our review

Glass factories and ships

MURANO

Worker „Movement“ versus Worker Placement!

This game was published during Spiel 2014. It is not a pure worker placement game, but rather a worker movement game, that is, to express it most simplified, actions are influenced by the movements of ships at the edge of the game board.

What is the theme in the game of MURANO?

Players acquire and build glass factories, shops, palaces, streets and special buildings on seven islands in order too acquire gold coins, cards, glass beads or victory points. Each island offers a certain amount of building sites, on which you can build the property. Each of the five properties has another purpose: Glass factories produce red, blue and green glass beads, shops give you income in relation of the kind of customer they serve. Each card gives you an advantage which the owner can use during all the game. Properties must, as I have already mentioned, be acquired first and then you can build up to three properties with the “building” action option. The building action casts money as as money is only available in restricted quantities, it sometimes pays to choose the “production” action option instead.

How can I build something and how can I produce glass?

First of all, I must, as mentioned before, have acquired the tile in order to build. Using the “building” action which is the only one that is available three times at the edge of the game board, I can build three properties. It does not matter at all if I build three properties of the same kind, streets, shops, glass factories, palaces or special buildings, or if I build a mixture of all. Shops, palaces, glass factories and special buildings can only be build on streets. When you build a shop it is important to check the type of customer that is already available on the island. There are red, blue and gray customers and the customers are printed onto the street tiles. Each customer gives one gold to the owner of a shop in the same color. Shops and glass factories are marked with a token in the color of the player who owns it, for easy identification.

A glass factory produces one glassed bead. For the “production” action you may draw one glass bead from the bag for each glass factory that you have built; production, however, causes heat and smoke on the island, therefore production has a price of two victory points for each glass factory that you use for production. For the sale of a glass bead you receive five gold, for two beads of the same color you receive 12 gold and for three beads of the same color you earn 20 gold.

Palaces yield the number of victory points printed on the tile and if you build a special building you may take special building card. The advantage of this card you can then use from your next turn to the end of the game.

What about the character cards?

Character cards can be acquired with the action option of „hire characters“ and will score points for you at the end of the game. This action of “hire characters” is available twice on the board. For a character to be able to score victory points, the condition stated for him must be met on the island and each card also demands a gondolier who can take him to the island that you intend to score. Conditions, fir instance, can be: “You score 2 victory points for each palace on this island” or “You score victory points equal to the total number of customers on this island”. Some cards even demand two gondoliers on the island. In case a player has, for instance, placed five character cards and four gondoliers, he will not be able to score one of the cards. The placement of a gondolier is also a separate action option.

Setting up the game:

In case of two and three players you use the side of the game board where the island of „Sacca Serenella“ is marked for placing cards, the island does not come into play for that number of players. The direction of movement for the ships is marked by the bow wave, they move in counter-clockwise direction. The tiles are separated by type, shops, palaces and streets are shuffled and placed as face-down stacks on the corresponding areas on the board. Five character cards are removed from the game randomly.

What is new in this „movement games?

At the edge of the game board you find a total of 18 action cases, which are assigned to 11 different areas. Eight of those 18 cases are occupied by ships, there are seven black ones and one red ship. In order to implement an action you must move one of the ships to the corresponding case. You may implement the action that is indicated by the ship that was the last one moved. The target case may not be occupied by another ship. If the targeted case is occupied, you can move the ship already there away from the case and you can move the ship behind it into the case that you want to use for your action. However, only moving one ship is free of charge. For moving the second ship you pay one gold, each additional movement costs one gold more than the previously moved ship. An absolutely interesting mechanism which you need to take into account to decide if it is better to save money or to be prepared sometimes to invest a bit more to be able to do the action after all. Only the player who owns the “Lighthouse” is allowed to move the red ship to a case that is taken already and to use it all the same.

The combination of actions is what makes the game a challenge!

As regards to the mechanics of the game, the building action has a central role to play, but, however, makes only sense in combination with other action options. What I mean is, once you have built a facility it is useful to take a look at the use of the building in combination with the character cards. Those cards yield victory points, when a player meets the conditions stated on the card and has placed a gondolier on the respective island. Yet another aspect that must be taken into consideration is the fact that each island only offers a limited number of building sites. Using the action option of “hire character” you draw three cards and and can keep one of them. Sometimes, however, he might all the same not be able to meet the condition listed on the character card, because all building sites have already been taken. The same goes for the gondolier locations: When all spots for them are taken you cannot score a character card on this island anymore.

Thus, players must always keep an eye on the course of the game as the conditions, especially as regards to the character cards, usually change during the game!

I believe that players are always confronted in MURANO with this one challenge: What do I do in this given situation that makes the most sense? Which of the islands offer the best opportunity for me to make use of my building properties or even make use of my gondolier? How can I best use my special building card? I am not able to relocate buildings or tear down buildings. Therefore I need to keep an eye on what my opponents are up to and compare my options to theirs. Money, too, places a central and deciding role, as nearly all actions can only be chosen when you have the necessary cash available for them. If you acquire a shop or palace, you have to pay 2 gold, and it costs you four gold to acquire two shops or palaces.

End of the game and scoring:

The game ends when the stock of two different types of tiles is depleted. Then all of the other players have one more turn. If you acquire a building in this last round, you may place it on the board according to the valid building rules and score victory points for it. This also goes for the player who triggers the end of the game. Afterwards, you score all the character cards one by one.

My opinion:

I was impressed by the visual impression this games makes, being rich in components and very structured. The components have been designed very nicely in accordance to the topic and to the idea of the game. The tiles are easily distinguished, the design corresponds to the property. The board remains well-arranged all the time. You are always drawn to watching the board to estimate what current action options are available.

I also believe the combination of character cards with the gondolier to be a very interesting one. A game of MURANO is continually challenging and I think that the selection of options for actions is absolutely successful. Those actions are absolutely sufficient to implement the topic of the game well. The only feature for which no suitable use was found are the bridge cases, they offer no opportunity to be used as connection between the islands.

I must confess that after a first game of MURANO one is not convinced to have already found the correct strategy. It takes more than one play of the game to find out which tactics are the most promising together with which strategy. It is exactly the interesting course of the game and the many tactical options that make it worth your while to play MURANO several times. With the game MURANO the designers have managed to get across the theme of “Who will I become a famous merchant in Murano?” in a very entertaining, thrilling and challenging way.

Erwin Kocsan

Players: 2-4

Age: 10+

Time: 90+

Designer: Inka and Markus Brand

Artist: Klemens Franz

Price: ca. 38 Euro

Publisher: Lookout Spiele 2014

Web: www.lookout-spiele.de

Genre: Development, worker placement

Users: With friends

Version: de

Rules: de en

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Very nice design

Good components

Very well-structured board

Challenging options for combinations of actions

Compares to:

Worker placement games with a building topic

Other editions:

Mayfair Games

My rating: 6

Erwin Koczan:

A thrilling, challenging and entertaining game of choosing the right option at the right time in an excellent interpretation of the topic!

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0