The hype title of SPIEL25
We planned to play many smaller games first so we can get a taste of as many novelties as possible - yet playing THE game of SPIEL25 felt more appropriate. 😅 A big hype surrounded 🐊 Feya's Swamp, both because of the designer of Gaia Project, but also because of the low amount of available copies. The line on Thursday was a sight to behold. 😄
To be honest after reading the rules we thought: “That's all?” - but as we got into the game it turned out to be fun. 👇
The core of it all is worker placement, with some actions also requiring positioning of your boats on the map. 🧐 This boat movement is actually the central puzzle of the game, because as players place down settlement hexes to expand the starting islands, possible routes get more and more restricted (two separate islands can never merge by any placement, so you will end up with a bunch of thin canals to sail through).
Simply put, you are:
🏘️Building new settlements to unlock bonuses from your player board (and they’re also a main source of end game points).
🐟Collecting fish so you can trade those with the placed settlements, earning money.
🍽️Triggering celebrations on islands, removing all fish and earning points (although opponents also earn points for fish on their own settlements).
Gameplay is interactive. The islands grow and change shapes as you play, and each round different fish are “in season” which makes you move around. You’ll race for public objectives and you can also collect Temple tiles 🏛️ from the edges of the map, again encouraging ship movement. Time to time special Spirit tiles 🗿 are added to the islands, changing both the cost of building there and the score multiplier for settlements. You cannot let your opponents profit from those too much. ☝️
💬Even though 2p doesn’t seem like the ideal player count, the game is still enjoyable - there is even a slight tweak with 6 neutral starting settlements. That said, it’s nothing you should have FOMO about and pay scalper prices for - it will be released very soon! I’d say it’s a good game with nice artwork and components!
