Ada's Dream is a heavy Eurogame featuring a dice-drafting rondel as a means of interacting with three distinct mini-games. Players embody contemporaries of Ada Lovelace as they work with her to build the first computer. The game leans into this theme with a gorgeous production featuring point-scoring objectives on adorable punchcards and dual-layered gears used to form basic mathematical functions that will help calculate your final score.
7 Empires released this year to little fanfare. On the surface, it presents as just another stuffy Euro. But it was the name Mac Gerdts, infamous designer of Concordia (among many other unique designs), that drew me in. While new, 7 Empires revisits the older release Imperial (2006) and promises to streamline by way of mechanisms and playtime. Publisher Rio Grande Games was kind enough to send this our way to test the limits of expansion on the old continent.
In Concordia, players control a Roman dynasty aiming to solidify their foothold in the map's given territories. Through the use of cards, players will complete certain actions: moving their colonists and constructing houses; producing goods or collecting Sesterii (money); placing new colonists or collecting Sesterii; selling goods for Sesterii; and so on. All of these actions are done through the use of starting cards that each player receives. As the game progresses, though, players will begin to purchase other cards for their deck.