Game Preview: Lost Temple

Science-fiction fans will probably appreciate Bruno Faidutti's Lost Temple, debuting from Dutch publisher White Goblin Games at Spiel 2011 in October – not so much because of the game itself or its theme (which is not science-fictiony at all), but rather because of its seeming wormhole-like nature. Lost Temple comes across like an alternate world version of Citadels, Faidutti's best known and best-selling game, which first appeared in 2000. As Faidutti points out in his history of the game on his website, that similarity is no accident:

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The Lost Temple started in the same way as Mission: Red Planet, as an attempt to paste the Citadels character system, with all its intricate psychological effects, to a completely different underlying game system. In Citadels, the basic structure is an extremely simple resource management game. In Mission: Red Planet, it's a majority game of the El Grande family. In Lost Temple, it's the most simple and basic game structure ever – a race game of the Chute and Ladders family, in which the goal is be the first to reach the end of the track.

Anyone who has played Citadels will have a head start on learning this game. Everything seems familiar, yet refracted through a prism with players no longer collecting coins to purchase buildings but rather gems to fuel their movement.

To set up the game, each player takes a role card at random, then places his pawn on the designated starting space on that card while taking any gems or machete depicted. (Note that the image below is not final and does not depict the machete on the Scout and child role cards. Note also that the image depicts the bonus 10th role card – Mandarin – that players receive for preordering the game. Mandarin is not included in the base game.) Players then return the role cards.

Each round, the player in last place on the path takes an icon, which gives him first choice for role selection. One or more role cards are removed from the deck at random, one being placed face-down and any others face-up, then each player secretly chooses a role card. (Special rules apply for two and three players, who each select two roles each round.) The player with the icon then resolves the roles by calling them out in numerical order; as the numbers are called, the player with that numbered role (if any) reveals the role, takes one gem from the bank, and carries out the action. The roles are:

1. Shaman – Name a role, then end your turn. If that role card is revealed later in the round, "assassinate" that player's position in the race by swapping the locations of your pawns.

2. Thief – Name a role, then move 1-2 spaces. If that role card is revealed later in the round, steal all of that player's gems.

3. Seer – Look at two face-down chance tokens on the game board, swap them if desired, then move 1-2 spaces. (The game board has a number of chance tokens that give or cost you gems, give or cost you a machete, move you forward or backward, or give you the icon. When a player lands on a chance token, he reveals it, takes that action, replaces it with one from the supply, then shuffles that revealed one into the supply.)

4. Priest – Pay two gems and move forward to the next temple; otherwise don't move.

5. Elder – Pay two gems and move forward to the next village; otherwise don't move.

6. Craftsman – Take a machete from the supply, if available, then move 1-2 spaces. (Why do you need a machete? To pass through the deep jungle spaces on the game board without having to end your movement there for the turn.)

7. Scout – Pay any number of gems, then move forward that many spaces. Architecturally, you can build lots of movement if you have the gems on hand to pay.

8. Canoe – Pay all your gems, then forward twice this many spaces.

9. Child – Move your pawn forward onto the space of the player in front of you on the path.

Okay, so not everything has a Citadels equivalent, and the game started out as a monster. Once again, from Faidutti's website:

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The first versions of the game had a vaguely medieval setting, inspired by the Perilous Vale legend, which I had met with when working on my Ph.D. Players were adventurers trying to travel through the vale. Various fantasy creatures such as unicorns, dragons and sirens helped them cross the most dangerous obstacle spaces. The game had many different spaces and effects, road crossings, and more than fifty different characters, each player choosing two every round. As a result, the game was too complex and too slow. The later versions were mostly designed with removing one element after the other to create a much simpler and lighter game, with one single track and only nine characters, from the witch to the dragon.

More than fifty characters?! With multiple paths and road crossings? It's interesting to imagine Bruno's explosion of creativity, his mind spinning out idea after idea as it builds this enormous world that, in the end, few people would want to explore enough to appreciate all the work that went into creating it! And what are the unicorns and dragons trying to do anyway?

Thus, the paring down, the streamlining that some gamers deride – yet people can keep only so many choices in their heads at one time. Faced with a half-dozen choices, you or I could perhaps work through which role might serve us best in the coming round based on the nature of our opponents and game experience. Keep encountering new characters each time that you play, however, and you might feel like you're spinning your wheels, thinking too much about what might happen without any foundation for doing so. And what do all the characters do again this time?

With 6-8 players, your goal is to reach the first large temple on the path. Do this and you win. With fewer than six players, you're in for a longer haul to the second temple deep in the jungle, thieving and scouting and canoeing, racing forward while trying to watch your back at the same time...