Worth the hype? (Yes!)

Have you tried 🕌 Marrakesh? We finally caved in and bought it last year, one of the hottest new Stefan Feld titles - if I can consider a game from 2022 “new”. 🤔 Even though multiple new games from the City Series have been released since, Marrakesh is still the most hyped. Probably also because it is a brand new design and not a remake. 😉

Marrakesh is centered around a cube tower, that randomly drops out “Keshi” 👳‍♂️ - octogonal cylinders that symbolize the people of Marrakesh with different professions. Players employ them to achieve the most honorable title. So ok, the theme is nothing to write home about - it’s all about the gameplay! 💪

The game is pretty big with lots of components - punching it all out took at least an hour. 😄 However the gameplay is relatively easy to learn. Players start each season with 12 Keshi, 1 of every color available. Then, each round players choose 3 of these Keshi, which both determine the actions they will take during the round and also what Keshis are thrown into the cube tower. You then draft from the pieces that fell out of the cube tower in turn order, adding them to your player board to amplify future actions of that color. Finally, you do the 3 actions you selected earlier - every color is basically its own “minigame”, and the more Keshi you have there, the better it is.

After 4 rounds you use up all 12 Keshi you started with, which ends the Season. Repeat this 2 more times and the game is over! 🏆

As you get stronger with each Keshi drafted, the game becomes an engine-builder. In the first season you barely achieve anything, but by the end you are much more efficient. Even though every season you always do all 12 action-colors, the order in which you do them matters a lot, especially as some actions can give you additional Keshi, which can then further strengthen another action. It’s all pretty fun and engaging, but I do have to say the cube tower can feel unfair - especially because we aren’t used to output randomness in Feld games. Maybe this unfairness is more evident in 2-player games. 

In summary the game is great though, and we are looking forward to trying the Camels and Nomads expansion too! 😁