• Let’s highlight a few more titles appearing on BGG’s Spielwarenmesse 2023 Preview, starting with Terra Pyramides from famed design team Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling and publisher Korea Boardgames.
Here’s an overview of this 1-4 player game, which takes 45-90 minutes to play and is scheduled to debut at SPIEL ’23 in October:
In more detail, in a given turn each player has exactly one tile in hand that they have to place somewhere on the board. Then, all tiles on the board in an uninterrupted straight or diagonal line from the just-placed tile are activated, with the player choosing the line in case multiple choices are available.
On the tiles are workers, resources, and money that can be activated/received by the player. Workers and resources are needed to build pyramids. Workers need to “walk” to pyramid building sites in uninterrupted straight or diagonal lines. When a player has enough resources and three of their workers on a building site, they may build another level for that pyramid, which gives them points. Money can be used for bonus actions, like getting joker resources and looking through a stack and choosing a tile.
Component overview (work in progress)
The game ends after all tile stacks have been exhausted. Each pyramid is worth points depending on the level that a player has occupied the pyramid. Leftover resources and money are also worth points.
This box includes two expansions, which add more strategies to the game.
• The other SPIEL ’23 release that Korea Boardgames showed off in Nürnberg, Germany was Coffee Rush from newcomer designer Euijin Han.
Here’s an overview of this 2-4 player game:
In more detail, each player moves on the ingredient board to collect the ingredients that they need to fulfill orders — and fulfilling orders boosts your rating. Orders that are not fulfilled in time become penalties, which subtract from your rating. If a player has fulfilled three orders, they may activate an upgrade that lets them acquire ingredients more easily.
The game ends once all order cards have run out or after a barista collects their fifth penalty card. The player with the highest rating wins!
I feel like I’ve seen a fair number of “run a coffee shop” games over the past few years, but I’ve seen even more coffee shops open and run in my part of the world, so the customer base for such things seems strong — at least for actual coffee.
• At Spielwarenmesse, French publisher IELLO displayed Get on Board: Paris & Roma, a standalone sequel to Saashi‘s Get on Board: New York & London from 2022, which was itself a new version of 2018’s Let’s Make a Bus Route.
Image: Saashi
Saashi notes that differences in this new edition will be revealed later in 2023. The short description from IELLO notes that this edition contains more interaction than the first title due to the metro connections:
Over multiple rounds in Get on Board: Paris & Roma, you reveal a new route card, then plot the ideal route to cross off the best passenger and place spaces. Complete your objectives, and try to get the most points!
The image above shows the Roma side of the board; below is a close-up of the Paris side of the board, along with an individual player sheet, from SPIEL ’22 when this item was still under embargo.
Unlike the earlier Get on Board title, Get on Board: Paris & Roma includes rules for solo play.
