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Game Preview: La Isla, or Besting Other Explorers Three Cards at a Time

Game Preview: La Isla, or Besting Other Explorers Three Cards at a Time
Board Game: La Isla
Designer Stefan Feld assaulted the gaming world with four large releases in 2013: Bruges, Bora Bora, Amerigo and Rialto. (Well, technically his publishers assaulted the gaming world with four Feld titles in the same year. I'm sure that he didn't conspire to do as the flood of releases might have been eating its own sales tail, so to speak.)

For 2014, gamers will see only two new Feld designs: AquaSphere from Hall Games (which I previewed in June 2014) and La Isla from frequent Feld publishing partner alea.

Unlike some of Feld's early titles from alea — Macao, In the Year of the Dragon, The Castles of Burgundy, and the aforementioned Bora Bora — La Isla is a more streamlined design without the piles of bits and multiple interlocking gears that one might expect. Each turn you have only three cards in hand with which to make action choices, and you must play all of them, giving you at most 3! choices of how to play them. Of course the game involves more than just laying down cards as I explain in this video:

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