Recently we sat down with the folks from both Release the Geek and Gameruman, as we’d got our hands on a preview copy of “Sultan’s Library”, an up and coming Kickstarter based card game that they are currently trying to fund (and over 60% of the way there!)
The Folks behind the game go by the name Photon Games and actually have South African roots, so it’s good to see them moving into the internet foray that is the Kickstater system.
Whats in the box?
You’ll find all the components share the very rich theme throughout the game
The game starts off, everything fitting nicely in a pockatable little box. Inside you will find several decks of cards, including Book Cards, Event Cards, Location Cards, Journey Cards and Action Cards. As well as Large “double sided cards” that represent the Envoy characters and the Sultan’s library itself. There are also tokens for each character and lastly the playtest rules pamphlet.
Obviously being a play-test copy, it didn’t have the entire complete set of artwork, but the card art that’s been completed so far is of a very thematic style. Matching the “Arabian desert” theme very well, you certainly feel like all the cards work together to form one cohesive world.
Gameplay
The game itself has a simple over arcing premise. The grand Sultan has a love of knowledge and has tasked you and your fellow seekers to travel out into the world and gather as many new tomes as you can for his grand library. Each book is worth a different value of points and The first player who returns three books to the library triggers a final end game with each other player getting one last turn before point totals are tallied, the player with the highest total the overall winner. At first this may sound a little unbalanced, as the one to submit the third books should have a
Early game Shenanigans, with one book already found and deposited (NB: This was the playtest copy, so cards are still missing backs and art in most instances)
clear advantage, but the game designers have cleverly balanced this through an end game bonus to those holding books .
Each player has two actions a round, allowing them to move around, search for books and even potentially perform special actions listed on their respective character cards. This could be anything from stealing other folks books, to submitting multiple books in the library at once.
Gameplay progresses around the table as you work your way through a deck of cards, exploring new locations and potentially finding books in the region or moving on to a new one. Players also have a hand of expendable cards, which either provide the raw resources needed to move about, or other interesting mechanics that even add a dash of direct confrontation to the game for all character types, with “Book burnings” being an all too often occurrence!
With four players, this often resulted in us cycling through the actions deck at quite a rate, which perhaps made us question the size of the pile a little.
Overall thoughts
Right from the get go, this game gives the impression of a much deeper setting with untold stories. Hopefully they include some fluff in the eventual rulebook!
All in all, the game is a fun little challenge for you and a few friends to play. With a short play time, it’d act as a nice quick filler game with a strong thematic base that can be played between heavier hitting boardgames during an evening of game related revelry. The game is fairly solid rules wise and the random nature of the locations deck ensures many different permutations in each replay. Character ability balance at first glance seems a bit off, but after having played several games that that was entirely a misconception. Lots of thought has gone into the character design.
I hope their Kickstater succeeds, in that I’d like to see the artwork for the entire game fully realised.
On the site they have stated that they have some prepared stretch goals, but haven’t actually listed them. Which to me is a little strange. The whole point in having cool stretch goals is to have them out in the open right from the get go, so that people know they have to co-opt friends and family to join in and unlock that “limited edition art set” or “7th character” or whatever it happens to be stretch goal wise.
If you’re keen to hear more about some of the local talent who is working on the artwork for this game, as well as more details about where it “came from” head on over to Release the Geek‘s Podcast and listen in to the episode where they chat to the lead artist who lives in Durban.
Either way, head on over to their Kickstarter page and check out their video, You only have a week or two left to get onto this bandwagon before the campaign ends!