Bomarzo

Board Game Geek Reviews

1. 6 out of 10

   H8Man

   I finally got to try this one and for some reason I thought this would be way heavier than it is, but it's more like an easy family game. I like the idea and the illustrations, as it looks completely unusual. The gameplay is fine, too, but due to the game being fast and easy, the mechanisms don't get to full use. You can upgrade your fief to increase you income, cards or workers, which is the most interesting part, but the game runs away too fast. Anyway, I like everything about the player board, aswell as how you can influence what will net you scores at the end. The game just feels a bit too light and fast to me, but otherwise it's pretty much fine.

2. 7.3 out of 10

   Wentu

   Somehow the usual german with conversion of cubes but there is definitely something good here in the mechanics of points. I like the fact you can't get points from everything but you push with the Dragon the value of the score in which you are in the lead. Quite tense, good duration, compact in time, not overly complicated, nice graphics.

3. 6.5 out of 10

   ludovitto

   This game has some potential. Not a simple worker placement, you can modify the board by secretly changing the order of the deities and therefore the endgame prizes for the majorities. A very smart mechanism allows you to copy some other player's action without using any worker or to block the god cards preventing other players to use'em later on the same turn. You cannot figure out who's winning until the very end of the game, even with two players. I guess the game would be even more tense with 3 or 4, because with 2 people there is some interaction but it's not a struggle for supremacy and you cannot appreciate the twists that the game offers to block the others or prevent them to do what they need. That being said, Bomarzo has something that makes the game less enjoyable than one would think just reading the rules. Firt of all, the rules themselves: they're confusing and unnecessarly crooked. The game isn't hard to master but eventually it becomes frustrating to search the rulebook for basic infos that are put together confunsingly. The artwork is beautiful, but the icons on the cards are far from being intuitive and you'll need some games to manage all the symbols in the game without checking the rulebook. Game materials are quite poor and once set, the table doesn't look charming at all, expecially compared to other similar games. That's a pity, because as already said, the artwork is very fine. In clonclusion, this game could have been a really masterpiece but due to some production issues (i.e: bad rulebook, icons and poor game materials) the gaming experience is fairly less enjoyable than it could be.