Our review

ROYAL GOODS, also known as

OH MY GOODS!

Me and my commodities!

This review is based mainly on the original game, published by Österreichisches Spiele Museum (OSM) but all the components are the same as in in the Lookout/Mayfair edition, named OH MY GOODS. The only difference are three "small" rules, as we will see later, that improved play.

ROYAL GOODS is a card game where the players initially have a small artisanal job and later try to increase their business acquiring new buildings and starting new activities.

The (too small) box includes 110 cards: 94 of them will be extensively used and therefore I strongly recommend to save them with transparent sleeves since the beginning.

Each player starts with a Char burner ("blue" building card) and an expert Worker.

There are only four Char burners in the game and each of them uses a different set of raw materials to produce coal. These cards have no cost but they do not guarantee Victory Points (VP).

The "expert" worker will be used to produce coal ... if we give him the right raw materials, of course. Please note a nice touch from the game designer and artist: side one of this card shows a "male" worker, while side two shows a "female" worker, so every player may decide which one to place on table. Anyway, the worker's card may be used "full busy" (the rules say "orderly"), or "tired" ("sloppily" on the rules). We will see the difference later.

The box also includes a set of 8 "assistant" workers: they are similar to the "expert" workers, but they do not have a "full busy" side. They still show a man on one side and a woman on the other, but each of them shows a unique set of colored cards (2 red, or 4 green, for example, or one per color, etc.), a cost (2 to 6 coins) and a VP value (2 or 3).

The other 94 cards are buildings. Each of them has a cost (from 3 to 17 coins) and offers VP at the game's end (from 2 to 5): of course, the higher is the cost, the better the reward. In the center of the card there is a very nice drawing of the building, many different buildings, all surrounded by a different countryside. Klemens Franz did a wonderful job here. The left side of each card shows a RESOURCE: grain, wood, clay, stone, cotton. The bottom part of the card has a colored case with the name of the building, the number of the resources that are necessary to produce the GOOD shown in the middle, the value (in coins) of each produced good and, finally what it is necessary to produce extra goods using a "production chain". 48 of the cards (51%) also have a small icon depicting an "half sun".

There are 26 "green" cards (with wood as a resource), 17 red (clay), 17 yellow (grain), 17 light blue (cotton), 17 dark grey (stone). All those cards have the same back showing a wooden crate. The "dark grey" cards are not production buildings but they offer different bonuses.     

It is time to get up and go to work

Each player randomly takes a Char burner, a worker and 7 "good" cards that are placed on top of the char burner showing the wooden crate: these are the goods that were produced ... before the beginning of the game and they may be used (each has a value of 1 coin) to purchase new buildings.

A certain number of "assistants" (from 4 to eight, depending on the number of players) is displayed on the table and may be hired at certain conditions.

Finally, the players are given five cards and the game may start.

In turn each player may discard ALL the cards from his hand, if he wishes, and can take exactly the same number from the deck. The original rules did not allow for this "change of hand" and sometimes bad luck (no cards with the resources that you need for your char burner) penalized the players, so this addition is very welcome.

Then everybody is given TWO new cards.

The first player turns over cards one by one from the draw pile and places them on the table until two "half suns" are displayed: This may happen after only TWO cards or after a long series of cards. They are used by ALL the players as common resources to run their factories. Each player may also use other cards from his hand, if necessary, as we will see. But now it is time to assign the workers to their task: the card is placed UNDER the selected factory orderly or sloppily: which side to use depends on the number of resources that you see on the table and that you have in hand. If you already have all the necessary resources, you will play the worker "orderly"; if you are not certain to get all the resources you may play it "sloppily" (and you will need a resource less for production).

The players that wish to build a new building in the present turn place a card on the table, face down.

The first player turn again cards from the draw pile until two half suns are displayed: now ALL the available raw materials are visible in what is called MARKET and the workers may start producing goods. Each player look at the resources depicted on the bottom left of their production building that have the Expert worker and/or an Assistant and if they are all available in the market he places new goods on top of that building: ONE good for each Assistant or if the Expert worker was sloppily or TWO goods if he was orderly. If some resources are not available in the Market, you may discard the missing cards from your hand; if you do not have the necessary cards in your hand, the workers will be unable to produce and you lose a turn. After the "regular production" it is also possible to use the "production chain" depicted on the bottom right of the building to add extra goods: you uses cards that show the requested resources from your hand or goods cards stored on your buildings, even those that were just produced. For each combination you get an extra good.

Bild 3

Let's look, for example, at photo 3: it shows, on the left, the "Shoemaker" building (yellow card). If you have 3 grain and 3 wood, you gain ONE pair of shoes (if you played your worker sloppily) or TWO (if you played him orderly). Take 1 or 2 cards from the deck and place them on top of the yellow building: each of them has now a value of 8 coins.

If you already have in your area a "Tannery" building with some goods (value 6 coins) you may take one or more and use the yellow production chain to place them on top of the "Shoemaker", rising their value to 8 coins as well.

Once that the new goods are added to their building, the players decide if they want to build a new building or not: if YES, they turn the covered card over and they pay the number of coins indicated on the top left, using the goods stored on their buildings. If they do NOT wish to build it, the card is taken again in hand (and this is the second change of rules that was added in the new edition and that surely improves the game too).

If a player collected enough building cards of the right colors he may hire a new Assistant: he pays the cost and takes the requested card that should be immediately assigned to a production building: later the players may change place to their Assistants (max 2) if they pay two coins as only the Expert Worker may be re-assigned every turn.

The game goes on until one player build the 8th production building. At this point, everybody still has a last turn to play and on this "special turn" it is possible to use ALL the production chains for free (provided that the players have the right resources): this means that you do not need the worker or an Assistant on those buildings. And this is the third and last rule modification of the second edition.

Finally, all the goods are sold and converted in VP (5 coins = 1 VP) that are then added to the VP that each player's buildings and Assistants already granted. The higher total wins.

Royal Goods/Oh my Goods is a game easy to learn and nice to play, especially if you use the three rules modifications highlighted in this review.  It is a quick game (25 to 35 minutes) and it is amazing.  Interaction is very low: the only "common" cards are the Assistants and the first player who reach the conditions take the card without any ... fight.

Lady Luck has its role, as it happens in all the games with cards, but the three changes of the rules mitigated this effect very much. Now you cannot claim to have lost the game only because of bad luck!!!

I played Royal Goods also with children 8 years old that were involved in a very competitive way (after having understood the rules and the mechanics) from the second or third game.

A final very "personal" note: I love very much the visual effect of the cards with those bucolic landscapes and I would like to see more games with similar graphic arts.

Pietro Cremona

Players: 2-4

Age: 10+

Time: 30+

Designer: Alexander Pfister

Artist: Klemens Franz

Price: ca. 10 Euro

Publisher: Lookout Games / Mayfair Games 2015

Web: www.mayfair-games.com

Genre: Resources management

Users: With friends

Version: it

Rules: de en it and many more

In-game text: no

Comments:

Lots of in-game depth with few components and rules

Rules changes of the new edition improve the game

Short duration
Little interaction

Compares to:

Games using worker placement and resources management as well as multiple uses of cards

Other editions:

First edition as Royal Goods, OSM

Currently ca. 10 editions in other countries

My rating: 5

Pietro Cremona:

Hard work in a bucolic country!

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 1

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 1

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0