by FabienC
I had the great privilege of trying this game at the Cannes Game Festival with Mr. Faidutti himself !
While it was still in prototype form, both B. Faidutti and the editor (Philippe Nouhra of FunForge) agreed that the game wouldn't change anymore.
After a crazy game of [thing=42490][/thing], B. Faidutti asked my group of five people if we would like to try his next game: Isla Dorada.
Needless to say that we all immediately agreed.
The story
In Isla Dorada, you are an explorer. You and your colleagues have crashed your zeppelin deep into this island and you are all set up to start exploring. You are your colleagues are not what you can call a team, as you all have your own agenda. Unfortunately, the island is too dangerous for a lone man, so you'll have to team up with the other explorers.
The game
Isla Dorada looks very much like a pick-up and deliver game, but the catch is that all players must move to the same location, as a team. There is therefore only one pawn on the board, which represents the expedition.
There are three kinds of landscape on this island: desert, in which you will travel on camel backs, jungle in which you will move on giant gorilla's backs and mountain for which you will need yacks.
Then there are rivers, a lake and the sea, on which you will need a raft.
These various means of transportation are represented by cards that you keep in your hand.
At the beginning of the game, each player receives some gold and several cards:
- a curse card
- three treasure cards
- a mission card
The curse card bears the name of a village of the island that has cursed you. If you step into this village, you are going to loose points at the end of the game.
The treasure cards are basically treasure maps. They indicate a village in which there is a treasure. If the expedition moves to this village, you will get points at the end of the game.
Finally, you have a mission. Missions can be very different. It can be to collect as many treasures as possible, it can be to end the game with as many yacks in your hand as possible, it can be to get the team to visit 5 different villages, and so on.
As I mentioned before, all players must move together as a team, so to decide where to go, you'll use a bidding mechanism.
The expedition leader will tell his team where he want to go and will say how much he is willing to spend to go there. Going clockwise, the other players will either agree, or propose another destination by bidding higher.
However, what you use to bid is not money, but means of transportation.
For example, if the road that leads from where you are to the village of Batu goes through the desert, you would bid how many camels you are ready to spend to go there. If another player wants to go to Pong instead and the road to Pong goes through mountains, he would need to bid yacks for a total value higher than the previous player. Of course, it means that he has enough yack cards in his hand.
The bidding continues until everybody passes. The player who won the bid discards the necessary cards and the team moves to this new location. The winner of the bid becomes the new expedition leader.
Every time the team stops in a village, a small token in placed on its location, that way, when counting points at the end of the game, you know which treasures you have collected and if your mission has been completed.
After the team has moved, each player will draw a new card. The card drawing system is similar to the one in [thing=9209][/thing], four cards are visible and you can either pick one of them, or the first one in the draw pile.
If you want, you can spend one of your gold to buy a second card. However, you have to keep in mind that there is no way to get gold during the game, what is spent is spent.
The expedition will move 16 times and then the game ends.
Of course, there are lots of special cards. Some cards are special means of transportation:
- dragons are worth 2 in the bidding for any kind of landscape you need to cross but you have to pay gold to use them
- the zeppelin is worth 5 in the bidding for any kind of landscape but you have to pay 3 gold to use it
If you plan on bidding with only dragons and/or a zeppelin, since you are flying, you can go anywhere on the map, not only to a village connected to the one you are in.
Some special cards are not used to move the team, but are cards that have an effect immediately. These cards can be used to draw a card in another player's hand, to change your mission card, to place a yeti on a road, thus blocking it, and so on.
Conclusion
Me and my small team had a lot of fun playing this game. The game really flows, with no interruptions, because everyone is basically playing at the same time. It's really funny when everyone wants to go to the same village except for one player who is ready to bet everything he has NOT to go there (who said curse ?).
The game is for 3 to 6 players. We played it with 6 and it was really good.
Cooperation is mandatory, but so is a good stab in the back when needed
We manage to get Bruno Faidutti cursed, which was a small victory, but he still won the game
It's a game that I would place in the same category as [thing=28023][/thing] or [thing=40769][/thing]. Light but not too light.
I can't wait for it to be released in its final design. Philippe Nouhra showed me drawings from the artist, and I can tell you that it will be beautiful !"
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