Saltfjord Review

"Saltfjord is designed by the duo of Kristian Amundsen Ostby and Eilif Svensson, who previously brought us Revive and Santa Maria, but for this game, they picked a theme closer to their Nordic roots. In Saltfjord, 1-4 players compete over 45-90 minutes to bring prosperity to their early 20th-century Nordic villages by expanding settlements, fishing, trading, and researching new technologies. Featuring dice drafting, tech trees, and engines within engines, Saltfjord brings the heat to an otherwise frosty theme."

"The center of Saltfjord is a 6×6 grid on each playerboard that allows activation of icons on specific rows or columns depending on the pip-value of drafted dice. Each of three rounds will have 4-6 dice per player rolled as part of a common draft pool; orange dice can only activate rows and white dice can only activate columns. Playerboards start with some pre-printed icons."

Saltfjord is a 1–4 player Euro-style board game lasting 45–90 minutes where players expand early 20th-century Nordic villages through settlement building, fishing, trading, and technology research. Designers Kristian Amundsen Ostby and Eilif Svensson employ dice drafting, tech trees, and layered engine-building. Each playerboard features a 6×6 grid of icons that activate by using drafted dice with orange dice activating rows and white dice activating columns. Games run three rounds with a shared draft pool of 4–6 dice per player. Players can also construct large buildings to add icons or use a personal fisherman as a free action to activate any single icon.

Read at Board Game Quest