Archeologic

De mensen van Ludonaute vroegen ons om deze review in het Engels te schrijven. Je kan de dropdown op deze blog gebruiken om de tekst te laten vertalen naar het Nederlands, moest dat nodig zijn.

Archeologic caught my attention at Spiel in Essen when I saw that there was some kind of 'wheel' of resolution, just like in Tiwanaku. And it's also a deduction game. As I'm a big fan of Tiwanaku, the expectations of Archeologic were very high.  The goal of ArcheOlogic is to map a newly discovered city in the mountains using the Archeoscope, a nifty device as it answers the questions posed to it. I need such a device in real life. After you got the answer, it's up to your brain that to do the rest!

You can ask questions about different things: the buildings and their locations, possible traps, or even empty spaces. You then place the disk - 28 different discs and thus 28 missions are available - of the ongoing game under the archeoscope by aligning the symbols, what you're looking for, and the number or letter, which identifies the row or column targeted by the question. The archeoscope immediately provides the answer.

And when you think you have identified everything correctly, and you think you have created the city as it suppose to look like, you can check the solution either online via the free app or at the end of the rulebook. If you are the first player to check, and if you're correct, you will be the winner of the game. If you were wrong, you're out of the game and the big looser.

It's really enjoyable and fun to figure out how the various tetris tiles are placed on your board. The random empty spaces makes it more variable, but the downside is that you are always playing with the same 5 by 5 grid, and with the same tetris tiles. I guess if you play this game often, you really get to know how to solve it quickly. A nice would-be expansion are extra tiles and new grids.

At the beginning of the game, you can choose the difficulty level by receiving more or fewer starting clues. The most easy game has 5 traps exposed, while the most difficult game only has 3 traps exposed at the beginning.

A solo and an expert mode is available. The export mode allows for vaguer hints, like for example, the T-piece does not touch the square, or the Z-tile has no squares on the left and right sides.

I thought the manipulation would be more delicate than Tiwanaku because you don't slide the disk into the tool, but place it at the back. Finally, it's quite easy and doesn't hinder the enjoyment at all. ArcheOlogic is still more accessible than Tiwanaku : the rules are pretty simpel, and you can explain the game to others in less then 10 minutes.

During our first game - it was an easy one with 5 hints at the start - the first player tried to solve the puzzle in just 7 questions. It was wrong. I was the second player, and tried after 8 questions. Also I was wrong. Don't be to sure you found the solution. Better double check some facts before giving the solution.

The theme 'archeology' could be changed to anything here. It's not really present when you play the game, but that doesn't bother me at all. The 2 shields to hide your (partially) solution could be 1 bigger shield. But hey, who is looking at those shields if you have such a cool archeoscope to ask questions to ?

Dit spel is geschonken door Ludonaute en is vanaf januari te spelen bij Het Geel Pionneke.

Aantal spelers : 1 - 4
Leeftijd : vanaf 12 jaar
Speelduur : 45 minuten