Can you finish the Reqiem?

🎵 Lacrimosa was one of the most hyped new releases at SPIEL 22. It has a really unique theme which has you accompanying Mozart on his journeys in the past, commissioning him to write Opuses and recording your memories - and also trying to finish his unfinished piece ‘Requiem’ in the present time with the help of other composers.

⚙️ Lacrimosa is fueled by a card action selection system. Each turn you have to choose two cards and use one for its top part which determines the action(s) you can do, and the other for its bottom part giving you income at the end of the round. Your player board has amazingly handy pockets to slot the cards into. 🤩

🔗 There is also a deck-building element to this. You will often get new cards, then you have to sacrifice an older card to swap out for the new, better one with additional resources or actions. This way your deck will always have exactly 9 cards and a sense of progression is also granted as from the next round on, you’ll have more powerful cards.

Each round consists of 4 turns, which means you will only be able to play 4 cards as actions in a round. 🧐 This makes decisions tight. Every turn as you slot in a card for the income on its bottom part, you will lose that as a potential choice for an action.

Your actions allow you to:
🃏 Get new cards
🎭 Perform or sell an Opus card for funds or income
✒️ Commision (buy) an Opus card
🧭 Travel - Move the Mozart figure on the map either activating city tiles that give you one time bonuses, or get Royal Court tiles that give you end game points if you can match their requirements
🎵 Requiem - hire composers to help finish the Requiem. This is a big source of your points using some area-majority rules, but it unlocks immediate or ongoing bonuses for you as well

💬 I think the unique theme and the beautiful art make this game an eye-catcher. We enjoyed our first play a lot, and immediately wanted to play it again! Can’t wait for the next game session. 🤩 It is not very heavy complexity-wise, but the interesting action selection makes it thinky.