OUR REVIEW
Woe to finance capitalism
Spectaculum
Buy cheap, sell expenisve!
Probably all those who have some decades of board game experience will have experienced the game „Börsenspiel“ (by F. Murray and S. Spencer, Ravensburger). In this game you were meant to strike it reach with shares, of course in the sense of making most money, by influencing the four different share values by playing of hand cards. In those times it was generally accepted political correctness to not only profit from changes in share prices without regard for other people’s losses, but to engender them yourself and thereby cause ruin of others (and maybe also of the general public).
Within the last few years public opinion has begun to look askance on such behavior, the image of such profits has become tainted, but of course nothing has changed about the behavior; one just acts a bit more discreet and does not loudly announce one’s profit made in this way.
In board games, too, this chance in public opinion is noticeable; so it was not sufficient in „Hab & Gut (by Carlo A. Rossi, Winning Moves) to win by becoming the richest person at the stock exchange; one hat to donate enough of one’s profits to charity in order to avoid dropping out of the „list of richest“ due to being deemed to be closefisted. The current permanent finance crisis has been transformed into a game very well and satirically in “Black Friday” (by Friedemann Friese, Kosmos): Here timely dropping out of the share mania and taking refuge with gold and silver is the order of the (game) day!
And what does all that have to do with „Spectaculum“? According to the introduction to this game the focus should be on the „colorful world of soothsayers, clairvoyants and snake dancers”! In reality we have arrived here at the currently latest transformation away from the genre of share trading or stock market games. Obviously it was too embarrassing for the publishing company to publish yet another game on speculating with shares , doubly embarrassing due to the related bad image, so that the game mechanics was given a completely absurd and unsuitable topic. And this in turn unfortunately has the consequence that the short and basically really simple rules become clear only when read for the second time due to the wording incurred by the topic. What, pray, is meant by “Accept a Jester into one’s favor” or “To dismiss a jester from one’s favor”? If you translate it to finances, it simple reads: I can buy a share and/or sell a share. Those shares are available in four different varieties, that is, colors. The graphics on the cards with rather funny puns on the different performers / jesters are well done, but does not contribute much to distinguish between them. When the novelty value of the puns has worn off it is better to use the backsides of the cards, then there are no mistakes or misunderstandings.
The ways to influence share prices are handled different from usual means and ways: At the start of the game you distribute about 50 tiles open-faced and randomly on the boards; those tiles usually have a value between +3 and -3; it is not hard to guess that a tile of value +2 results in a rise in the price of a share by two (the game calls it “The prestige of the jester troupe rises by 2”).
On top of this there are a few tiles which either cause immediate payment of 2 Ducats per share either as a dividend to you from the bank or from you as a penalty to the bank (in the game represented by “Payday” or “Epidemic”. Penalty payments can cause cash flow problems and as a further consequence a forced and high-loss emergency sale; as a consequence you of course try to trigger such an event in order to aggravate your fellow players but take care to always command a high enough cash reserve to avoid being surprised by such an event.
And how do the effects of those tiles come into play and take effect? In each round each player randomly draws three wooden pieces from a bag and places them on the board. Those wooden pieces come in the four colors of shares and are - in the manner of track building - added to pieces of the same color already on the board. When I reach a tile of value -1 in this manner, hare price and current value - of the red share fall by one. So I will try to avoid triggering this when I myself own red shares unless I can extend the red track to a tile of positive value. So far the game mechanisms and strategic deliberations are rather banal; one’s own actions are also mainly determined by the chance-driven drawing of the wooden pieces in a round. A few tactical or speculative thoughts are provided by the fact that one can - maybe - deduct from the distribution of tiles on board which shares might raise and which might rather fall short-term. But when I, for instance, provide an opportunity for my successor for the yellow share because we both hold yellow shares and he has no yellow pieces in hand, this is again in vain!
Due to the restriction on only two share actions per round another rather unsatisfactory situation occurs: As soon as I hold two or more shares of a color I do not have much interest in lowering the value of this share, because I am hit by a devaluation, too (unless other players would suffer even more from this) and - furthermore - each sold share blocks buying another one, so that everybody can only react in a very inflexible way to a wanted-for change in the portfolio.
On the bright side - a game plays quickly and one can take pleasure from one’s own successful actions, be annoyed about unsatisfactory course changes and especially irritate one’s fellow players. The rules offer a tactical variant of the game, in which you can choose the three pieces of a round from a selection of four pieces. This small change makes the game a lot more interesting; at least it gives you the impression of being able to exercise some influence. And, furthermore, the rate of decision taking rises by 33%! Which other board game can give you such a rate of return?
Players: 2-4
Age: 8+
Time: 30+
Designer: Reiner Knizia
Art: Marc Margielsky
Price: ca. 24 Euro
Publisher: eggertspiele / Pegasus 2012
Web: www.pegasus.de
Genre: Card collecting game
Users: For families
Version: de
Rules: de en fr
Comments:
Funny cards graphics
Short rules
Not many chances to exercise influence
Compares to:
All games on shares with a rather high amount of chance
Other editions:
Oya, France; R&R Games, USA
My rating: 3
Statements:
A game on shares in disguise which plays easily and fast, but offers rather little allure to play; even for the first game I would recommend the more tactical variant, which should make Spectaculum more interesting for the intended target group!
Chance (pink): 2
Tactic (turquoise): 1
Strategy (blue): 0
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 0
Communication (red): 2
Interaction (brown): 3
Dexterity (green): 0
Action (dark green): 0