This is one of the most unique games I’ve come across in the past few years! Dani Garcia has taken the idea of trying to understand the Voynich Manuscript, and transformed it into a partially collaborative Euro game. With players working together to solve parts of the manuscript, building upon what the other players have done but ultimately the person who accumulates the most knowledge (points) will win the game. I’ve really enjoyed some of his other games, particularly Arborea, which had some really interesting delayed gratification payoff ideas with worker placement.
What is the Voynich Manuscript? Well, you should go away and check it out for yourself, because it’s a crazy story. It’s a 14th century text on Astrology, Botany, recipes and bathing that remains undecipherable even today, but in this game you will be doing your best to decipher the manuscript via sweet sweet points (or Overall Knowledge, as the game prefers to call it). The real manuscript is still the subject of debate and people don’t know its origin, purpose or who wrote it.
Setup and gameplay
Setup for Voynich Puzzle is a breeze compared to other similar weight Euro games of this type. It’s pretty much just a case of organising the puzzle pieces, and dealing the players their action cards for their card selection book in a 3 or 4 player game. It’s slightly more complicated solo or two player, in that you set up a dummy player's pieces on the board to help populate the different areas and ensure you can interact with the games’ systems.
Voynich Puzzle features a number of different mini games, with actions chosen from each player's own asymmetric book of actions. On your turn you can interact with one of the different areas of the board and gain knowledge in that area, upgrading your book, and placing new pieces of the puzzle out as you go. There are distinct areas, each with their own actions related to them which, when you upgrade the cards (by removing your magnifying glass off a puzzle piece matching the corresponding colour or pattern) will improve the scoring for another area of the board, meaning you can’t just stick to the same couple of actions. You’re also forced to take a different action each turn, and it would have been nice if the book you put your cards in had a little bookmark to remember which action you took in the previous turn. This isn’t something you might need in a 2 player game, but in a 4 player game, it can sometimes be a challenge to always remember what you did last.
The game ends following the round in which one player hits 52 points, and then all players get one more turn after the completion of that round. Most of your points will come from end game scoring, which is determined by how far you have upgraded each of your cards, and progressed each knowledge token beyond certain scoring thresholds on the board (note that passing these thresholds doesn’t grant you points, which is a mistake we made in our first game and had to count backwards to resolve).
What I enjoyed
The upgrading cards, and having the little action selection book, is the most interesting and exciting part of this game. The game has a really different collaborative feel to it in the placing of puzzle pieces, which means another player could easily place the piece you need to enable you to upgrade a card on your turn. All the different areas of the board you interact with feel thematic and unique, and actions you place can improve another player’s knowledge in that area in a way that feels unique and in keeping with the theme as if you’re all unearthing the manuscript's secrets together.
By upgrading the cards in one area, you improve the scoring in another, and this feels satisfying and keeps the game feeling fresh each time when combined with the asymmetric and random starting action cards.
The art is absolutely gorgeous, and helps to tie the theme together, this is particularly the case in your action selection book which starts out with basic line drawings and improves the picture into full colour by the time you’ve fully improved it.
What fell flat
For me, there are a couple of omissions with this game. Firstly, with this many symbols, and different players having different actions, we could have benefited from detailed player aids, although this does become easier with subsequent plays. Secondly the tokens used to track points can become messy. I really think the scoring track for the different areas of the board should have been separate from the main scoring track.
Overall
The first game we had of Voynich Puzzle was a little shambolic in places, and needed a lot of symbols and rules checking but, subsequently, it’s become a much smoother and more enjoyable experience. The score tracks remain messy, particularly in a 4 player game, and although there are printable fan made versions online, this should have been in the core box along with player aids.
However, if you can look past these small flaws, there is a really fun and enjoyable game underneath that is one of the most unique Euros I’ve played. The card upgrade and action selection system is absolutely fantastic, as is the asymmetric nature of the action cards you are dealt, meaning you can’t follow the same strategy every game. Each area of the board interacts really nicely with each other element, and so far everything seems really well balanced. The semi collaborative elements feel nicely thematic, as if you’re all different scholars working on their areas of the manuscript. I feel this is a game I want to keep returning to, trying out new strategies each time and it’s been a real hit with those I’ve played it with.
