Managing a geothermal company
🏞️Salton Sea is a unique place with high geothermal activity 🌋 as it lays above edges of tectonic plates, and it is also a body of water with high concentrations of salt. 🧂 These two features make it an ideal location to generate electricity with the heat, and at the same time process the briny water to win out lithium, which is important for the production of batteries. 🔋 The game Salton Sea by @devirgames tackles this exact topic in a competitive mid-heavy euro experience, as players take on the roles of mining ⛏️ companies.
In a nutshell, you will claim licenses, drill down to lower layers to extract more brine, which you then process into electricity and lithium. With these you can either fulfill contracts for bonuses, or sell them to 3 different corporations for more money, and buy shares in these corporations to profit from their success. Researching and repairing your machines are also important things to take into account.
Learning Salton Sea after Sand was refreshing: 😌 the rulebook is actually very well structured, so even though the game is a lot heavier, the start was so much smoother (than with Sand)! It’s basically “just” worker placement, as you will do actions with workers, either on your player board or on cards you own. But these cards provide the biggest twist, enjoyment and struggle 😅 of the game!
Cards are multi-use. They depict actions you can take 🧐 - the better versions of those you can find on your player board, but they are also used as currency 💰 that you get and spend as you play! You get cards back you used for worker placement at the end of the round, but until then you lose access to that money. ☝️ So it’s a constant dilemma what to use, what to discard when paying, or what to sell so you can get a cool action card from the display.
The game is really tight (maybe a tiny bit too tight), at least we were always feeling that we didn’t have enough money to do things. But as the game goes on you unlock workers, get ongoing bonuses from research cards, and have some better action cards to be more effective. Our first impressions are positive despite our struggles, and we can't wait to dive deeper. 😉
