Innovation isn’t a widely known game, but that doesn’t say anything about the actual quality of it.
This game is already on its 4th edition, so it would be a great addition to your collection. In addition, if you’re looking for a game to look nice on the table or even one to take on holiday, this is the game for you.
Innovation isn’t a widely known game, but that doesn’t say anything about the actual quality of it.
This game is already on its 4th edition, so it would be a great addition to your collection. In addition, if you’re looking for a game to look nice on the table or even one to take on holiday, this is the game for you.
First impressions
When you first see a game fully set up or even just in the box, you can’t help but notice the phenomenal art. On the nicely compact cards, you will find beautifully detailed architectural style art on the back, but on the other side, some simplistic icons with a patterned background. In your first run-through of the game, you’ll notice that it will need your full attention. This is because of the rule that lets you benefit from other people’s actions depending on the amounts of certain symbols. This also adjusts people’s strategy when they take into account that every good action can be copied.
Gameplay
Each game has eleven ages, each containing nine cards and one achievement. On your go, you can do two of four actions or repeat one twice. You can either Meld, Draw, Achieve, or Dogma. If you choose to meld, you can place down a card on top of any others if present. If you draw, you can take a card from the deck equal to your current highest age, but if there is none in that age, you can go to the next one. To achieve, you can take an achievement card, which is equal to your score divided by five. When you dogma, you can use a melded card’s ability, which can do many things, such as gain you points or remove others’ points. In the game, there are 4 ways to win: Score, Achievement, Ability, and Elimination. A score victory happens when someone attempts to draw a card from an age higher than eleven; in this scenario, everyone counts up points, and whoever has the most wins. To win by achievement, you have to get to five achievements, and then the game immediately stops, and you win. Certain dogma abilities have the ability to stop the game and make you win under some conditions. Lastly, some dogma abilities can eliminate people, so if you are the last one standing, you win.
Final Thoughts
Things I like:
● The excellent art works perfectly with the game.
● The cards have many different uses, such as points, achievements, and played cards.
● Because of the four different ways to win, you never know how it is going to end, and you can use many different strategies depending on the cards you get.
● The small-sized box lets you easily take it on holiday or to events.
● Because of all the player interaction, it makes an interesting and fun game to play, where you will not get bored.
● Gameplay is short, so you can easily squeeze it into some evenings.
● The rulebook is very easy to read and understand, which would be good for the newer gamers.
● The art on the back of the cards gets more and more detailed throughout the ages in the game as a nice, simple feature.
● The action-sharing feature leads to very fun, interactive games.
Things I dislike:
● The card-based rules can lead to a very luck-based game.
● All the player interaction can also be a downside because it is then close to impossible to multitask and requires constant complete attention.
● Some cards can completely steal all of someone’s points or eliminate someone, so people can easily be targeted and have nothing to do when they are out.
● Although it has a very small box, it needs a lot of space to play, so that limits where you can take it.
● Almost all of the cards can be infinitely used, so once someone gets a good card, they will almost definitely win, so it is an even more unbalanced game, heavily based on luck
● The art on both sides of the cards doesn’t quite fit and are opposites, from heavily detailed to simplistic icons.
● It cannot be played by younger kids as there are almost always lots of things going on.
Overall, I gave this game a 70 out of 100 because the art is absolutely phenomenal, even though the two sides don’t quite match, they still work perfectly. Also, the player interaction creates a really involved atmosphere in both a good and bad way. Lastly, one bad thing about this is that all the rules limit what kinds of families can play the game, and also, if this is played in an event, you need to make sure all of the people are experienced with board games.
Zatu Review Summary
Zatu Score
70%
