Keythedral

Sunday night we broke out my new copy of Keythedral and gave it a whirl. First impression is that this game is even more impressive visually than I originally thought. Five players, each with their own privacy screen and 10 workers, and every piece of art is different - none of the amazing little illustrations of Blue's workers are duplicated for Red. The tiles themselves all have distinct illustrations as well, as do the cards. The two main playing boards have wonderful art as well. My only visual complaint is that the stained glass (purple) and wood (brown) cubes are hard to distinguish at times.

It also plays pretty well. It does feel somewhat like a luckless version of Settlers, and with a lot more screwage. Unfortunately it also shares with Settlers the feeling that a large portion of your success in the game is decided in the initial placement of your houses. In some ways it's even worse in Keythedral, as there's no easy way to relocate your production centers. However as we learn the game this will balance out I think, and there are a lot of possible moves to make. We both liked it quite a bit and I'm looking forward to another play.