Last weekend I had a chance to try out the greek edition of this game. Since there are not many reviews out there about it, I thought I should write a few things.

First of all, I haven't read the book, I know almost nothing about it, so all of my thoughts are regarding the gameplay and not the book interpretation or the theme. Also, keep in mind that this review is after a single play of the game. I know it's not the wisest move to judge a game after playing only once, however as I stated, I am writing this due to the lack of information about it. Moreover, since the copy I played was in greek there might be small differences in the names of some game-parts. Lastly, the images I will be using are the ones found here in BGG and are from the german edition - however they are more or less the same.


(image by cuazzel)

So, what is it about?

The players, start from the bottom of the board, specifically at Oxford, and try to reach the North at the top of the board. The first one to do so wins. However, they must fulfill some requirements first, called "quests". More on that later.


(image by richardsgamepack)

In order for the players to move on the board they use some coloured cards with numbers on them. There are 4 colour-decks plus another deck called the Pan-deck. The players draw these cards each turn depending on their position on the board. The last player draws 4 cards, the next one 3, the second player draws 2 and the first one just a single card (you can select which colour to draw) This is also the order in which the players move their pawn. The last player goes first and so on. In order to move you play a card from your hand and you move that many spaces. In the beginning of the game you can play whichever colour you want, it doesn't matter. However, after a certain point in the board, in order to move you have to play a card in the color of someone who is ahead of you. So if for example the last player is the red one, he can only play yellow, green and blue cards. The first player on the other hand can only play cards of his own colour. This forces you to play carefully. You have to plan ahead and draw cards that you will be able to use in order to advance. This also puts the first player in a disadvantage since he draws just a single card, moves last and cannot know in advance who will be ahead of him when his turn comes up. So, even though you can play as many cards as you wish each turn and advance that many times, it may not be wise to do so.

Each player also has in front of him one golden compass plus 4 different markers. The compass is divided into 6 pieces, each one numbered 1-6. At the beginning of the game you place all of your markers at position 1. On each space on the map, there is a symbol of one of those markers. Whenever you end your movement you advance the marker shown on the space you landed by one. If you land on a compass you can advance any one of the markers.


(image by richardsgamepack)

You have to advance your 4 markers in order to complete "quests". Each player gets a Level 1 quest at the beginning which has some requirements on it regarding the 4 markers. When you fulfill it, you get a Level 2 quest and after that a Level 3. Since each completion moves some of the markers back on the compass you will have to move them forward again. Also, when you reach the end of the board, in order to win you must have each marker at least on position 3. The higher, the better (it counts as a tie-breaker).

Whenever you complete a quest you also get a "friend" who helps you from that point onward with his ability. Examples of abilities are moving your pawn by one place on the board free of charge (once per round), drawing an extra card every turn and so on.

Something I didn't mention is that on each draw you may also draw one Pan card instead of a coloured one. They usually have some special effect on them like "advance one of your markers when an opponent advances his", "discard 2 cards, draw 2" and so on.

This is more or less the way the game plays.

So, was it any good?

Ehmm... so and so.. The components were very nice, however I didn't find that much excitement in the game. Sure there were moments when you had to carefully plan which coloured cards to draw and where to end your movement, but other than that there wasn't anything else to do. Also, the order the players moved kept changing every round making it a little bit confusing. We would very often find ourselves asking each other whose turn was it to play simply because it wasn't something we could easily deduct from the board after 1 or 2 players had already moved.

However, I'd like to give it another try some time, if only to try another strategy (probably the safest bet is to stay last each round and then, near the finish, play 8 cards in a row and move in front of everybody to win - that's how a friend of mine won in our game )

If you are interested in a heavy strategic game look somewhere else. If you want a light game to pass some time with some friends then you can try it out, you may end up liking it.

That's it for my review. Please forgive any mistakes in my English since it's not my mother language. Also keep in mind this is only my second review in BGG so any comments would be appreciated.
Thank you for reading it!