Giles Pritchard
Australia
Shepparton
Victoria
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Dragon Land:
Dragon Land is an attractive, fun, and sometimes-tantalising game by Reiner Knizia (Lost Cities, Ra, Blue Moon and many many more). In Dragon Land players set out to collect the most sets of gems and Dragon eggs, and this journey is an enjoyable one. The rules of the game are simple and easy to learn, and provide for one of the best ‘roll a dice and move a piece’ games I have ever played.
One very pleasing element of Dragon Land is attractive and high quality components that come with the game. The tokens are printed well and made of thick card, the screens to hide your treasure behind are of the same quality, the player pieces are oddly shaped and made of wood, the game comes with very nice looking plastic gem stones, two special dice and a dice tower – A Dice Tower!
In Dragon Land players take turns moving their pieces around the board collecting gems, dragon eggs and magic tokens; player pieces are all of one shape and in each of three colours, red, blue, and green. The red pieces are allowed to pick up the rubies, the green pieces the emeralds and so on. What makes Dragon Land a clever roll and move game is the fact that there are two dice and three pieces, each dice can only move one piece, and this can lead to some interesting tactical decision-making.
At the end of a game of Dragon Land players will score points base on the gem sets they managed to collect, for every Gem or Dragon Egg the player will receive one point, if however they can make a set (one each of a Dragon Egg, a Ruby, an Emerald, and a Sapphire), they score ten points instead.
Knizia manages to inject some clever elements into this simple scoring mechanism as well; making the game that much more than a simple roll and move set collection game. If one of the player’s pieces ends the game without a magic ring (gained during the game like gem stones) then any gem stone of that piece’s colour are discarded before scoring, in addition any diamonds picked up during the game can be used as ‘wild’ gems – substituting for any missing ones when it comes to making sets for scoring. There are also magic tokens, which can assist pieces to move in various ways not usually allowed.
All in all Knizia’s alterations in the simple rules are easy to digest and add much to the game-play. This is a very simple game that is easy to learn, but one that, because of the twists here and there, offers considerable variation and is a game where good tactical play is discernable, and rewarded.
This is a brilliant game for families, children can cope easily with the rules of the game and quickly learn to develop and implement strategies, plus there is enough of interest to engage the adult mind without making the experience boring or repetitive, plus there is enough luck to mean that while strategy is important it will not always, on its own, win the day. The game pieces are gorgeous and help to build a great ambience. Dragon Land is a clever and fun game, and one that is especially good for family play.
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Alan Kwan
Hong-Kong
Hong Kong
Unspecified
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A ggod review. But I'm not really sure whether this game is good for family play. The adult may win too often! My nieces refuse to play me.
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Giles Pritchard
Australia
Shepparton
Victoria
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Very true Alan - though you could handicap yourself somehow (Eg: no adult recieves any of the normal starting tokens - and/or they do not move piece during set-up like everyone else - or they can only pick up one gem of the correct colour (no diamonds) during the collect treasure phase - or they can't use tokens) - these are minor adjustments.
The strategy in Dragonland is there - and can be thought provoking as well - but there not so many different things going on through complex rulings that they are difficult to percieve for kids as well - though you make a good point - an adult will usually win (which is a great way of bringing your win/loss ratio into a respectible alignment if you are anything like me  !). It is good fun though and beautiful when set up!
Glad you liked the review - thanks for the comment!
Giles.
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Shannon McNair
United States
Beaverton
Oregon
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Alan Kwan wrote: A ggod review. But I'm not really sure whether this game is good for family play. The adult may win too often! My nieces refuse to play me.
At least one person found otherwise: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/3688/item/56338#item56...
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Carlton
United Kingdom
Finstock
Oxon
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Lovely review and thanks for taking the time to review for the rest of us.
You are right about the tactility of the components and fun of the dice tower - and the six sided dice are only 1-3 and 2-4 - my daughter is looking forward to fooling her frinds with these (hmm).
Played for the first time with a 10 and 14 year old yesterday as a light short game and we all enjoyed. I did win, perhaps because I had read the rules before we started and grasped the use of the discs first, but the children were learning fast.
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Shannon McNair
United States
Beaverton
Oregon
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Pnumekin wrote:
As was this case on our first play. My 5yr old beat mom and dad. She did get a bit of an assist near the end of the game, but not much.
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