Door 11
When we first began our board gaming journey, we have kind of decided area control games were not for us. It wasn't until playing Cerebria for the first time that we realized: the mechanic itself wasn't the problem, just that many games are balanced for more players. Even now we don't have many area control games but we know they are not to be ignored! 🙃 So door 11 of our MechanXmas highlights area control games.
Our absolute favorite is the aforementioned 🧠 Cerebria from Mindclash Games ! It's a really great but really underappreciated game. It deserves more attention. The theme works perfectly too. 🥰 You play as the Bliss and Gloom fightning inside the mind of a person. You strategically invoke and quell emotions, try to score aspirations and inspirations, and add your fragments into the identity.
It's all about area control in this game, powered by cards and a nice action selection system. You also have some resource management as you keep having to pay for things with willpower, essence or ambition. You fight for control of 5 Realms and 5 Frontiers between them throughout the game. ⚔️ The strength of emotion cards will decide who is in control.
There are always a common goal and a hidden personal goal you are aiming for. When scoring is triggered you check how many objective goals were met and put fragments into the identity (the central obelisk) accordingly, then those goals are discarded. Players have quite a bit of control over when scoring happens, which makes turns really tactical - it doesn’t just matter what you control, but WHEN you control it! 🧐 You can never be sure what your opponent’s secret goal is, and when they might try to go for scoring.
It all works truly wonderfully. 😍 You have to keep moving around because you can only interact with neighbouring card slots, and never lose sight the current objectives. Resources are really scarce so you have to think twice what actions you take. And the actions are also juicy, because you get to upgrade them as the game goes on, making them more versatile. There are asymmetric sides to the boards too with unique upgrades!
