Shards of Alkemae

This is a clever game with a great theme! I love the geometric patterns created with the heavy stock tiles. I had a tough time parsing out what was meant by the terms (i.e. piece vs. tile, and region vs shard) just by reading the rulebook, but once we started playing it made sense. I played head to head and it seemed that going second in the turn order was a bit of an advantage at first, but after drawing some tiles, it evened out. Again, I love that most of the pieces were made of heavy duty materials, but I was worried about the glass game pieces. Overall, I enjoyed the tile drawing, stealing, and placement which reminded me a bit of Carcassonne!

It is a game of chess but not chess. Four to six players. It might be cumbersome if you attach another board. You have to think ahead and have a good birds-eye view in order to see the unique shapes you will want to make. Not only is there a friendly level of play but also normal and Deathmarch(hard) levels. With the right people it is enjoyable.

I've played this several times and enjoyed it every time. Excellent treatment of interesting topic. Geometry, pattern recognition, strategy. Graphics and playing pieces really contribute to the experience.

I do struggle with a game the first time around, because I am slow at processing the rules. My husband did most of the reading. Once we got into the actual gameplay, the pieces are beautiful, and I liked the visual puzzle aspect of it.

The rules take some getting used-to, but once I learned the basic mechanics, the game was very enjoyable.

Alkemae has a very unique core system based around placing Penrose tiles to obtain shards, and then using those shards to do various effects, ultimately trying to claim regions on the central map. Just messing around with the Penrose tiles and seeing what you can do with them is a lot of fun. The differences between the ways the shards can be used lead to some mathematical questions about what can and can't be done. (For example, can you tile with only a subset of the seven shards?)

The rules are really fairly straightforward, though the rulebook could stand to be edited a little bit for clarity and organization. The main element of longer term strategy that is there is in deciding when to claim a region vs. continuing to grow it. Bigger regions are worth more points, but a claimed region mostly cannot be expanded, and unclaiming a region leaves it vulnerable to being claimed before it gets back to your turn.

I have basically two cons to point to here, and they are closely related. The first is that the system of claiming regions being the way that you get points is a little bit mundane. I have tried and consistently failed to think of a reasonable alternative, but it seems like there must be one. An example of a game with some similarities to Alkemae and a richer scoring system is Diatoms, but in that game I think the tile placement is more of a means to an end, and the set collection is why the game is interesting. So I wouldn't necessarily want Alkemae to be more like that.

The second con is that the "spells" are not very exciting. You can get the transmuting stones which are needed to score. You can get bonus turns, which successfully prevent the game from having degenerate turn order issues without allowing for unreasonably long megaturns. Then there are three rarer spells. They don't happen much, and when they do, it isn't necessarily a game changer either. It seems like there should be a bit more to the spells, especially to serve to make the rarer shards more desirable. As it stands, maybe two "rare" spells will get cast in an entire game, and they may not do anything flashy. Overall it seems like the game could have some more depth if the shards were going towards something more complicated than claiming large regions, but again I struggle to come up with an idea for another goal.

1. The unique play makes me contemplate strategies even when I am not playing
2. Competitive, but its structure encourages friendly player interaction

It gives me a good challenge, makes me think quick and I always learn something new when I play the game.

Intuitive game that allows the player to think creatively with shapes. Strategy is key!