Spectacular

• Designers: Eilif Svensson and Asmund Svensson
• Publisher: Chilifox
• Players: 1-6
• Age: 10+
• Time: 20-30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In Spectacular, you are creating and developing your own animal park for vulnerable species. In order to preserve the species, you must ensure breeding within each habitat. During the game, you select animal tiles and dice, where the dice represent food for the animals. The color of the dice must match the habitat color of the animal tiles. Each turn provides crucial decision-making where you need to consider whether to draft a die of a certain value or ensure an animal tile which may not be available again.

At game end, for each area of connected tiles of the same habitat, you score points for the sum of your dice of that color. However, points are only awarded if dice values of 1 or 2 are placed on certain “family” tiles within the habitat! Over the course of the game, you will also build watchtowers, which will score you points for all three dice adjacent to them. To make your park even more spectacular, you also aim to collect as many different species as possible, with increasing points awarded for greater variety. Finally, the player with the most points wins the game. After a few plays, you may challenge yourself by playing with three (of 18) mission tiles. While they offer the potential for a higher score, they also raise the difficulty level of the puzzle.

To start, each player takes a box of bits with their chosen animal on it – inside will be all the worker tokens and tiles for that player.  Each player gets a player board and sets out 3 tiles face up on the left side.  Three other tiles are placed on the three starting places on the player board.  The eight dice from the box (2 of each color) are rolled and placed on the spaces near the left side of the board.  Next, each player gets a small supply board – Each personal board has one unique tile pre-printed on the board..  From the general supply, one die of each color is rolled and placed on this board as well as one tile of each color. 

If you choose to play with the missions, each player is given one mission tile of type A, B and C.  These three tiles give unique goals to each player.  Finally, players can take two possible mulligans 1) switch one tile from their personal supply to the left of their board with one of the three starting tiles placed on their board and/or 2) re-roll any or all of the dice on the personal board.

The game will be played over two rounds – the first round having 8 turns and the second round having 7 turns.  

First, all players must choose two things; one from their personal supply area and one from the small supply board. The personal tile or die gets placed in the W area while the supply board die or tile gets placed in the N area.

Then, all players must build the two things they chose – they can be built in any order.  If they cannot be built or you choose not to build them, the unbuilt thing is simply discarded from the game.  Tiles must be placed on any empty hex space. There are no adjacency or placement rules.  It is to your advantage to build full watchtower circles of the same color.  Dice must be placed on a tile of matching color.  There are a few restrictions here – a breeding tile can only take a 1 or a 2.  Your preprinted star animal can only take a 6.  Watchtower tiles can only hold a 6 if it is part of a completed watchtower.  If you need, you can exhaust a worker tile to change the value of a same colored die by 1 (and you are able to rotate a 6 to a 1 and vice versa).

Now, ready for the next turn.  If you have only 2 tiles in your personal supply, flip up a new tile from your personal stack.  Then, send your supply board to your left hand neighbor.  They will not get to choose from that board on the next turn.

The first round ends when all of the small supply boards are empty (8 rounds).  Players then get a final chance to use unused worker tokens to change corresponding dice values on their board. Then, players score the pips of each die which can be directly traced to the Entrance space via tiles with dice on them.  Finally refill the supply boards with 4 tiles and 8 dice (2 of each color).

The second round is played the same way, but now the round ends with each player’s personal display is empty.  You do not repeat entrance scoring, but instead move to final scoring.

• Habitats – for each habitat (contiguous group of same collared tiles) – multiply the summed dice pips with the total number of dice on habitat tiles in that area.
• Watchtowers – score the value of the dice around each watchtower that has the maximum three dice around it.
• Animal scoring – score points based on the number of different animal types on your personal board (max 80 pts for 17 types).
• Missions – if you have chosen to play with the missions, score points for each of the three different mission tiles.

The player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of highest total dice on breeding tiles.

My thoughts on the game

Spectacular is an odd name for a tile laying game about building animal habitats.  The title doesn’t really give you a glimpse at all into what the game might be about.  One of the authors has explained their reasoning online: “We wanted to find a different name than the standard ‘animal park’ names.  The word ‘Spectacular’ originate from latin (spectaculum), which means ‘look at’. Since watchtowers are in play, and since the animals are spectacular in themselves, we found it to be an appropriate title”  

I’m honestly not sure if I see the same connection – but once you have seen Spectacular, the game grabs your attention and then tries to pull it in multiple different directions each turn.  You have a multitude of ways to score points, and it is rare for a single tile play to be able to count towards all of them.  You must weigh the options each round, trying to make the best that you can from your choices.  Will you try to max out your points for different species? Will you try to complete all three of your personal missions?  Surrounding a watchtower with high scoring dice can also be lucrative; especially if you can also score those dice for their habitats.

It is important to remember that you will have to play all of your own tiles and dice.  There is a small reminder box in the upper left of your board reminding you of your own personal tile manifest.  This is important to make reference of – as every one of those tiles will end up on your board…  Knowing what is yet to come in this personal supply might help you decide which things to take from the traveling supply boards.   As those boards rotate around the table – if you wait too long for something, one of your opponents might end up taking it!  

The game allows you to make long term plans as there are no adjacency requirements for tile placement.  If there is a tile you think you’ll want by the end of the game, you can take it whenever you can and then build towards it with later plays.  That being said, the interim scoring of dice that can be traced back to the entrance hex should not be ignored as it can definitely lead to a good payoff if you’re able to build hexes connected to the start.

You’ll always have plenty of different options when you are deciding which thing to take from each of your supply areas.  For instance, if you know that you will need a certain breeding tile (because you don’t have one coming in your future personal tiles), you might need to grab one as soon as you can to prevent being shut out for that color.  Alternatively, if you realize that you’re going to be out of luck in a color, you can use your tiles of that color to fill in watchtowers without worrying about connecting a large contiguous swath of tiles.  

I do like the functional design with a holding area next to each supply area.  I advise all players to choose their two things and leave each in the corresponding holding area until everyone has chosen.  This way, there is no confusion on where something goes if plans change.  And trust me, it’ll probably happen at some point in the game.  Again, there are so many different possible plays that at some point you’ll think of a better play after already settling on something.

Each turn goes relatively quickly, though I have found that the middle half of the game takes a bit longer than the starting and ending quarters.  At the start, a lot of plays seem more obvious (at least to me), or I don’t have a great plan yet, so I’m not agonizing over the finer points of each choice.  Late in the game, my plan is nearly set – at that point, either tiles/dice work for me or they don’t.  So, I take the thing that works for me, or alternatively, I look around and see if I can hate draft against someone else instead.  Either way, those turns more quickly.  In the middle – while I’m still working on the bulk of the plan, there are plenty of turns where I have multiple good options of pairs to take, and I’ll have to figure out which is best for me. If you play with the personal missions, you might actually have an easier time figuring out your strategy as you get three varying goals that you can choose to target or not.

The components are well done, though nothing particularly spectacular with the tiles and the dice.  I do like the layout and functionality of the player boards.  The process of scoring the different species is the only tricky part of the game.  It helps to know that a particular species is only found on a single color of tile; but it can still be a bit of work keeping track of how many different ones you have.  I should also note that the game comes with a bunch of different boxes that you construct, and this gives everything its own place in the box bottom and keeps everything neatly tucked away.  With a few seconds spent in teardown after a game, it makes setup of the next game easy peasy. 

I really like the challenge of the game, and I am always partial to tile laying games.  The rules are simple, but the decision space is large.  Each play contributes to your overall success (or failure), and the choices are not as easy as they seem.  After my first few plays, I feel like it’s safe to say that Spectacular is spectacular –  “extremely good, exciting, or surprising” per the Cambridge dictionary.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Dale Y
• I like it. John P
• Neutral.
• Not for me…