by PaulGrogan
By popular demand, here is the first part of a sneak preview into one of the new CGE games for this year.Over the next few weeks, I will be doing additional previews, explaining further parts of the game. Note that at the time of writing, there is only one finished image available - the game board.
The rest of the game is still being finalised, but as that gets finished I will be showing that too.
Ideally, I'd be able to show you a picture of the board with the gears on to explain how that works, but as it is, that image isnt ready yet, so that will come later.
For now, I will explain the very basic overview, which some of you will already know if you've read any of the other postings about the game from other peoples blogs (and my video
)I'm hugely looking forward to the release of the game because I've been quite invovled in the process, only a minor part compared to others, but I've been playing it for months now. It has certainly gripped my interest as a worker placement game but with moving parts, and I'm very happy that from all the demos done at various cons around the world over the last few months, the game has been popular. Feedback from the Gathering of Friends was that this was one of the most popular games there, and also my experience and feedback from the UK Games Expo.
I'm doing volunteer work at Essen this year again, helping demo this game, and I'm really looking forward to it as the game is fairly easy to teach, being one where the rules are relatively easy, but gameplay decisions are important.
Tzolk'in is a game for 2-4 players that lasts up to 26 turns. The central gear seen in this prototype image...
...is rotated at the start of each round. A round being when all players have taken their turns. So, everyone takes a turn and then just before the start players turn, the gear rotates one notch. Once the central gear has done one complete revolution, the game is over.
There is a way to alter the start player (look on the left side of the game board for a space underneath a feather hat).
There is also a way that each player may choose to rotate the central gear by 2 notches instead of 1, but they can only do this once per game. So, if all players do this at some point, the game will only last 22 rounds.
Each player starts with a few resources (chosen from a randomly dealt set of cards), and 3 'workers' (I'm not sure what the final term for these is going to be, but lets face it, everyone will call them workers)
On a players turn, they have two choices. Either place workers, or take them off the board. Simples
When placing, they can place as many as they want (remember though that you only start with 3), but the cost to place them (paid in corn) increases the more you place.
When taking workers from the board, again, you can take as many as you want. Taking workers off does not cost corn and lets you activate the ability of the space they are on.
Of course, if all your workers are on the board, you cannot place any more, and more importantly, you cannot simply pass. You have to do one or the other.
The basic mechanics of the gear system is that when the central gear rotates, all the other gears also rotate, meaning your worker that you placed moves to a better position. Essentially, the longer you leave him there, the better ability he gets.
So, if on turn 1 you place 3 workers, and then on turn 2 you take those 3 workers off, each of them will only have advanced 1 notch on the gear. If however, you leave one on there longer, when you do take him off, the ability is a lot stronger.
Thats all for now. In my next preview, I will cover the different gears and what they do.
Please can I ask no questions at this stage, I will be explaining more over the coming weeks.
Thanks all,
Paul