OUR REVIEW
A Multi-million INHERITANCE
Der Letzte Wille
Expenses, Expenses and more expenses
From the diary of an expert gamer: A new game? Read the rules first! Usually somewhere in the rules you find the sentence: “You win with most prestige points” or “If you own most money at the end of the game, you win” or maybe “If you are furthest advanced on the scoring track you have won”. How refreshingly different it is to be confronted with a game with another aim. Last Will is such an exception! Here you must be the first to have spent all your money!
Jumping-off point for this goal is a sad event: Our rich uncle has died and each of us us is his heir presumptive. To choose the most worthy heir uncle has come up with something unusual in his will: Each heir presumptive receives a neat sum in cash and must try to spend this sum as fast as possible. The first one to go bankrupt will be the lucky heir to all of Uncle’s assets.
So each player receives a certain amount of cash at the start of the game – either 70 Pounds flat or you draw one of the Last Will cards which determine the starting money, which is also at least 70 Pounds. The higher your starting capital is the more difficult it is to end the game prematurely before the end of Round 7. When a player achieves the goal to go bankrupt before the end of Round 7 the game ends in the round when he manages this. Otherwise the game ends automatically after Round 7.
Players spend their cash with the help of their cards in hand, these cards offer the manifold possibilities to spend or squander money. Depending on the kind of card you either display them openly on your own game board or play them and discard them or they offer you to spend extra money via companions. What option you can use depends on the kind of card you play. Normal cards come in four different varieties:
Properties cards enable a player to buy a property. This property either drops in value when it is not properly taken care of or enables you to spend money on the upkeep of the building. Properties are marked by a symbol in of four colors: Mansions, Town Houses, Manor Houses and Farms. The color of the symbols is important for buying and selling properties and for the use of helper cards (see below). If you buy a Mansion, a Town House or a Manor House you receive a property value marker to record the current value of you property on the card. Farms cannot depreciate and therefore do not need a marker. Property cards are marked with a black border on the front side.
Event cards represent unique events, which can be used to spend money immediately. The card is played and is discarded when you have paid the costs. Event cards are marked with a white border on the front side.
Companion Cards are meant to enable you to raise your expenses. Companions can be dogs, horses, chefs or guests. So, for instance, a dinner gets much more expensive when you invite guests, or the upkeep of a building is also much more expensive when dogs are in the house. For companions that are played in combination with black-bordered cards a player receives the corresponding companion marker, for instance a brown marker if you played a dog. This marker is deposited on the black-bordered card and stays there to the end of the game. The companion card itself is discarded. Companion cards are marked with a grey border on their front side.
The helper and expense cards have two different abilities. On the one hand, they allow you to spend additional money and on the other hand they offer functions, pictured by icons on the bottom border of the card, to support you during the action phase. Helper and expense cards are marked with a black border on the front side.
At the start of the game each player receives three property cards and three helper and expense cards, of which you can only keep any two of your choice. The rest of the game is played in rounds, during which each player acquires card and uses cards with the use of actions on his cards. At the end of each round each player must discard cards if necessary to reduce his hand to two cards.
How do players acquire cards during the game? For this purpose two game boards are placed on the table, the planning board and the card offering board. Both boards have two different sides, one for use with 2 or 3 players, and the other side for use with 4 or 5 players. The card offering board is supplemented with an additional board in case of 3 or 5 players. Next to those game boards the normal cards, as described above, are stacked according to type as general stock.
On the card offering board cards are laid out open faced at the start of each round in Phase 1 of the round, different types of cards in correlation with the current number of the round. In addition to those cards special cards are used, they show one or several crown symbols on their back side. These special cards can either be events or helpers or expenses, but are considerably more powerful than the normal cards. Finally, you can acquire one or two companion joker cards via the card offering board, which can be used as any companion of your choice during a round. All those cards form the card offer of the current round and can be acquired by players in a later phase of the round.
By the use of the planning board you acquire cards in phase 2 of the round, the planning phase. The planning board features six or eight circles depicting a sand timer; each player in turn from the starting player on chooses one sand timer and places his planning marker in his color on the timer. Each sand timer is connected to a space which lists three criteria in different combinations in each space. So each player, when choosing a sand timer, also chooses the criteria of the corresponding space. Furthermore, the sand timers are depicted in a row, as they also set the playing order for the rest of the round. The first criterion in a space defines the number of the errand boy figures that a player can place in the next phase on the boards. Each player holds two such errand boy figures in his color, shaped like a hat, or more exactly, an opera hat. Depending on the sand timer chosen you may place one or both of the errand boys in phase 3.
The value of the second criterion decides the number of cards a player can take up as soon as he has chosen a sand timer. He can draw this number of cards in any combination from the four stacks of normal cards. The number of cards he can take lies between zero and seven cards, but, as already mentioned, you must reduce your cards in hand to two at the end of the round.
The third criterion, finally, decides the number of actions that a player can implement in his turn in phase 4. This is the moment to praise the the exact, continuous use of symbols throughout the game; actions are always acquired by collecting A’s in green spaces; A’s in red spaces always denote that you have to spend actions.
When each player has placed his planning marker, the planning-phase is complete. All other phases are now implemented in the player order set by the planning markers on the planning board from left to right.
The ensuing phase 3, the errands, is used by all players to acquire the offerings on both (or three) boards. In playing order players place one of their errand boy figures and then a second turn follows for all players who are allowed to place their second errand boy figure. The errand boys are placed next to the chosen offer on the space provided for this purpose and thus block this offer for all other players.
The card offering board and the additional board, enable you, as you might have guessed from the name, to acquire one of the cards on display there. You place your errand boy figure next to the card and take up the card immediately. Usually there is one placement spot for the errand boy figure, in case of 2 to 3 players there are 2 placement spots for 3 cards, so that two players can choose from three cards. Depending on the number of players there is a selection of 7 to 9 cards on offer in each round.
The planning board offers an additional number of four offers. These offers include the acquisition of a normal card, that is, the top card from one of the four stacks of general stock. This offer can be used by each player, independent from the selection/planning of other players, as there is one space per player for the errand boy figure.
The next possibility is to acquire an expansion for your player board, so that a player can place more cards on the table than the 5 spaces provided by the starting player board. This offer can only be used while there are still expansions for player boards available.
Another possibility offered is the selection of a visit to the theatre. If you place your errand boy marker there you can immediately spend 2 Pounds.
Finally, the most interesting option is the option to switch modification markers for the property market. This enables you to raise or lower the prices for properties by up to 3 Pounds. Four markers are distributed randomly at the start of the game on the four kinds of properties, which are identified / distinguished by color. If you place your errand boy marker there you can change the distribution to your liking. This switch recommends itself especially before buying a certain building to make this more expensive or before selling it in order to get less money for it. The price of any property is always the sum of the current value of the property as noted on the card plus modification marker for this kind of property on the planning board and – maybe – additional helper cards.
When the errand boy markers are placed this phase and and players can implement their actions in the next phase.
In Phase 4, Actions, a player uses all actions currently at his disposition to spend as much money as possible. The number of actions results from the selection of the sand timer on the planning board, helper cards on the player’s board and hand cards played, which can bring additional actions. Each action that is marked with an “A” in a red space costs one action.
To play a card from your hand onto your player’s board always costs on action. When the card is marked with “A” on red, it costs an additional action. All cards with a black border must be placed onto the player’s board in order to be able to use their functions or to spend money accordingly. Using a card can demand actions; this is again denoted by the “A” in a red space. Each card deployed on the board can be used once in a turn, even if it was played just in this round. After using the card it is moved downwards on the board to that the green tick becomes visible, this is the equivalent of tapping a card. Each card that you want to deploy takes up a free space on your player’s board or expansion for your player’s board. When there is no free space left you need to discard a card already displayed on the board; you cannot discard a property for this purpose, properties can only be sold.
When a player buys a property this costs an action too, as the card is placed onto the player’s board. You pay the price stated on the card and take into account the already mentioned modifications. The upkeep of properties, too, always costs an action, unless you own a corresponding helper. The costs for upkeep can be raised by companions. In order to do so you must play a companion card and then place the corresponding companion marker onto the property card. Playing of the companion card also costs an action. Companions must be played per property card in the order depicted on the card.
Selling of properties also costs an action. You remove the property card from your player’s board and receive the corresponding sum of money according to the current value of the property, modified by the respective markers and helpers. As long as a player owns properties he cannot declare himself bankrupt.
Activities that do not show the „A“ on red do not cost an action and can be implemented during your turn anytime you want. These activities are usually connected with the use of helper cards. The costs that are accrued by those activities are noted in the right top corner of the card.
Event cards always cost at least one action, depending on the notations on the card, and are discarded after being played. Some event cards allow a player to choose the number of actions he wants to use, which in turn result in the costs of the card. Other event cards can be played together with companion cards to raise their costs. The companion cards are then discard and do not cost additional actions.
During the action phase you can also use the functions noted on the bottom border of your own helper cards displayed on your board. Those functions comprise raising expenditures, saving or winning back actions and modifications of prices to buy and sell properties as well as receiving or keeping of hand cards.
Each player uses all his available actions to spend money; then it is the next player’s turn, in playing order according to the markers on the sand timers. But take care: You cannot incur debts while you are still holding property. This means that you cannot play actions that need more spending money than you have cash available. But you can relinquish companions that might be there and lower costs to be able to implement an action.
When all players have completed their turns phase 4 ends. Should a player go bankrupt in phase 4 of rounds 1 to 6 the round is finished all the same, but the game ends with this round, no additional round is played.
In phase 5 you implement the end of a round. Each player must reduce his cards in hand to two cards unless he owns an appropriate helper. Properties that have not been maintained (the card has not been shifted downwards on the player’s board) are no depreciated, the property marker is moved to the next lower value on the card, if there is still such a value available. All cards that were used are shifted back upwards to cover the green tick, the remaining cards on the card offering board and the additional board are removed. Players take back their planning markers and their errand boy markers into their personal stock. Finally, the starting player marker is handed to the next player to the right which ends phase 5 and marks the start of a new round.
After a maximum of 7 rounds the game ends. The player with the highest debts or the lowest fortune wins Uncle’s inheritance. The fortune of a player is calculated from his cash and his properties; properties are evaluated at their current value + 5 Pounds for this final calculation of fortune.
With Last Will Vladimír Suchý has created a very atmospheric game that provides a different game each time. The appeal of the game is to find new and more costly ways to spend your money.
Last Will has strategic components like the helpers who favor certain properties, but despite of this the tactical part of the game dominates. Interaction among players is also a deciding factor, in each round one must deliberate if one wants to make sure that one gets an important card from the card offering board by placing the planning marker on the leftmost position or if one would rather have more actions or more errand boy markers at one’s disposition. Especially the choice of this combination from playing order, additional hand cards, useable errand boy markers and available actions makes the game so attractive and leads to new situations in the game again and again, not to talk of the exhilarant aim of the game coupled with the feeling finally to be able to spend money hands down. Nearly incredible, but true: it is fun to see how your money dwindles!
Like almost all games using cards Last Will has a chance element. This can be controlled by the player as it is up to him which type of card and how many cards he wants to draw in his turn or during the planning.
Last Will plays very well with all numbers of players listed by the rules. Due to the different boards the game is nicely balanced for each number of players; but you must observe and implement the additional rules for a game of two players.
The flair of the game leaves nothing to be desired, either. Cards and playing boards are nicely and attractively designed, and the content of cards is also very coherent: That an old sea dog costs you more in case of a boat trip or if you invite for a drink is rather self-evident. And beautiful coach for a drive costs money, too! And that due to your investment consultant properties get more expensive when you want to buy and cheaper when you want to sell, comes straight from real life!
Last Will can be recommended wholeheartedly and will be applauded when played with friends or by experts.
Bernhard Czermak
Players: 2–5
Age: 13+
Time: 75+
Designer: Vladimír Suchý
Artist: Tomáš Kucerovský
Price: ca. 29 Euro
Publisher: CGE / Heidelberger 2011
Web: www.hds-fantasy.de
Genre : Economics game
Users: With friends
Version: de
Rules: de en
In-game text: no
Comments
Unusual aim of the game
Witty illustrations
Entertaining, diversified game flow
Compares to:
MAD for the topic
Other editions:
Last Will, CGE / Z-Man Games
My rating: 6
Bernhard Czermak:
Last Will is a very entertaining, mainly tactical game with a refreshingly new topic whose allure lies in the unrestricted spending of money and being rewarded for it.
Chance (pink): 1
Tactic (turquoise): 3
Strategy (blue): 1
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 0
Communication (red): 0
Interaction (brown): 3
Dexterity (green): 0
Action (dark green): 0