Game: Isis & Osiris

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rober — 2008-11-14T08:35:24+00:00

overview

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Ceryon — 2008-02-03T00:38:17+00:00

Better and fresher scan of the german box front

Thread: Re: Place tiles like an Egyptian

reapersaurus — 2007-06-05T22:07:28+00:00

Thanks for the info - and the recommendation.

And we do have Cleopatra - it's been a big favorite since Kublacon 2006, as you guessed it would be.

Thread: Re: Place tiles like an Egyptian

Randall Silver — 2007-05-17T07:27:11+00:00

I would really categorise this game as "light", not even moderate. It's not a lot more than "place a tile, and try to remember the number for later".

Since you both like fantasy games, and your wife likes Egyptian themes, I would go for "Days of Wonder's" game: "Cleopatra and the Society of Architects." That's a great game for moderate gamers, and is good fun. I didn't write a full review for that one yet, but I will, somewhere in the near future

Thread: Re: Place tiles like an Egyptian

reapersaurus — 2007-05-14T19:04:04+00:00

Thank you for this review - I've been wondering what this game was like.
My wife is a sucker for Egyptian themed games, and we both like Coloretto and are Fantasy Gamers, too.

Is there enough game here for moderate gamers?

Thread: Place tiles like an Egyptian

Randall Silver — 2007-05-14T16:20:21+00:00

First review for this game, I see. Well then, let's find out some more about it! First of all: it's a light tile-placing game for 2-4 players. Gameplay shouldn't last longer than 20 minutes.

Apologies for the very short review, but there's just not a lot to tell about this one.

The looks

It was actually the look which made me buy this game, before I got into heavier games like Fury of Dracula, Descent, and so on. As you can see, the theme is Egyptian, just like the title.

It is, however, just a marketing ploy. The game has nothing to do at all with Egypt, or both Isis and Osiris. How and why they ended up with the name remains as much a mystery as the pyramids themselves...

The board is simple but nice, as are the tiles. You also get some wooden counters for every player. Nothing special, which is ok for this type of game.

Gameplay

Every turn, the player has a choice to place one of his wooden counters on the board, or one of the (face-down) tiles.

The tiles have positive or negative numbers on them, which will affect the score of the counters. Since they are face down in front of you, you have no idea what you're going to get, but you have to pick one, show it to everyone, and put it on the board face down again.

When the board is full, everyone counts everything next to his/her counters (but not diagonally). If your counter is next to a +1, +2 and -2, for example, you score 1 point. Yes, it's possible to get a negative score.

Feel of the game, and conclusion

Well, as you can read: it's a simple game of placing tiles and counters. Try to remember where the big "plusses" are, and force your opponent to get negative numbers.

It's an ok game if you don't have a lot of time, but I doubt you'll play more than 2 in a row, even if it's short. Maybe a best of three.

There's a bit more strategy and fun if there are 4 players, since the board isn't that big, but overall, I wouldn't recommend it to any serious gamer.

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Toynan — 2007-03-15T17:11:20+00:00

French back of te box

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BaSL — 2007-02-06T10:23:33+00:00

Back of box - Dutch

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oetan — 2006-06-26T17:24:03+00:00

Game components

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BaSL — 2005-11-10T01:19:43+00:00

Dutch box - Nominated for 'Toys of the Year 2001'

Thread: Another Thursday at Shire Games ... (and Nick wins some games!)

Moviebuffs — 2005-08-05T10:15:23+00:00

The second game for Phil and Sue was this one - another game where a good (if not photographic) memory comes in handy.

Best of three games was the order of the day.

The first game was a very high scoring affair, which would suggest that the big minus tiles came out very early, when they were still avoidable.

Sue took the first game with 26 to Phil's 11.

The second game was a much tighter affair, with each player taking almost as many hits as they got good scores. By a narrow squeak, Sue also took the second game with a score of 8 to Phil's 6.

Therefore the final score was:

Sue - 2
Phil - 0

Thread: First Tuesday - Pirates & Power

Moviebuffs — 2005-07-20T09:01:25+00:00

This was the first meeting of the new, twice-weekly Shire Gamers, now that 'Tuesday nights at Churrasco's' has been introduced to accompany 'Thursday nights at the shop'.

First there at 6.30pm were Sue, Mark L (formerly Mark1) and Nick.

While waiting for the others (if there were going to be others) we pulled out this quick & easy memory game.

Not the easiest game to write a session report for, as the games moves so quickly, I tend to be so busy trying to remember where I put stuuf, let alone watching what everyone else did!

As soon as Mark & I had two pieces diagonally adjacent, you could guarantee that Sue would pull out the first minus of the game (-2) and catch us both with it.

I pulled the -4 tile, but did so when the only way to catch anyone was to also get myself, and so it went in a big empty space.

I got caught by a -3 tile all on my own, and Sue managed to get two stones around the +4 tile, while Mark & I got one each.

Final Scores:

Sue - 21
Mark - 11
Nick - 11

Comfortable victory for Sue, who claimed to like the new venue a lot.

Thread: Week Three

Moviebuffs — 2005-07-08T09:20:55+00:00

Week three of Shire Gamers and we're up to 11 people. This includes several new faces, and if everyone turns up next week, we're going to start running out of room!

Sue, Tracy, Martin & Jason were first in and started a quick game of Isis & Osiris while waiting for everyone to turn up.

Sue went over the rules very quickly - one of the beauties of this game is how easy it is to teach, and then they were off.

Another feature of this game is the fact that you're so busy trying to keep track of everything, that you sometimes have no idea how you're doing until the end - and this can lead to wins where you thought you'd done terribly, and vice-versa.

As the scoring progressed, it was clear who'd positioned their stones to best advantage, leaving the guys to hover around the grand total of nil ...

Tracy - 14
Sue - 3
Martin - 0
Jason - 0

A good start to the evening for Tracy, who then claimed to like the game a lot!!

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Dr. Fu — 2005-04-21T20:59:56+00:00

all counters - fresh sheet - back

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Dr. Fu — 2005-04-21T20:59:54+00:00

all counters - fresh sheet - front

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Dr. Fu — 2005-04-21T19:11:41+00:00

gameboard - great artwork by Franz Vohwinkel

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Dr. Fu — 2005-04-21T19:11:31+00:00

back - german ed.