game is a lot of hidden depth where tactics and thoughtful planning is needed. Some games can last a lot longer if two or three players constantly chip away at each other. This means that if you get a few gamers together that really like to make things difficult for each other, games can become quite intense.
The copy I played was a prototype and during the time I had it some of the rules changed. This means that they are not final and what I have explained above is subject to change. However, one rule that did change during my time with the game was one concerning the combat. I found that the combat was brutal and it was changed so that if you lose only half of your resources are taken. This was brilliant as it shows that Daniel will listen to feedback and act accordingly, something that will help him in the games industry in my opinion.
To summarise, the game is good for families and strategic gamers. Variable playtime and added replay-ability due to the set up adding more pros to this game. Make sure you check it out when it comes to Kickstarter on August 29.