Alhambra board game critique

Good day, ladies and gentlemen.

A few days ago, I played a board game called Alhambra (created by Dirk Henn) with four other people during Game Design II class. We took about fifty minutes to play it, as we were running out of time in the end. If we had the time to finish playing comfortably, we'd probably take an hour to play. The class and I were then asked to write an individual critique on the game we played. Now before I get into it, I might as well explain what the game is about, no?

Alhambra is turn-based in a clockwise order. For each turn the player has, she may choose to do one of the following; pick up money, use money on hand to buy buildings, or rearrange structures on hand. The money comes in four colours, and four are placed on the play table every turn. If the player picks up money less than a value of six, she may pick up another money card also worth less than six. The money gained can then be used to purchase buildings of the same colour. For any transaction, the player does not receive change. Each building card may have a black border around its edges; sometimes on one edge, sometimes on more than one edge, sometimes on all edges, and sometimes on no edges. The black boarders represent walls, which the player must carefully place together with other buildings to ultimately create a fortress. Inner walls are allowed, provided that the inner wall of one card is paired up with the inner wall of the adjacent building card. Regardless, inner walls provide no benefit to the player besides some leeway from having to match up walls perfectly on the outside. Sometimes buildings cannot fit in the current state of a fortress, so the player can put up to four buildings in her reserves area. When the player decides to take a turn to restructure her fortress, she can put any buildings she has in the reserves into the fortress (and vice-versa), and can rearrange her fortress however she sees fit. After the completion of one clockwise turn cycle, all players count how many points they currently have. Points are given by the amount of buildings each player has in their fortress; each building has a colour, and each colour has an associated value. So each player must add all values for each building they own, and then that total will serve as her current score. Once the game is complete, the player with the most points wins.

For the critique, the class and I were required to list five likable and five dislikable qualities of the game we played. I personally found it difficult to find ten distinct qualities I like/dislike, as points I fathomed seemed to overlap with other points. Nonetheless, I listed them the best I could:

Likable qualities:

1) The game is unique, especially thanks to its fortress mechanic.

2) There's strategy involved; for example, should I take the money or building this turn, or should I anticipate a better value next turn? Should I stock up on lower value buildings, or save up for high cost buildings that others might nab before me?

3) Inner walls allow leeway to constructing a fortress.

4) No change when buying something – contributes to strategy; if there’s money of value eight and money of value nine, pick up the money value of eight to buy building of value seven, then attempt to pick up the money of value nine the next turn.

5) Score card is like a board map, where the player’s pawn is on their score; allows player to know her score simply by glancing on the score card, rather than have someone to write it down.

Dislikable qualities:

1) The game felt repetitive and boring; it felt like busy work, a chore. I believe this is due to little challenge involved, while luck seems to mostly control the game.

2) I initially mistook the score card for the play field. I mostly found it to be useless other than taking up space.

3) Fortress doesn't seem to hold much purpose other than to include many buildings for points while requiring a wall to surround it. Player requires mostly luck to gain new parts. Not that challenging, just busy work. The game is more like a puzzle with extra tedious work if anything.

4) The same thing goes for money, luck is required to pick up the right money cards when they are displayed, and then luck is again needed to pick up the right building cards when they are displayed. It’s tedious.

5) The game is difficult to understand at first, which is a little frustrating. Once the game is understood, it's so easy to play and involves little challenge that is becomes boring.

If I could design a couple of elements differently, I'd say players should be able to bargain with other players in regards to buildings in reserves; if a player has a building in her reserves that another player needs, on his turn, he can either trade or buy her property – provided she accepts. This will increase accessibility of needed parts, which would shrink reliance on luck a little more, and thus allowing more room for strategy. Another design element I’d like to add is a more robust fortress system; each player has a pawn that can move around a game board every turn using dice, in addition to the original game. Each player’s fortress is constructed on the game board. Players can break into other players' fortresses. If a player gets to the fortress core of another player, she may decide to destroy it. She can also instead steal a building of another player’s fortress; if she does, she cannot steal anything else or destroy its core while she holds the building, so she might as well rush back to her own fortress without getting caught. Yes, in my version of the game, people can carry buildings, whadda ya know?

Anyhow, this is just what I think. How about you guys? DISCUSS FOO!!!!!!! C=<

Mr. T pities the fool who doesn't discuss in the comment section of this post.