[ENG] RYU - Quick and Easy - 6/10

Ryu, is a #competitive 2 to 5 players game combining easy strategy and fresh design. It's better played with 3 to 5 people.

Ruy set up for 4 players

Official Website : https://www.sorryweare.fr (anciennement Moonster games)

Long story Short

Really pretty, it's a funny game to play with friends. On the downside is the lack of gameplay asymetry, asymetry being only cosmetic here. Some might also argue that the gameplay relies too much on luck. A get go for the end of the evening ?

Maybe we can house rule some assymetry for the game ? #KS #idea #MPifInterested

IN NUMBERS

Material : 6/10, Amazing artistic direction, meh players screen, non-connecting tiles.

Fun : 7/10, easy to learn and play

Strategy (4 à 5joueurs) : 4/10, 50%-50% luck without a lot of relief.

Stratégie (2 à 3 joueurs) : 3/10

Global : 6/10

It's all about the money Money Money €€€

Price new : 36€

How I got mine : 2de hand shops

Price paid : 8€ (+ 6€ delivery) = 14€

What I would pay for it : 18€

Results : Buying new lead to a loss of 18€, buying used lead to a gain of 4 to 10€

Long Story Long

The Game itself

In Ryu you'll need to choose you're people and build up their dragon by collecting ressources in a near random maner.

You'll need to moove your clan's meeple on a board made of 9 tiles placed in a circle (5 from clans played or not by players and 4 neutral).

Each tiles gives you access to 2 action (ressources permitting). those action vary on each tiles and let you gather ressources.

The gathered ressources come from a bag where they are mixed, all ressources are wooden cube of different color.

The game also allows you to use those ressources to by token playing the role of a jokker (no-color) like ressource to make your dragon should you be unliky and never gather enough of one color.

All cube/ressource drawing are displayed for everybody to see before cube are stored in the privacy of your player screen.

Strategy

This drawing method is realy where its first start to hitch. If you ask me, drawing in plain side makes the player screen useless for non alcoholized adults given the only data you'll want to remember is the amount of cube everybody has, only the amount, not even the color. Let's say you play with 5, you'll need to remember 4 numbers of 1 digit.

The best way to acquire ressources is to get to another player island. this will also help said player on which island you are. Therefor you will want to go to the "loosing player" island, easily detectable by looking at how much peaces of their dragon everyone already completed.

That's also the reason why the game will seem dull in 1v1 where it seem to solely rely on luck given each player will seemingly du the same actions as the other one hoping to get more luck on the cube colors that are drawn.

Positive

A sweet and easy game, perfect for the late night when your drunk friend had enough beer and the little ones #easy. The rules are easy to learn and explain, the optimal strategy is easy to find and the fact you can penalise the winning player during the game get everybody in the race at all time, prepare for tight endings.

Prepare for tight endings each game

Illustrations are just beautiful which will delight your eyes.

The detail level of the island, player screen and dragon is stunning, greetings again to the artistic director/illustrator.

Negative

Pretty art is pretty good but we'd like more ! Getting to choose from clans with such distinctive traits graphicaly but fully symetric on the gameplay. Dragons are different but each one of them is built using the same ressources in the same order. That's easier for balancing allright. We just need some smart ass to write and share house rules for that assymetry. I looked up the internet but so far no one came with such rules :). Nevertheless I'd rather see those coming with the base game from the maker of the game itself.

Two small details that bothered me o the material : First thing first, 9 hexa-tiles don't make a circle, they don't fit, you might argue that given those represents island they can stay astranged, you're right I guess ...

Secondly, angled screens are alright but when playing on a glass table (as I am) they glide a lot :).

Leaving you there, enjoy your games !

External link : BGG : https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/121787/ryu