PLAYED FOR YOU

Shafausa

MINE RESOURCES, acculmulate riches

In Switzerland in a parallel universe the Dwarves of Shafausa have discovered rare resources and the rivalry for their exploitation begins. You represent one people and in each round you can shop for buildings, mines or warehouses, swap currency or influence commerce to increase the assets of your people. A round comprises: Mining of resources, order of play, buy building and build warehouse; husbandry with any number of actions; administration of resources with sale of surplus, buildings and free market; speculation and check for end of game.

Those are the basic elements which are used in three games of different levels of difficulty - Family, Geek or Colonial variant.

In the Family variant you win with most victory points; the speculation phase is left out, and the order of play is determined according to the order of the previous round - the second one plays first, the third one comes second, etc.

In the Geek version there is an auction for the order of play, buildings are bought, you can construct up to two warehouses, and the victory conditions are different.

The Colonial version needs a different set-up at the start, there is no infrastructure whatsoever; in a start-up phase you choose three start-up tiles, one in turn; after two tiles a new order of play is determined and then you choose the third tile in this order. Then start-up situations are adjusted according to the tiles - money and buildings, towns and miners.

A challenging game, the background story on Switzerland in an alternate reality is nice, but the design of the game is a bit dark and confusing, albeit providing very beautiful components.

Players: 2-6

Age: 8+ / 14+

Time: 120+

Designer: Christophe Borgeat

Artist: Lorenzo Mastroianni, Olivier Debons

Price: ca. 67 Euro

Publisher: Helvetia Games 2012

Web: www. Helvetia-games.ch

Genre: Resources, trade, auction

Users: For experts

Version: multi

Rules: de en fr it

In-game text: no

Comments:

Nice background story

Due to three levels also playable for less experienced players

Basically good rules with a few ambiguities

Good components, albeit a bit dark and gloomy

Compares to:

Other resources management games

Other editions:

Currently none

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 1

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0