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Abtei der Rätsel
Monk and novice searching for letters
Once upon a time ….. This is normally the beginning for a fairy tale and some kind of fairy tale applies to the beginning of this review because it applies to the beginnings of the game. Once upon a time there was an ambitious game designer by the name of Thomas Fackler, who once, in the early 90ties of the previous century, presented the prototype of game, which was thought to be very good by all who did try it out. He received lots of praise and encouragement, also to maybe publish the game himself. Then silence reigned for a time and then came a note by the designer that would really publish the game himself and had decided on an unusual presentation_ He was going to produce an extremely limited and exclusive luxury version of the game, a game that from the start was intended to more a piece of art and a collector’s item than a game.
And this came about – hand-crafted from parchment, vat paper, white clay, pear tree wood and gold embosses then and still today a work of art was created, which at the moment can be bought for 2600 Euros as one copy of a maximum of 200. As it often happens in fairy tales, when the clarions fall silent and the prince has disappeared, the common folk is left behind wistfully, so it does happen here, because for most of us this is a price beyond what is possible. Unfortunately you cannot simply turn your back and call it a luxury toy for a showcase, because it was and is a good game.
It is loosely based on the novel “The Name of the Rose” by Umberto Eco, only that the monks are not tasked with clearing up a crime, but with solving a puzzle which is posed by one player in the role of the abbot who protects the puzzle from the monks. This puzzle is a word made up from 5 to letters, is hidden letter by letter in books and must be solved by the monks. To find the letters the monks and their novices move through the abbey, monks more slowly, novices faster, the monks read the books, the novices carry the books. The abbot wants to obstruct the solving of the puzzle, he can block books and rooms and can chase away characters from books. Furthermore, books can wander from room to room which offers the opportunity to read some books that otherwise would not be available. At fixed times in their schedule the monks must congregate at certain locations, for instance at noon in the Refectory or at night in the Dormitory. At night you can also read one book from the library. After two days the puzzle must be solved or the abbot wins.
But this is not the end of the story, because sometimes proverbs, as old as fairy tales, are coming true as well, and this goes for „The Abbey of the Wandering Books“, too – without warning it came back from the realm of game legends to the Kosmos booth, now by the name of “Abtei der Rätsel”.
So let us check if, and if yes, then what changes the ravages of time have wrought in the game.
Abbot, monks and novices are still there, the abbot starts the game in the library, the others on the starting square outside the abbey walls. The library is not closed completely, but you need a key now to be able to enter the library. 2 library keys per player are placed into the church. The Refectory aka the dining hall is still there too, but monks no longer meet there for a meal, but you pick up bread there. 5 loafs per player are placed into the dining hall, one of those is handed immediately to each of the players. The books numbers 1 to 6 are randomly distributed in the buildings adjacent to the outer walls, and books 7 to 10 are placed into the library.
Here we find the first massive change, the letters for the word are not placed one for one into the books. Now there are pre-printed words on cards, one of the desired level of difficulty is drawn and placed into the – by the way very attractive – bookshelf, the books are only proxies for the slides with the same number on the bookshelf, behind which you can reveal a letter.
A short interlude with a remark on these words – the easier puzzle have 10 letters each and each letter you find is a correct and precise clue in the right position, those words are on the green cards. The words on the red cards have between 5 and 9 letters, the free spots are filled with stars, and you can find a word like **SIEG*E*L, and only the information that it must always be a word with a minimum of 5 letters hinters a monk to try a solution with the word “SIEG”.
But this comes later; we are still at the start of our quest for the letters. There is a precise distribution of the work between the characters of player. The monk can move up to two steps in a turn and in a turn he can either read a book or move, but not both, and a monk can never carry a book. His novice can walk up to 4 steps and enter squares and buildings like the monk, for both you can enlarge the number o step with bread, 1 step more for each bread that you put back into the dining room. A novice can carry a book, he can cross rooms with another book in them but at the end of a turn there may be only one book in each room. A novice never can read a book and can never enter the library. A novice can take away a book from a room with another novice in it, but when a monk is with a book, only his own novice can take the book out of this room.
If it is your turn and your monk is present in a room with a book your monk can read the book, other monks or novices in the room do not hinder him. If you read a book, you take the bookshelf, mention the number of the book, and open the corresponding slide on the shelf. You look at the letter, memorize it, close the slide and secretly note the letter on your sheet. If you combine the moves of monk and novice cleverly with the use of bread you can manage to read several books in one turn: your novice can bring one, the monk reads it, the novice takes it away and brings a new one. This clever combination of moves is the heart of the game and the key to winning; if you plan well at this point you can create a considerable advantage for yourself.
But the work of a novice is not done by carrying books only, he must also collect bread and keys. He can carry 2 breads or one key in addition to a book and he must meet his monk in the square to hand over those items to him. They are only functional when they have been handed to the monk and can then be used by the player. Bread you need, as already mentioned, to extend the range of monk or novice, for each additional step you put one bread back into the dining hall. The key is necessary to enter the library. If your monk goes to the library, you put the key back into the church and enter the library. When entering you must immediately decide on a book and place the monk on it. In the next turn you can read the book and must in the next move leave the library via the herb garden. To re-enter the library you must go back to the cemetery and hand in another key.
And what is the abbot doing? Well, he still does his job as a blocker. At the start of a turn each player rolls the die and must relocate the abbot to the book with the number on the die – so the abbot can only switch between books 1 to 6 and never blocks book in the library. When the abbot goes to a book he immediately chases away all characters present in this square to an adjacent spot. The book is now blocked and cannot be read. Characters can cross the room with the abbot, but cannot end their move there. And if you do not want the abbot where the die would send him you can put beach 1 bread and demand a re-roll, even more than once.
I need only to mention the arrows on the board setting directions in which you can move into a building or out of it. The wandering of the books and the time schedule for the monks have been left out in this new edition. We can progress towards solution:
Each player can try to solve the puzzle instead of doing a standard turn. He announces that he wants to guess, notes down the word and checks the bookshelf. If he has noted down the correct word, he shows it to the other players and has won immediately. If not, he only announces “wrong”, puts back the bookshelf and drops out of the game. If nobody guesses correctly, the abbot has won the game.
Here I am, being puzzled. As an avowed fan of the railway game Empire Builder I am really reminded of this game – you look for the shortest possible and most efficient route to fill contracts as fast as possible, that is, find the letters. This is heavily influenced by the starting distribution of the books and the die rolls for the abbot – if you manage to find the first three letters within a short time and stop by in-between at the church and the dining hall for bread and key mostly needs one or two more letter confirming the word and maybe only one visit to the library as by definition the last four digits of the word should be there.
The short words are really much more difficult, as the spaces have been inserted rather randomly, e.g. ***KREU*Z*. But that is the lure of the game, medieval ribald mutterings due to wrong interpretation of parts of the information and resulting wrong guesses have been heard!
Despite the fact that the game as regards to its level of difficulty easily could pass for a sophisticated family game, I can only recommend it for families with older children or adolescents, because some of the words might definitely be missing from the vocabulary of younger children. And this could put the game on the fence, because for experienced players the mechanism is too simple and the abbot – only relying on the luck of the roll or my stock of bread – as blockade not enough of an tactical element.
Another effect is the disillusion element as regards disenchanted legends, the bright light of 20 years development of game mechanisms reveals simply a well-made, well-working game for fans of word guessing games and turn optimization games.
Dagmar de Cassan
Spieler : 2-4
Alter : ages 10+
Dauer : ca. 40 min
Autor : Thomas Fackler
Grafik : Yuxi Wan, Gunter Grossholz
Titel : ident
Preis : ca. 35 Euro
Verlag : Kosmos 2011
Genre : Placement and word guessing game
Zielgruppe : With friends
Sprache : de
Regeln : de
Text im Spiel : ja
Kommentar:
Revised edition of “Die Abtei der wandernden Bücher”
Beautiful components
Rules changes as compared to the original
Rather abstract turn optimization mechanics despite topic
Vergleichbar:
Abtei der wandernden Bücher, also logistics games like Auf Achse
Meine Bewertung: 4
Dagmar de Cassan:
When the legend has been dusted off there remains a well-made game with complete albeit somewhat circuitous rules, for a rather selected target group.
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