Individuals typically mistake me for a health-conscious particular person after I flip down Krispy-Kreme donuts or exhausting candies. What they don’t perceive is that I’m such an excessive chocoholic that, with few exceptions, I believe desserts simply aren’t well worth the energy in the event that they don’t comprise some quantity of chocolate.
So, in fact, my curiosity was piqued after I heard a couple of new recreation referred to as Candy Lands, the place gamers are tasked with developing a confectionery nation crammed with brownie buildings, espresso retailers, ice cream towers, and extra, to show their worthiness to interchange King Sugar Syrup, at the moment ailing from overindulgence. Designer and inventive duo Totsuca Chuo and Tatsuki Asano, who beforehand introduced us Ostia, have reunited for a heavier resource-management Eurogame that accommodates 1-4 gamers over 100-200 minutes. Does the gameplay match the sweetness of the theme?
Gameplay Overview:
I can’t try and comprehensively describe the 20+ web page rulebook for this heavy Eurogame, however will reasonably describe some key gameplay components.
Over every of 5 rounds, gamers will take actions by a mix of card play and employee placement. Gamers obtain 5-6 new playing cards every spherical, and so they should resolve to play them both as:
- A part of their tableau, which leads to a one-time, end-round, and/or industry-linked reactivatable bonus
- Cost for worker-placement spots
Employee placement is the majority of the gameplay, and for those who’re the primary participant to activate any given spot, the fee is one card plus any useful resource prices related to that spot. Employee-placement spots can every be activated 1-3 instances per spherical by the identical or
totally different gamers, however for those who’re the 2nd or third customer, you’ll need to discard 2 or 3 playing cards to go there.
The primary factor you’re trying to perform with these actions is to construct out a confectionery nation in your private map board consisting of terrain tiles (of 5 sorts) that have to be related to roads so as to maintain constructed properties (of 6 sorts). Numerous rewards particular to every terrain and constructing kind are granted when sure circumstances are met.
In true Eurogame style, there are additionally numerous useful resource conversions and tracks! Six tracks primarily relate to end-game scoring with small bonuses alongside the best way. There are a number of further tracks that present principally in-game rewards and talents.
On the finish recreation, the best rating wins.
Sport Expertise:
Don’t be misled by the cutesy confectionery theme, pastel palette, and alliteratively alluring playing cards; Candy Lands is a brutally tight, rules-intensive heavy Eurogame. It can probably take just a few performs earlier than you’re feeling such as you’re carrying out greater than the naked minimal, and at a stable 2 hours for a 2-player recreation, that’s a little bit of dedication. My accomplice and I ended our first recreation with simply 2 cities every in our respective confectionery nations, and solely one in every of us broke 100 factors (I received’t say who). By recreation three, we have been each scoring within the mid-200s with 4 cities every, and no less than based mostly on the scoring tracks, it appears there’s nonetheless ample room for enchancment.
That is the kind of recreation the place you can not do every thing. A lot of the massive scoring comes from the tip of sure tracks, so that you’ll need to specialise in sure areas and max them out. Specialization will largely be dictated by the character you play; there are 14 totally different choices, every with distinctive and highly effective capabilities that you simply’ll actually need to lean into. The deck of 207 distinctive playing cards, 6 potential variants of private map board layouts, and 5-7 numerous pairings of support tiles to draft every spherical (amongst 25 whole choices) will dictate your choices for executing numerous methods. Altogether, these and a number of other further recreation components mix for pretty first rate replayability.
As for participant interplay, there isn’t an excessive amount of exterior of the worker-placement component, a contest to realize sure milestones and final-scoring tiles, and a draft for selecting aid-tile pairings every spherical. Contemplating the tightness of each sources and actions within the recreation, I’m okay with this restricted interplay, because it is perhaps irritating in such a thinky puzzle with long-term planning to continually have your plans foiled. The sport does present further motion spots for employee placement at greater participant counts, however contemplating the already prolonged playtime and restricted participant interplay, I can’t actually see the purpose of enjoying at 4 gamers, or probably even three.
If I needed to evaluate Candy Lands to a different recreation, Terra Mystica in all probability comes closest, owing to the issue, uneven powers, tightness of sources, multi-step developing course of on hexagonal maps, and drafting of tiles between rounds. However Candy Lands could be very a lot a distinct recreation; it’s a much more engaging manufacturing, the person maps considerably scale back participant interplay (and likewise the meanness), and the card-play provides a significant new component.
The cardboard-play could also be one of many extra distinctive components of Candy Lands, as you’ll must resolve which card to play into your tableau and which you’re prepared to discard for a worker-placement spot or in trade for desperately wanted sources. As gamers enter the second and third rounds of Candy Lands, new, extra highly effective variations of current worker-placement spots turn out to be obtainable, though there’s a greater useful resource value for the improved motion effectivity. Playing cards equate to actions, so discarding 3 playing cards to entry a selected worker-placement spot may imply shedding 2 turns; you’ll must fastidiously take into account if it’s price taking that motion now, ready for the following spherical, or executing a distinct model of that motion (probably weaker or extra resource-intensive).
The cardboard variability amongst 207 choices is each thrilling and typically irritating. Every card is classed into one, none, or all three {industry} sorts, which can matter for numerous participant goals. Along with {industry} kind, every card could have a number of forms of 6 potential sweets tags. Lastly, the fee to play playing cards varies from 4 to 26 cash, with rewards normally proportional to the fee. Early recreation, enjoying a 20+ coin card is probably going prohibitively costly. Most of the higher-cost playing cards additionally require particular candy tags that gamers could or could not have (even by late recreation) to maximise their worth. Thus, the worth of the assorted playing cards is very depending on the spherical of the sport in addition to the state of play of the person gamers. The rulebook suggests drafting opening fingers as a variant, although I really feel this ought to be customary apply after your first recreation. I might even advocate drafting your new 5 playing cards in the beginning of every subsequent spherical as effectively, since this helps reduce the luck issue throughout the large deck in a recreation of restricted total card draw.
My solely different nitpick is that the free actions (principally useful resource conversions) are used continually, and it will have been useful to have these listed on a extra visibly accessible participant support.
Last Ideas:
Candy Lands is a visually gorgeous manufacturing filled with lovable dessert-themed buildings and recipe-related alliterations all through. The gameplay, nonetheless, is something however cute. Gamers ought to be ready for brutally tight useful resource administration, hefty guidelines overhead, and roughly 60 minutes per participant. For lovers of minimal-interaction heavy Eurogames, which will nonetheless be a candy proposition, particularly to expertise an revolutionary card-play system, a thinky puzzle with a number of routes to victory, and techniques that can change relying in your uneven character and card-draw. The playing cards introduce some randomness, however this may be considerably mitigated by way of drafting. In abstract, Candy Lands affords a sugary theme, a tiny pinch of spicy participant interplay, and an total very good strategic puzzle.
Last Rating: 4 Stars – Like its cookie rabbit items, it’s completely lovable, but in addition fairly crunchy and will provide you with a headache from overindulgence if performed at greater participant counts
Disclaimer: DO NOT eat the parts
Hits:
• Modern card integration into recreation play
• Fabulous confectionery-themed manufacturing
• Uneven characters and maps improve replayability
Misses:
• Playing cards introduce randomness; drafting really useful
• Extreme size at greater participant counts
• Participant support at no cost actions would have been useful
