Snowdale Design - The Land of GALZYR - Board Game - English Version - Multi-Colour, Single Piece

Product Information

Spoiler free: The storybook only shows you the parts you should see at any given moment, preventing you from accidentally spoiling any upcoming surprises. It’s all surprisingly simple, especially considering the game allows you to alter the world and save your progress. Overall, Lands of Galzyr is an absolutely fantastic board game that successfully risked it all on having a great story. Its light rules and streamlined gameplay will have you, as it has me, champing at the bit to go on more and more adventures of the common folk. Lands of Galzyr promises an approachable adventure in a world that you can freely explore and evolves depending on your choices. Does it fulfill its promises? Introduction to Lands of Galzyr Review

SL: It’s next to impossible to know what other publishers choose to do in the future. I believe the industry has room for both. While we knew there to be a vocal group of players who dislike anything digital in their board gaming table, we wouldn’t have chosen the path we did if we didn’t truly believe it to make Lands of Galzyr a better game. We wanted to have a physical storybook but the benefits outweighed the downsides so greatly that we didn’t really have an option in the end. Lower price for the consumer, no fear of spoilers, no need to search for the right paragraph to read, and being able to update the book later made it quite clear that we made the right decision for the game. SL: While the rules stay the same outside of the game end condition, player dynamic can change a lot based on the mode you choose to play in. In competitive mode, you can be even more thirsty for prestige. It’s even possible to partner up with your competitors if you try to catch up with other players or get ahead. You can choose between the game modes before each individual play. As mentioned, there is a lot of reading. The manual suggests that the players should read the text to each other, but we found that process too slow and cumbersome. We resorted to silent reading, which did reduce the immersion a bit, but it allowed us to play the game much faster. It’s worth noting that we’re not native English speakers, so it’s probably down to the group on how they read the text. Scalability, interactivity, and playing time I'm fascinated by the elevating effect that storytelling can have on a game. My goal is to inject life, personality, and a bit of humour into the characters and the world. Joash Kari Music While you’re waiting for these quests to filter through, there are also day and month mechanics. Where it’s a new month each time you play, and a new day of the week each round of play. Although I don’t know if this affects anything within the storybook app. It does add a sense of time and seasons passing between rounds, and between games.The world evolves and your actions can have long-lasting consequences. Characters do not level up, which allows new players to join and leave liberally. Consequently, the game has no red thread or grand goal that you try to beat but is a cluster of more-or-less connected quests, that never ends. The flavor of the test is highly important. If you have the right tags (i.e. the test is a “Search” test and you have an item that has a “Search” tag – i.e. a lamp) you can get bonuses in the form of free re-rolls or even a number of guaranteed positive results. The skills also work in cohesion with this – they dictate which dice you are allowed to roll. You will have the greatest odds if you have skills that correlate to the required tests (i.e. if you’re fighting you want the dice with the swords).

If you’re in a location and can’t (or don’t want to) resolve a quest, there will always be a scene for you to enter. In cities, there are markets and other locations, while in the countryside, you draw an event card and get a scene number from that. These scenes, however, are shorter than the ones in quests and the rewards are also smaller. But they are a nice filler when you’re on the road to a quest location. Winter side of the map. More Gameplay ImpressionsAnd now, we have the outcome of putting so many games in the same universe – Lands of Galzyr is an adventure game with a persistent world and so many stories to tell. From a mid-sized box of fairly unassuming pieces comes a game of rich storytelling that happily goes toe to toe with games like Descent and Gloomhaven, but with a focus on story over combat. With an web driven choose-your-own-path adventure which takes you through the story, provides choices, and triggers your tests based on your stats and the keywords your and your companions have to hand. I can see how some players may find this a little odd and unless your really engrossed in the world here, might not enjoy it as much as others. Final Thoughts I have to admit that I’ve always been reluctant to play open-world games, let that be board games or video games. Yes, I finished Witcher 3, but that’s more of an anomaly than a rule. I normally find such games way too time-consuming for my lifestyle. They demand that you fully immerse into their worlds. All the unfinished quests, as well as equipment, are carried over to the next game, thus continuing the cycle. Lands of Galzyr Facts