Today's review is of the 2012 release, Fantastiqa. For 2-4 players, it takes 60+ minutes. Note: this game has two editions: enchanted and rucksack. It is the same game; the latter is more compact and affordable.
Overview
Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Fantastiqa! In this deck-building game, your goal is to complete quests. To do so, you will need to recruit creatures to your cause by subduing them and adding them to your deck for future use. The game ends when a player has met or exceeded the victory point total (decided before the game, based on number of players and desired game length). But beware! Unfinished quests count as negative points, so make sure you don't bite off more than you can chew.
Fantastiqa features six locations, each with a statue (beast, artifact, or quest) randomly placed during setup. Each statue has a corresponding deck. Between each location, creature cards are placed at setup (and replenished when defeated). Two quests are placed near the board's center. Each player places their token at a location, shuffles their starting deck, and draws five cards. Then the game begins!
 |
| The game after setup; image from here |
- replenish the board: put creature cards and quest cards on empty slots as needed
- take one 'turn' action (go adventuring, visit a statue, or complete a quest: described below)
- before and/or after your turn action, take free actions: commit cards to quests, use special powers, use artifact cards
- end your turn: discard all used cards, keep or discard unused cards as you please, and draw five cards
The turn actions:
- go adventuring: subdue creature(s) by using cards in your hand that match the creature's vulnerabilities. You must start from your token's location and can move around the board on connecting lines, subduing as many creatures as you can pay for.
- visit a statue: if you are at a statue location, you can draw 3 cards from the matching statue deck (artifact, beast, or quest) and choose 1 (or more, if you can pay for them), pay 2 gems to teleport to the other matching statue on the board, or release [exile] 1-3 cards from your hand or discard pile, paying 1 gem per.
- complete a quest: if you are at the quest's stated location and have all the matching symbols on the card, announce that you have completed the quest, earning the gem reward and quest points and discarding the cards you used to complete it.
Turns proceed clockwise until one player accumulates the required quest points. Whenever your deck of cards runs out, shuffle your discard pile to form a new deck. As any cards you acquire (outside of quests) are put in the discard pile, this is how you gain access to your new cards.
Review
I played this game once solo and once with friends. Both times, I came away thinking "this has promise" but also "meh." Its good points:
- the tone is whimsical and the art fun.
- there are some interesting twists to deck-building in here. The ability to move around, buying cards based on location, and so on.
The bad points:
- it can be confusing; there are quite a few things going on
- you can easily get locked in at a location based on the cards you would need to subdue adjacent creatures to move
- the "one turn action" rule really slows things down. You can have the cards you need to complete a quest, but to get to the location required, you may have to spend them and then wait until the right cards come back.
- the free actions are cool but can be confusing, as it is easy to confuse them with the turn action
Overall, this is worth a few more plays, but there may be better deck-builders out there.
Rating: B
No comments:
Post a Comment