our review
Palenque and Pyramids
Pacal‘s Rocket
Tomb slab and rockets
Pacal’s Rocket picks up the myth on the tomb slab of Palenque. Does it really show an astronaut in his space ship? Who did really construct the Mayan pyramids? In this game we are the builders and construct pyramids with the help of our space ships.
The number of players determines the size of the board: If fewer than five are playing, certain areas of the board are covered. The board shows districts of different sizes, made up from squares, the districts have different colors. The central area has nine squares and has an area value of 7, is called Holy District and our space ships start from there; those ships are hollow cylinders with an opening top and bottom.
Each player has his own summary board and all energy stones and pyramids of a color as well as three God stones of values 2, 4 and 6.
The active player rolls the die and places it on his summary board, visible for all, as the result goes for all players in this round, and all players take one turn using this result.
First you move your spaceship – you lift it up and thereby leave energy stones behind on the square, provided there were some in the ship. The movement itself can be as many squares as the pips on the die indicate, either straight forward in any direction – if you encounter an obstacle like another spaceship, water, pyramid or the edge of the board, the remaining steps are forfeit – or you change direction at right angles as often as you want, but must take all possible steps. When the arrow symbol was rolled, you may choose a direction and move any number of squares straight ahead in the chosen row or column and also cross over obstacles. A move can always end on a square with one or several energy stones. Instead of moving in these ways you can also use one of your God stones and relocate your spaceship to any location of your choice. For the first round of the game a special rule applies: All spaceships must leave the Holy District in a straight line.
When the move is finished you may, but need not, put energy stones into spaceships – if you did move straight ahead, regardless if by using a pip result or the arrow symbol on the die – you place one energy stone into your spaceship and one energy stone into the spaceship of any player of your choice. If you did choose the movement with change of direction or did use a God stone, you may place an energy stone into your ship.
For the energy stones some restriction apply, too: Only one energy stone of a color is allowed on a square, but there can be several stones of different colors on a square. Should someone have made a mistake and two stones of the same color appear on a square when a spaceship is lifted, both pieces are taken off the board and returned to their owner, they can be used again later. If you have no stone left in stock and want to put one into a ship, you may take any of your stones from the board and put it into the ship.
Why do you put energy stones into your spaceship for them to remain on the board when the spaceship moves on? Well, as soon as the visible energy stones of a player form a certain geometrical pattern, you are entitled to build a new pyramid; the necessary patterns and possible pyramid sizes are depicted on the summary card and range from one-level pyramids to five-level pyramids; the necessary patterns formed by the stones are always symmetrical. You choose one of the energy stones in the pattern and build the pyramid in that square, then you take back all energy stones in the pattern. If you build on a square where there are also energy stones of other players, you return them to their owners.
Pyramids already set up can be used instead of energy stones to be part of a new constellation to build more pyramids; such a constellation must contain at least one energy stone to provide the location where you build the new pyramid. You can also upgrade pyramids when the are part of a suitable constellation; there is no mandatory building of pyramids, you can only build one pyramid per turn and must make do with lower-level pyramids if you have no suitable one left in stock.
For pyramids that were built you score points equal to the value of the district, but only if you are first to build in a district or if you achieve the majority in a district; to determine majorities you do not count the number of pyramids in the district, you count the total of levels in all your pyramids in the district. If you already have the majority in a district and build again, you do NOT score!
If someone builds his last but one pyramid, the game ends immediately with five bonus points for this player. Alternately, the game ends when someone scores 40, 35 or 40 points in a game with 3, 4 or 5 players, at the end of the round. In both cases, a final scoring follows. Energy stones and spaceships are removed from the board and majorities at the lake and the river are scored, with 12/8/4 points for 1st/2nd/3rd place. Majorities in districts give the value of the district to the player with the majority and two points to the player in 2nd place in the district. Finally, you score the values of the God Stone for each God stone that you did not use and you win with most points.
In an expert version you can only build pyramids with only energy stones in the pattern and you can only include a pyramid in a constellation if you can replace it with one of higher value.
Sounds, easy, doesn’t it? But it is not as easy as it sounds – considering the multitude of colored energy stones on the board you must watch closely for opportunities to form constellations and you must try to make optimum use of each individual move. You can try to play ahead, for instance for majorities at river or lake, but usually you make do with checking the dice results for their chances for forming a constellation and to try to place pyramids in various districts quickly to force others to be better there to also score. And then you can use those pyramids in further constellations and also upgrade them to take back the majority in a district to score again.
An attractively design and – despite the topic – abstract but thrilling puzzling game on positions, in which the constellations for pyramids with three and four levels are the most difficult to achieve.
Dagmar de Cassan
Players: 2-5
Age: 8+
Time: 60+
Designer: Günter Burkhardt
Artist: Maximiliano Longo
Price: ca. 35 Euro
Publisher: Piatnik 2015
Web: www.piatnik.com
Genre: Placement, patterns, majorities
Users: For families
Version: multi
Rules: cz de en fr hu it pl sk
In-game text: no
Comments:
Attractive components
Die gives you options
Long-term planning is difficult
Compares to:
Lanterns and other games with pattern formation for further use
Other editions:
Currently none
My rating: 6
Dagmar de Cassan:
An elegant abstract game of pattern formation, in which a die presents possibilities for which you must find the optimum use.
Chance (pink): 2
Tactic (turquoise): 3
Strategy (blue): 1
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 0
Communication (red): 0
Interaction (brown): 2
Dexterity (green): 0
Action (dark green): 0