If there's one game that I could pick to be reprinted, it would be Keythedral (R & D Games, 2002 - Richard Breese). One of Mr. Breese's previous games, Keydom, was republished as Alladin's Dragons - a fantastic game, and I feel that Keythedral has the same promise. But at the same time, I love owning one of the @ 500 games that Richard Breese self-published. The game is a work of art, having a good theme, and excellent game play. One of the things that drew me to this game was that it had octagons rather than hexagons - a rare sight in games! The next time you see a sign-up list to preorder one of Breese's games, get on it! Keythedral is rapidly becoming one of my favorite games, and I'll tell you why, starting with a description of game play. Each player chooses a color and takes ten round tiles of that color ("workers), three fences (straight wooden sticks - like the roads from Settlers) and five square tiles - numbered one to five. The square tiles have two sides - a "cottage" side and a "house" side. A small board depicting the Keythedral is placed on the table. It has five circles at the bottom numbered one through five. It also has seventeen squares numbered from one to five (four "1", "2", and "3", three "4", and two "5"). Each player is given a screen in their color, which they may keep all of their stuff hidden from other players. Another board is placed on the table, which explains some of the rules, and has cubes (yellow, purple, and white) and "law" cards placed on it. The remainder of the cubes (brown, black, green, red, and blue) are placed in the box. The law cards are shuffled and placed in a draw pile on the board, with two cards flipped face up for all players to see. Building tiles with numerical values from one to five are shuffled and are placed face down on the matching squares on the Keythedral. Five round green tokens are placed near the boards. The "start" player (youngest player on the first turn) is given a start token to indicate this. The players then set up the actual playing board. Each player takes a turn and places an octagonal tile on the board (each tile represents one kind of resource - red, wine; black, quarry; green, farms; blue, lakes; and brown, woods.) and one of their square tiles, cottage side up, adjacent to the octagonal tile. Once each player has placed all their cottage tiles, the game is ready to begin. All the "1" tiles on the Keythedral board are turned face up, and the first turn begins. Each turn is made up of five phases. The first phase involves placing worker counters. First the start player takes the round green token marked "first", and places it on one of the round numbered spaces on the Keythedral board. The chosen number is the current active cottage. Each player, starting with the start player, moves a worker off of their matching cottage onto an adjacent tile. Only one worker may occupy an octagonal tile, so if there is no tile available to the worker to move to, the player cannot place it that turn. The next player takes the round green token marked "second" and places it on a different round numbered space, and the same process occurs until all five cottages have been used. Phase two then occurs, which involves collecting resource cubes. Each player receives one cube of the matching color of any octagonal tile where they have a worker. The third phase involves spending resource cubes. There are many different things a player can do with their cubes: Build a house: The player may pay one black and one brown cube to change one of their cottages into a house. On future first phases, when that number is selected, the player may move two workers off from that house onto adjacent tiles. Build a fence: The player may pay one brown cube to place a fence between a cottage and an adjacent tile, blocking that player from moving a worker between those two tiles. Bribe workers: The player may pay two red cubes to remove a fence from the game. Buy a law card: A player can pay one cube to buy one of the face-up law cards (which is replaced at the end of the round). These cards give the player special actions during the game. Once a player buys a law card, they may do nothing else with their resource cubes this turn. Buy the special cubes: A player can exchange any two cubes for one white cube, any three cubes for a purple cube, and any four cubes for a yellow cube. Trade with the trader: A player can exchange any two cubes for one cube of the color they need (from the box). Buy a seat in the Keythedral: Each face up tile in the Keythedral shows from two to four different colored cubes. If a player pays these cubes, they remove the tile and place it behind their screen. Once all the "1" tiles are bought, the "2"'s are flipped over, thenthe "3"'s, etc. Players take one of these actions in turn order, until all players have passed (or bought law cards.) The fourth phase includes players retrieving their worker counters. The green round counters are also removed from the board, and new law cards turned over if necessary. The fifth player includes an auction to see who will be the start player. The start marker is passed to the next player, and then each player bids once, in order an amount of cubes. The player holding the start marker makes the final bid, and if they win, they place the amount of cubes they bid into the box and are the start player the following turn. If any other player wins, they pay their cubes to the player holding the start marker, and then take the start marker themselves. When the last tile is removed from the Keythedral, the game ends. Each player then adds the numbers on all the Keythedral tiles they have taken, and the player with the highest total is the winner! Some comments on the game: 1.) Components: The components for this game are stunning. Usually, when a small company or an individual self produce a game, I expect to see slightly lower quality in the components. But these components blow me away. The only one I was disappointed with was the box, which is not very sturdy, and falls apart rather easily. The round worker counters and the octagonal tiles are amazing. Every single one has different artwork on it! There is almost no duplicate artwork in the game, which is incredible with the amount of pieces in the game. Little turn order cards are very helpful to the players when playing the games. The wooden cubes are large, and are brightly colored, making them easy to handle and distinguish on the board. All the tiles are a good thickness, and look really sharp on the table. One multi-colored worker is included in the game, in case a worker tile is lost. Even with the low quality box, I have to give the components of this game an A+! 2.) Rules: The rules are printed in a large 12 page booklet. They are extremely well written and easy to understand. The game is easy to teach, but the placement for the tiles is very important, and a round of the game might need to be played with new players, then the game restarted, so that players better put down their tiles. In the rules, there are detailed explanations of each law card. 3.) Strategy: There are so many decisions to make in the game, and strategy on many different levels. First, setting up the board is rather strategic, as players must try to maximize the positions of their cottages. Then, when moving workers into the tiles, a player must be careful to try and get as many of their workers on tiles, while canceling the movement of their opponents. The most strategic decisions to be made are during the third phase. What should a player spend their resources on? It's important to upgrade cottages to houses, but at the same time, a player cannot avoid buying Keythedral cubes. Should a player buy the expensive cubes early in the game (yellow, white, purple), so they have them ready at the end (they are needed for the "4" and "5" tiles), or buy other things? When should a law card (useful but not that powerful) be bought? There are many decisions, but the game runs quickly, and there is very little analysis paralysis. 4.) Variants: Three variants are included with the game, and I have found several more on the internet. My personal favorite variants are turning over all the Keythedral tiles at the beginning of the game, so that all players can plan long-range strategy, and adding one more of each numbered Keythedral tile on the board. 5.) Staying in the game: Even if a player is losing, because the final tiles are worth five points, it's very possible for a player to go from last place to first if the other players aren't careful. I think this is a very good thing in games. 6.) Fun Factor: The theme is well integrated in the game, and helps make the game immensely enjoyable. Once the game is learned, it can be played in a little over an hour, and provides quite a bit of fun for all those involved. There are very few games that people pick up quickly, yet have extremely diverse strategies. Keythedral is one of them. It's hard to compare Keythedral to other games, as it is fairly unique, yet seems strangely familiar. It's one of my favorite games to pull out, and I have yet to play it with anyone who does not enjoy it. Mr. Breese has done a fantastic job. The only problem is going to be finding a copy to purchase. Let's hope a company picks up the rights to this fantastic game and republishes it. But if before then, you have the opportunity to get this game, don't pass it up - you won't regret it! Back to Table of Contents -- Game! # 3 To Game! List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by George Phillies. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com