Skip to content
Login / Register
Menu
Kickstarter – Gamefound
Board Games
Strategy
Family and Children
Party
Adult
Thematic
Ελληνικα Παιχνιδια
LCG
Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Marvel Champions: The Card Game
The Lord of The Rings: The Card Game
RPGs
D & D
Pathfinder
Gamebooks
Others
Accessories
Game Mats
Bags
Dice
Sleeves
Sapphire Sleeves
Paladin Sleeves
Other
Novels – Books
Plunder boxes
Marvel: Crisis Protocol
Search for:
Home
/
Shop
/
Board Games
/
Strategy
Add to Wishlist
Umbra Via
30m - 45m
2 - 4 Players
Ages 8+
This mechanic requires you to place a bid, usually monetary, on items in an auction of goods in order to enhance your position in the game. These goods allow players future actions or improve a position. The auction consists of taking turns placing bids on a given item until one winner is established, allowing the winner to take control of the item being bid on. Usually there is a game rule that helps drop the price of the items being bid on if no players are interested in the item at its current price.
Auction/Bidding
Tile Placement games feature placing a piece to score VPs, with the amount often based on adjacent pieces or pieces in the same group/cluster, and keying off non-spatial properties like color, "feature completion", cluster size etc.
Tile Placement
29.50
€
30 day low:
Out of stock
Search for:
Kickstarter – Gamefound
Board Games
Strategy
Family and Children
Party
Adult
Thematic
Ελληνικα Παιχνιδια
LCG
Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Marvel Champions: The Card Game
The Lord of The Rings: The Card Game
RPGs
D & D
Pathfinder
Gamebooks
Others
Accessories
Game Mats
Bags
Dice
Sleeves
Sapphire Sleeves
Paladin Sleeves
Other
Novels – Books
Plunder boxes
Marvel: Crisis Protocol
Login
Cart
Your cart is empty!
Return to shop
Skip to content
Open toolbar
Accessibility Tools
Accessibility Tools
Increase Text
Increase Text
Decrease Text
Decrease Text
Grayscale
Grayscale
High Contrast
High Contrast
Negative Contrast
Negative Contrast
Light Background
Light Background
Links Underline
Links Underline
Readable Font
Readable Font
Reset
Reset
_The_Inquiry_
Prior to 2020: 0 plays Umbra Via is a game whose premise took me by surprise - auctions coupled with route-building: what's not to like? On further inspection, however, the game left me far too disappointed and wanting to warrant keeping. The core blind-bidding mechanism is implemented fairly well overall, with more powerful bidding tokens helping win tiles, but not having any influence on the area control happening on the board upon the placement of the tile. Unfortunately, the overall arc of the game, in which players become increasingly neutered in their ability to area control as a consequence of the dwindling supply of non-soul flowers, ends up feeling reasonably unsatisfying. Both in our game and in the couple of games I watched others play, every player in the game was essentially tied at the end, with the luck of blind-bidding deciding the outcome. This feature certainly makes for a tight design, but it also makes one that leaves the players feeling wanting - lucky, not clever. In this way, the king-making / bash-the-leader effects are exacerbated, and the game ends up feeling like a light, tactical puzzle, rather than a more involved, strategic design. This is a real shame, as the space merging spatial play with auctions is still ripe for so much further exploration and development, something Umbra Via certainly won't be remembered for. A fine game that just lacks the legs to be remotely as interesting as its premise. Pass.
The Innocent
Both terrifically clever and terrifically maddening in equal measure, Umbra Via is the sort of brilliance I'm more likely to admire at a distance than through repeat plays. Read my review here: https://spacebiff.com/2021/05/12/umbra-via/
mintochris
Quick and easy to explain auction game. Not sure how much control you have over what happens, but more experience might aid the feeling of agency. Finished at just the right time not to overstay its welcome, but only just.