This text is part of the special notebook Culture as a Gift
Prehistory, ancient civilizations or Viking saga? Have fun diving into history with our three favorite board games for Christmas!
December is almost here, with Christmas on the horizon, we’re already starting to think about the holiday season. Whether to slip under the tree wrapped in pretty gift paper, or to enjoy good times during your family reunion, let yourself be carried away by these little treasure boxes, which benefit from the superb universes reinvented by illustrators from talent. No bloody conquests, Jarnac blows or bad vibrations in our winter selection, but peaceful mechanics, where interactions are often limited to stealing a card from under the opponent’s nose. Fun in a box for two, three or four players!
“Elawa”, return to wild ages
Big game in a small square format, Elawa takes us back to the early days of humanity, in the shoes of a leader who wants to grow his tribe, just a little better than his neighbors. Around the campfire, six piles of cards offer their share of hunters, gatherers or fishermen — men and women — to recruit, but also tools or habitats to build. The mechanics are very simple, and the rounds follow one another without any downtime. You choose a card, you take the associated resource tokens (wood, bone, stone, etc.), then you play the cards from your hand, paying their cost (you still need to have the right resources). And it’s on to the next one. By forcing the player to take the best option among only six available cards, we limit the phenomenon ofanalysis paralysis, which kills the pacing of so many ambitious games. We’ve all known that player who, when his turn comes, immediately makes you want to get up to check on the capon’s cooking. None of that in Elawa : it’s quick, almost instinctive. At the end of the game, each card placed offers a sometimes fixed number of victory points, sometimes linked to other cards in its tribe, which requires maximizing synergies. Short enough (we’re talking about twenty minutes) to satisfy young players, but offering a bonus to opportunistic strategists capable of stringing together optimal decisions, Elawa is a game that will please everyone, and which will come out of its box easily. Ideal as an appetizer, or for a game on the go.
Elawa2-4 players, 20 minutes/game, Bombyx éditions, $23
“Knarr”, the princes of the sea
The musicians have their seven notes (and a few eighth notes). Writers have their 60,000 words (as Jean Cocteau said: “ a masterpiece of literature is just a dictionary written out of order “). It is always surprising to note that, despite the thousands of games already published, creators still manage to recombine the same elements, based on cards, pawns and dice, to offer fun experiences that are each different. In the case of Knarrtake what was said aboutElawa and double it! Double the playing time, double the strategic wealth, but also double the fun. Because the only thing that doesn’t change remains the simplicity of an ultra-dynamic system. On board your Knaar (a trade-oriented longship), you will recruit a crew of Vikings and send them on an exploration, to obtain ever more fame. Sublimely illustrated by comic strip author Antoine Carrion on large tarot format cards, Knarr smells of sea spray and sagas sung by the fire. A very simple card drawing and color combination mechanic offers a fair variety of options: focus on the exploration of distant lands and pocket a maximum of points, or favor trading posts, requiring fewer sailors, but paying less short term ? Recruit bards for small but steady gains? Or a little of all that? It will take many games to learn how to optimize your strategy. A huge favorite for this title with its elegant mechanics as remarkable as the quality of its hardware: as soon as the box is closed, you will want to reopen it to restart a game. Perfect with a cinnamon hot chocolate after returning from a snowshoe hike.
Knarr, 2-4 players, 40 minutes/game, Bombyx éditions, $31
“Ancient Knowledge”, golden age and decline
And now here is the main course. The five-course menu from our selection. Ancient Knowledge offers a rare theme, that of the decline of ancient civilizations, building magnificent works, developing incredible knowledge, before sinking into oblivion. The heart of the game thus lies in this timeline present on each player’s table, on which the cards representing incredible historical monuments will inevitably slide to the left, until disappearing into “the past”. If you have not managed to collect all the knowledge tablets placed on it in time, they will be lost and will count as a penalty during the final count. But that’s not all: the player can also build up to five artifacts with immense powers. And acquire universal knowledge, by studying one of the three categories (elders, secrets, and writings), with equally varied effects on the game. And each turn, draw more and more cards with unique powers. Temple of Karnak, pyramids of Coba or Gunug Padang, but also Plato, discovery of the number pi or the elongated skulls of Paracas: Ancient Knowledge succeeds in putting you in the shoes of an archaeologist discovering forgotten sites and artifacts. But all this wealth comes at a price.
A game for adults!
The small “expert” logo on the box may seem misleading. Reading the rules, the game is not complex. Its mechanics based on placing and discarding cards is even very simple. But between nine pieces of knowledge available for purchase, to which are added the cards in his hand (up to ten), plus those already placed on his board (up to seventeen), which interact with each other, there is a lot, really a lot, of text to read so as not to forget anything… because each monument, technology or artifact is unique! We therefore arrive at a level of complexity which reserves Ancient Knowledge to an audience of informed players, or at least inclined to play regularly enough to memorize most of the material and avoid downtime due to the discovery of new cards. Beautifully illustrated with historical and legendary places and objects, Ancient Knowlegde is a game that we want to love and which deserves this time of appropriation. The first few rounds of the game may seem laborious, but halfway through the game, when everyone understands what they are doing (and already regrets their first decisions), the game becomes fast and fascinating. Visually exciting, cerebrally convincing, it provides a solid feeling of accomplishment when you manage to set up its synergy, its “game engine”, which combines card drawing, harvesting tablets of knowledge and management of the timeline. Recounting in its own way the entire journey of humanity, Ancient Knowlegde is an ambitious game that makes you rediscover the world during a wonderful journey through time.
Ancient Knowledge, 2-4 players, 1h30/game, Lello, $60
This content was produced by the Special Publications team at Duty, relating to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part.