Let’s get one thing out of the way really quick – I’m not a “pro reviewer.” I don’t know all of the specific terms for mechanisms, I make mistakes with the rules when I play sometimes, and I don’t really get the chance to play hundreds of games a year. What I will say is, I LOVE playing games. It’s special when I get something to the table to play with friends, my wife, or other random people. I love strategy, discovery, and a good challenge. That is the lens in which I will be writing my reviews. If you want an in-depth break down of turns and what to do and all that, there are so many other awesome people out there, and on this site, that do that much better than I can. Think of my reviews as a board gamers version of Matthew Berry’s Love/Hate weekly Fantasy Football articles on ESPN 😉
With that said…. Here we go.
The year was 2014. Late December. I was teaching high school band in Austin, TX, and my wife and I were finally living in the same city for the first time in 6 months. Long story, but, I got a new job after grad school, wife was told she could work remotely, we moved from Dallas to Austim, wife’s work went back on their word, wife commuted to Dallas and back to Austin for the weekends. Since I taught high school band, I worked a lot of weekends, so even when Rachel would come back, I was usually working, or a zombie. We knew that this unfortunate arrangement wasn’t going to work, and luckily Rachel was head-hunted by a consulting firm in the same field that allowed her to work from home. Yahtzee! So now I was on winter break, she had 3-weeks off as she transitioned jobs, and we were at home, together, for the first time in half a year, and with nothing to do…… So we got a crazy idea – let’s go to the FLGS and buy a board game! This would be the first game we had ever played past the American staples of Monopoly, Sorry!, etc. It was suggested that we buy Carcassonne, so we did, and oh, did we play it! We went back the next day, bought the Big Box, and a few other expansions (did I mention I have compulsive tendencies…..) So, our gaming life started with laying tiles down. So many tiles. A normal game of Carcassonne for Rachel and I would consist of a double base set and 6-8 expansions. Word of warning – the Dragon can end relationships…… The games will last days and completely take over a room. Anyway…… all of this is to say, we love tile laying games, and Sorcerer City is a fantastic addition to that love.
At its core, it’s a drafting and tile laying game, but there’s so much more. There are three “phases” of the game if you will. The first is blindly shuffling your tiles, stack them face down, and then laying them one-by-one in order to create colored districts that will generate one of the four currencies – raw magic (to be converted into one of the other three), influence (determines buy order and who gets which rewards, if any), money (used to buy new tiles) and prestige (Victory Points). The next phase will give you rewards based off of how much of the influence you earned. The last phase is where you purchase new, more powerful tiles with the money earned to add to the “basic” set that each player starts with. The new tiles that you can buy give you more ways to earn each of the four currencies, offer purchase discounts, allow you to move unfortunately placed tiles, kill monsters, and other things that can give you an advantage in the game. Phase two and three are turn based, going from highest to lowest influence.
Seems easy right? Match the colors and you’re on your way. Well…. Not so fast. As I mentioned above, you don’t know what order your tiles will come out in since they are face down and shuffled. Also, the amount of time that you have to lay down the tiles and make your districts is limited! (3 minutes = easy, 2 min = normal, 1 min = hard). 2 minutes is more than enough time at the start, but as your tile deck goes from 13, to 25, and possibly over 30, it becomes almost impossible, even on easy, to play all of your tiles. This adds some tension, and lots of excitement, to the game.
Next are the monsters….. They are fun. And by fun, I mean vicious. One new and unique monster will infiltrate your city at the end of each of the first four rounds. These tiles will remove some of your useful tiles from the game, cover up others, restrict you from placing useful tiles next to them, move useful tiles, and so much more. They are a pain, and that’s why I love them. It’s another element you have to worry about while you’re under pressure to get your city built in time.
Things that let the game shine and have a lot of replayability are the random draw of the tiles, drafting, the variety of monsters that infiltrate your city each round, and the numerous influence rewards. Drafting will always lead to variety in terms of what order tiles come out to be purchased and what tiles are available when it’s your turn to purchase. There are 14 different Influence Reward cards, of which you will play 4 each game. These rewards allow you to purchase at a discount, gain free tiles, get more prestige, send monsters to another player, and many more fun twists. Rewards are only available to the top two influence scorers each round, so deciding what to convert your raw magic into each round will be determined by the quality of the reward and where you stand against each other player. The reward may be worth it or you may want to convert your raw magic to money this round to buy better and more tiles, or just convert it to prestige to get more VP’s immediately. There are also over 20 unique monsters, of which you will use 4 each game as well. With so much variety, you’ll always have a unique experience playing the game.
So, if you’re still reading, you’re probably excited to start laying down some tiles and racking up prestige. A few final words and praise for the game – It teaches very easily, is visually attractive on the table, and can be played by serious gamers and non-gamers of pretty much any age. Oh! And there is a really cool app in the app store that has a timer and music that builds and intensifies as you get closer to zero on the timer! Really helps with the anxiety when you’re trying to lay those last 8 tiles with 5 seconds left!
The game was just delivered to their Kickstarter Backers last month and will be hitting retail on January 8th, so make sure you contact your FLGS and get your order in today!
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