Designers: Simone Luciani, Daniele Tascani
Tzolk’in is a worker placement game where you play as Mayan chieftain running a tribe. You will place workers in order to fish, farm, mine, build buildings and wonders, and erect temples to the gods. It would be a fairly straightforward worker placement game except for one thing.
Interesting Game Mechanic: The Wheel of Life. The game board is made up of six interlocking gears, which happen to be where you place your workers. The central wheel controls the pace of the game. The rest of them are where you place your heroes. During your turn, you must do one of two things: place one or more workers, or remove one or more workers, onto the wheels of life. When you place them, you must place them on the lowest possible slots for that wheel. When you remove them, the rewards you get are based on where you remove them. If you let a worker ride a gear for a couple turns, you’ll get a much larger reward, but wait too long and he’ll be crushed by the wheel of life!
Tzolk’in gains my favorite praise for any game – it breaks your brain in interesting ways. Mastering the timing of the wheels takes practice, and optimal slots are highly competitive. Also, the game looks gorgeous on the table – most gamers will want to play this game at least once. I will say that the balance isn’t perfect – a couple of strategies seem stronger than others – but this is still a good, solid euro game with a unique twist.
Also, if you’re really bored, check out some of the customized gears that fans have made for this game.
(Photo Credit: Metagames)
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