Upon my first encounter with Nefertiti, I dismissed it as yet another auction game with an Egyptian theme. It was sitting on a pile of Games at Gamefest South, and looked about as exciting as watching ink dry. I couldn’t figure out why someone would theme any auction game Egyptian as it would instantly bring up thoughts of Ra. And few auction games compare well to Ra in my opinion. It would have gone entirely ignored by me but I was convinced to play it by one of my fellow convention goers (Dave Chappelle). I ended up playing two games of it and even bought it while I was there. It was a very fun lighter weight game and was definitely NOT RA.

So what do you get?

The game is broken up into a game board, large market tiles, money, an ankh, wooden “servants” in 4 colors, two dice, seal tokens, and many cards, wooden score tokens in 4 colors.

The artwork is colorful and very pleasing with a nice Egyptian feel to it. In fact, it is much better than Ra. The cards are small and difficult to shuffle but are adequate to the use they have in the game. They have decent artwork which evokes the Egyptian flavor of the items they represent and the information is provided in a clear manner on each. The meeples are on the small side but fit well with the size of the board.

The board itself is also on the small side, which is why the servant tokens and cards are small. However, this appears to be a deliberate choice as the market tiles would have to be huge if the board was made lager to accommodate standard sized playing cards. The costs would also have to go up and many people would probably complain about the game being too expensive for what you get. The symbols on the board are not always obvious and you will need to refer to the rules the first 1-2 times you play to determine what some of them mean.

Overall the bits are adequate for the task and evoke the Egyptian theme well. I particularly like the painting of the Nile delta on the board background. It is simple but a nice addition. On the other hand, Ra, in my opinion, is plain and ugly. The minimalist artwork is serviceable but not attractive.

Theme:

This is an auction game with worker placement. It could re-themed as Ultimate Hopscotch for cash and prizes. If you are looking for complex interactions accurately reflecting Ancient Egyptian History, then this is the wrong game for you. However, if you want to play an auction with a novel bidding mechanic then theme is only skin deep anyway. In this way, Nefertiti is a little like Ra.

Gameplay:

Nefertiti plays very differently from Ra, and I think will appeal more to casual gamers (more on that later). They both, at their hearts, are a “Collect as many cards/tiles of a certain type as you can to score big points” type of game. Both games also have hidden information in the form of tiles/cards that are flipped up to be bid on in a random order. However, where Ra has more of a push your luck component built in, Nefertiti is more a game of maneuvering. You can push your luck in Nefertiti but only in minor ways.

In Nefertiti you are “nobles” trying to come up with the most beautiful gifts for Nefertiti who is tying the knot with Akhenaton. The goal is similar to that of almost any cocktail party. You don’t want to be seen wearing the same dress as someone else. In effect you score points for having items that other players do not have and your items become worth less if they also have them. Mechanically, you are trying to collect sets of cards while keeping them away from your fellow player. This is often not entirely possible but there are ways to steal cards or force others to get rid of them.

In Ra you just buy the stuff and score based on what you get each round. The only player interaction you will see is during the bidding and there is no way to take something from someone else. This is not a bad thing, it just means that Ra is much more focused on one set of mechanics.

So how do you get stuff in Nefertiti? There are four markets on the game board. One starts closed and the other three are populated with 4 face up item cards from the deck, one of which has a seal token on it (each). The markets have two sides to them with a different array of several tents on either side. You use the market tiles to cover one side of a market when it is open and another tiles covers the other side when a market is closed. The tents are all numbered sequentially starting from 1 and one market gets as high as 12.

Each turn, you can play a previously acquired seal token to use a “character” (i.e. a special ability card that is usable once per game) and then place a servant in an open market. Servants are place round robin and then the next set of servants are placed in the same order. Rinse and repeat. Each player has only 4 servants so you need to make them count. Whatever number tent you place your servant on is how much money you are bidding for that market. You cannot place a servant on an occupied tent. Each market has a condition which will cause it to close and resolve bids. A few of these include creating a tic-tac-toe with the servants placed on the tents, the number of the tents with servants on them adding to 17+, or having 3 servants of differing colors on tents. When the condition is met, the market closes and the highest bidder must pay the total amount of his/her bid to the market and can take the item with the seal on it or two of the other item cards. The next highest bidder gets to take half the money in the market or pays their bid and takes one of the remaining cards. This continues for each bid until they are all resolved. All servants on this market are then returned to their owners to get placed again.

The market tile is then moved to the opposite side of the market (remember, each market has 2 different configurations of tents) and the tile indicating that it is closed is placed over the uncovered section of the market. This opens the previously closed market and cards are added to fill this new market. In this way there will always be three open markets that rotate throughout the game and one closed one. As each market has 2 different sides with different requirements to close them, you can go through 8 different markets in a game.

Seals can be very powerful to take as they allow you to use a character on a subsequent turn. These characters take the form of various cards laid out at the beginning of the game including a thief, scribes, merchants, etc. These cards are discarded along with the seal token after use, so some will only be available to one player. The characters and their abilities are:

Thief: take one card remaining on a closed market (1 card)
Treasurer: take 4 money from an open or closed market (1 card)
Vizier: instantly score 2 points for each different item you have (1 card)
Scribe: score one set of you items with +3, +2, or +1 points added to each (4 total cards)
Royal Servant: force everyone to score one item (2 cards)
Merchant: trade 2 or 1 item with another player and pay them any difference in cost (3 total cards)
High Priest: place one extra servant this turn (1 card)

(scored items are removed from the game which can make remaining ones more valuable.)

There are also different types of tents to place the servants on. For example some tents have symbols that reward or punish players who take the space. Each market has a space with a coin on it that allows the player who places a servant thereto take one money from the market. Others penalize you for making low bids by only allowing a player to take one card per bid. A third type of tent allows players who make the highest bid to take an extra card along with their normal 1-2 card choice.

The game has a closed economy. Once the players have their income and the starting money is placed on each market, no more money will get added to the system. This makes it important to try to be the second highest bid when a market closes as you will get first crack at taking ½ the money on the market. Sometimes it is worth it to be first and second highest bid as you can buy items with the high bid and then take half of it back. When a market closes, all money still on it stays there. Thus, players can be very cash poor and the markets rich at times. Players can get paid from the markets by taking the tent with the coin symbol or being the first person to place on a newly opened market (nabbing 1 coin) or both (nabbing 2). Enterprising players can easily gain control of the markets by hoarding money, but this comes at the cost of getting items which will be worth more points at the end of the game.

At the end of the game final scoring is done. All players score the number of points on each item card equal to the number of players who have a copy of that card. For example a player may have a Gold hawk statue card that scores 14 points if only one player has a copy, 10 points if two players have copies and a measly 7 points if 3 people have one. There a few double cards with 2 senet games pictured that score double points as well. After that, every one scores 1 point for every 2 money and 3 points for each unspent seal token. The highest score is the winner.

Not Ra:

When you start to look at the mechanics of Nefertiti, it becomes clear that these games fulfill a very different function in the auction game world.

Ra is a game that is streamlined, doing one thing and doing it well. You have a large press-your-luck component along with a need to carefully evaluate each bid you make and when to call Ra to keep someone else from bidding or force them to bid on less than they wanted. The scoring seems overly complicated for the simplicity of the auction mechanic and this is unfortunate as you need to know how scoring works to properly evaluate a bid. Fortunately you only need to play once or twice to get the basics of game play and it is often fun even if you are not sure about scoring.

Nefertiti is more focused on maneuvering and appears to have more “complex” game play at first. You will spend time trying to figure out when to close a market, and when to scoop someone for a bid. The characters also require you to think ahead so you can use them at an optimum time. There is much more player interaction in Nefertiti. People can steal cards from you and take the character you want before you get to use it. Also, you need to try to guess where others may place their servants to know where to put yours.

Despite its apparent complexity, I feel it is actually easier to teach new people Nefertiti than Ra.. While the auction mechanic in Ra is simpler, The scoring is more straightforward in Nefertiti and you don’t have to worry about what pieces disappear every round and why you can’t score a Nile without a flood. Also there are no negative modifiers in Nefertiti. You will only go up on the track and never down. There is a certain logic to the markets, despite their odd way of closing and it is relatively easy to understand that your servant placement is also your bid. I was able to teach the game to others after one play and it seems intuitive once you grasp the concepts involved.

Summary:

Overall, Nefertiti is a fun game with novel mechanics that really add spice to the auction genre. If you’re thinking, “Not another auction game,” then think again. This games will pleasantly surprise you with a worker placement model and clever ways to directly affect your opponents for fun and profit. When I say this game is not Ra, it is to distinguish it from Ra rather than put Ra down. Both are fine games but I found that Nefertiti was initially more accessible than Ra. In the end I really enjoy both but I am look forward to playing many more games of Nefertiti, so Ra may take a powder for a while.

Higher Primate assessment of Nefertiti (ook factor 1-5):

Bits: ook factor 3.5 (pretty and thematic)Game play: OOK factor 4 (5 if you love to moving little pieces of paper around)
Replayability: ook factor 4 (simple with enough depth to keep you coming back)
Tension : ook factor 2 (not a huge amount unless a market closes unexpectedly and your opponents suddenly have more money than you)
Accessibility : ook factor 4 (intuitive and relatively easy to pick up)
Overall: OOK factor 3.5 (A fine auction game that you can play when you really don’t feel like Ra)