7 Wonders
Game: 7 Wonders with 5 players
Play: 7 Wonders is played over 3 ages. In each age, you’re dealt a hand of 7 cards. Choose one to keep and pass the rest to your neighbor (clockwise the first and third ages, counter-clockwise the second age). Everyone reveals their card (or sells it for gold or uses it to build their monument), makes any necessary payments and collects any applicable rewards, then looks at the hand their neighbor passed them and does it all over again. Keep doing it until there are two cards left, at which point you pick one card to keep and one to discard.
The cards are a variety of categories such as resources, which are necessary to play most other cards and build the monument; military, which gives positive or negative point chips at the end of each age by comparing your military strength to that of your neighbors; blue cards (“civilian structures”), which give points at the end of the game; green “scientific” cards, which give points based on the having both multiples of the same cards and different kinds; and even cards that give you points based on what cards your neighbors have.
It all makes sense once you’ve played it.
Art: Although some of the iconography was not especially intuitive, resources were easy to tell apart, most of the cards could be figured out once a few had been explained, and the art, including the images on the Wonder boards, was quite lovely. There were bold colors that made the different kinds of cards easily distinguishable, which was useful.
Conclusion: I very much enjoyed 7 Wonders, turns went much quicker than I expected (and since they happen simultaneously, even playing with the maximum of 7 players shouldn’t take much longer), and I’m looking forward to playing it again soon.
