Orichalcum Review

Orichalcum has players exploring their individual island boards while developing it and capturing monsters. Turn structure is very simple. When its your turn, you'll take a card from the market and add the tile to your map and you can optionally do the action on the card. The actions are simple too. You can add hoplites or orichalcum depending on how many mines or training camps you have. The build action lets you add buildings but it will also allow you to build temples if you have 4 different terrain types next to each other. It also lets you buy coins with 5 orichalcum. Capturing monsters is the final action. To do this, you'll assign hoplites to a monster on your board and then roll the dice. If you beat the value on the card or roll a skull, you'll capture it and gain rewards. These can earn you the favor of the titans which give you powerful bonuses (and count as victory points). You'll optionally be able to spend resources to gain an extra action to extend your turn. Once everyone goes, clean up and repeat. This is a race to 5 points and to clear your island of monsters. The first person to do this will be the winner.

The Good: Orichalcum bills itself as a short 4X game and that's mostly true. You really feel the expansion and see that development of your board in a short period of time. The whole game can be played in under an hour if everyone understands the rules. The one sheet player aid is also fantastic. I'm able to keep that nearby and can generally keep the rulebook in the box unless we ran into a fringe case.

The Okay: This feels like it hits 3 of the 4 X's. The game is mostly solitaire with a buddy. There is not really a take that element and the tension isn't really there beyond the race to 5 points and maybe a card you wanted is snatched up before you get to it. This doesn't necessarily effect the gameplay but I would have liked to see some more interaction. The dice rolling to capture monsters is fine but I feel like it could have been fleshed out more. You can add buildings to make some of the dice more powerful but it ultimately is still left to luck unless you have the instant kill titan.

The Not So Good: I wish that there were other ways to score points in the game beyond the two you gain from the build action (coins and temples) and if you befriend a titan. This makes the build action feel a bit OP since you'll probably want to gain as much orichalcum as you can to buy the points. Towards the end of the game, if you've already filled your board but don't have the points or still have monsters on your board it becomes a bit of a drag because you are only playing cards for actions. Especially at lower counts, this happens pretty frequently.

Final Thoughts: Orichalcum ticks a lot of boxes. The puzzle aspect of what to place and how to place it is great. Building out your map is something I love doing. Plus the overall table presence is really impressive. It's a clean game that plays quickly and can be an introductory to 4X type games. It has it's flaws but it's a game that has Bruno Cathala's polish all over it. I would love to see an expansion to include a solo mode or more player interaction, maybe a big shared map? Regardless, Orichalcum is a ton of fun and a great way to spend an hour with your pals.

Thanks to Pandasaurus for providing a review copy.