review

treasures from the deep

Otys

Logistics for divers

In Otys, each player commands a group of divers who venture into the depths to search for resources in sunken cities, trading with those resources and finally to complete orders.

Each player receives a board that depicts a diving tower, plus a set of eight different divers. Each of those divers enables their owner to implement a certain action. Divers are randomly and vertically placed on the diving tower. Five divers are positioned on the five diving platforms, three more are on top and cannot be used at that point, as they have not gone down deep enough.

The game is played in rounds, until one player has accumulated the 18 victory points necessary to win. Victory points are mostly scored by completing orders. Those orders always demand a certain set of resources. Those resources must be collected on one of the five diving platforms and can – when the platform has been activated – then be discarded to complete an order. This gives you bonuses like gold or money, according to the notation on the order.

In your turn, you select one of the five diving platforms on your board and activate it. The diver located on this platform does the action assigned to this diver. Furthermore, each platform offers an additional action that can be resolved as an option. Those additional actions are the same for all players. There is a general board, on which the additional actions are randomly displayed. During the game, those actions are periodically shifted around.

To activate a platform, a suitable activation tile must be available. The activation tile is discarded after the activation is only available again after enough other activation tiles have been used. Therefore, you cannot continue to activate the same platform again and again.

Divers that have been active must surface and are placed on top of the diver track, this lets the other divers go down deeper, thus changing platform – therefore you also not use the same diver any number of times.

Therefore, the platform and tower change all the time and often you cannot do what you want to do at that point. There are ways, however, to manipulate the assignment of divers to platforms and additional action options. This mechanism, however, is rather complex and to optimize your own action needs quite a lot of planning.

A little interaction is also involved, because the display of orders to be completed is identical for all players and, of course, every order can only be completed by one player. In addition to that, there is a diver that enables you to make use of an adjacent player’s diver which is located on the platform of the same level.

Other actions introduce a strategic aspect to the game, by either improving divers for the duration of the game or permanently improving the options for manipulation of the divers.

Clearly dominant, however, is the tactical aspect. The challenge is in how and when I do activate my platforms. This central mechanism gives off a fresh and yet unspent flair. It makes you rack you brains und if you like such a challenge you will have fun. The duration of the game is relatively short for a game of this caliber and category.

The rest of the game, unfortunately, is less innovative. The topic of collecting resources to complete orders with those resources has been used in thousands of other games before. The options to improve one’s diver with upgrades are rather straightforward, too, and do not contribute anything essential to the allure of the game.

A real disappointment is provoked by the quality of the components. Im my copy, the boards were very much bent and not exactly cut, which is especially disappointing and a pity in case of the player boards, as they have cutouts in which the divers, activation tiles and other tiles, which indicate your own options of manipulations, are meant to be moved and slid along. Basically, nice intentions, but not working as it is meant to be working due to the poor quality.

Rules and graphic design, on the other hand, merit a positive mention.

Despite those small faults, Otys can be recommended to frequent players who like to put their brains to use, as the mechanisms is refreshingly different and the duration of the game nicely short.

Markus Wawra

Players: 2-4

Age:14+

Time: 60+

Designer: Claude Lucchini

Artist: Paul Mafayon

Price: ca. 35 Euro

Publisher: Libellud / Pearl Games 2017

Web: www.asmodee.de

Genre: Logistics

Users: For experts

Version: de

Rules: de en es fr it jp nl

In-game text: no

Comments:

Poor components

Good rules

Nice graphics

Challenging mechanism

Compares to:

Yokohama, Vor den Toren von Loyang

Other editions:

Various language editions, all Libellud / Pearl Games

My rating: 5

Markus Wawra:

I love it when a game provides mew mechanism and therefore a liked Otys from the start. I am, however, disappointed by the poor component quality.

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