The Worlds of Boris Vallejo

Review by Matt Costello

Mayfair Games P.O. Box 5987, Chicago, IL 60680
Released: 1984
Catalog No. 511
Price: $17.00
Complexity: Beginner
Solitaire Suitability: Good

This is a game that I've been looking forward to for quite some time. But not for any reason that has to do with the game itself. Not at all. Truth is, I've been a Boris fan ever since he illustrated one of my articles. The rippling muscles, the flashing blade, and the mouth of a hungry beast all seemed delightfully out-of-place next to my unheroic name.

The Worlds of Boris Vallejo is a simple fantasy adventure game of world conquest. Players alternate placing down World Tiles to create the playing board, and each tile features a full-color reproduction of a Boris painting. After the board is formed, each player chooses worlds by placing a color token on a tile. Players then receive a small world card that matches each owned World Tile.

Players defend their worlds by hiding character cards under their world cards. Each character card features someone or some creature from the paintings. There are also artifact and scroll cards representing chants, spells, rings, and weapons. Only certain classes, i.e. priests and chants, can use particular items, and without an accompanying character, such cards are useless.

Besides keeping cards on worlds, players can keep a hand of up to ten cards for attacking adjacent worlds. A turn begins with a player drawing three new cards. Then up to two cards can be moved around from a world to a world, or hand to world, or world to hand. The player's pawn can be moved up to two adjacent tiles and conduct combat if it rests on an opposing world.

Combat is a fairly straight forward procedure. The attacker can play up to two character cards, two scroll cards, and two artifact cards. The defender has the same limits, but unless the defender's pawn is on the besieged world, only cards already defending the world can be used. The winner is simply the player whose pile of cards has the highest strength total; the defender wins ties. The loser discards all his cards, while the winner's cards occupy the conquered planet. The first player to control eight worlds wins the game.

There are a few touches to vary the uninspiring combat procedure. Both the defender and attacker can call for allies, and other players can contribute to the defeat of a perhaps too powerful player. Three Death Cards also float around in the deck, and each one forces an opponent to discard a character card. A Guardian Card negates a player's scroll cards.

Unfortunately, there's not much to hold one's interest here. The basic strategy is pretty clear-cut, and players are constantly on the offensive and defensive. World ownership can seesaw with little real progress for either side. Guessing a player's defending strength is a major factor, and a wrong guess can cost you that world and half a dozen cards. The activities of drawing cards, moving, and fighting seem too simple for all but the most undemanding game players. Unlike many new games, The Worlds of Boris Vallejo offers only a basic game with no advanced rules.

While I believe that there's a need for simple fantasy games, each game has to offer intriguing play and challenging decision making. This game has neither.

Rules are included for a solitaire game and, in some ways, it's a bit more successful than the regular game. The World Tiles are laid out, and each world receives three cards, face down, as a defense force. The solo player has a hand of ten cards and must fight his way up from a Start tile to a Home World. The challenge of this game comes from making the ten cards last as you slug your way home.

Perhaps, though, all this talk of the game distracts from the real attraction of The Worlds of Boris Vallejo, and that is the work of Boris himself The game features 30 2 1/2 x 3 inch reproductions of Boris' paeans to brawn and busts, and they're smashing. Mayfair did a terrific job with these minimasterpieces and for Boris' legion of fans, they may be reason enough to own the game. All the other components are of high quality, and the rules are clearly presented.

But the thrill, alas, isn't here. Looking at the pictures depicting enormous eagles, winged lions, and fish-headed guides, I kept wishing that the game really used the pictures to capture some of the spirit of fantastic adventure. Swords and sorcery fill the paintings, but, as for the game itself, theres something missing from The Worlds of Boris Vallejo.

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