Game: Atlantis
Designer: Leo Colovini
Artwork: Michael Menzel
Publisher: Mayfair Games
Age Range: 10 & up
Number of Players: 2-4
Game Time: 30-45 minutes
Mechanics: Point to Point Movement; Tile collection for points
Complexity: 3 out of 5
Challenge: 4 out of 5
At first glance, and indeed, even after reading through the rules and setting the game up for the first time, Atlantis looks like a re-themed version of Candyland with three playing pieces per player instead of one. The object is to get all three of your pieces from Point A to Point B. The tools at your disposal are a tile-laden path and cards showing symbols. The process entails selecting a card with a symbol from a hand of them you’re dealt (and will replenish), moving a piece forward along the track from Point A to Point B to the first tile with the same picture as the one on your card, and collecting goodies as you go. Winner is the person who, after getting all three pieces into Point B, has the most to show for it.
Simple, right?
Well, not so simple, as it turns out, because there are some literal and figurative twists and turns with Atlantis that elevate it to a thought-provoking little exercise. It’s not just about getting your pieces from Point A (the sinking island of Atlantis) to Point B (the mainland). It’s also about collecting points along the way, which will ultimately determine whether you win or lose. How you go about collecting those points, as your pieces ‘flee the sinking city,’ is the tricky part and it doesn’t take long for a player to grasp the notion that Candyland, this ain’t.
The Atlantis path to victory
Okay, 84 tiles each depicting a symbol and a Victory Point/purchase power value, which are set out at the start in a path from Atlantis to the mainland in 52 stacks; there are 20 single-tiles on this path and 32 stacks with two tiles on them. The path is a random design chosen by whoever sets up the game. The only restrictions governing the design of this path are that it be laid out in two sections, divided by a water tile (tiles are labeled either “A” or “B” for this purpose) and that it conform to a pattern of single and double-tile stacks detailed in the rules.
You start with three pieces each in Atlantis and a set of cards dealt at the beginning; four to the start player, five to the second player, six to the third and seven to the fourth. Each card, bears one of seven symbols – an urn, an olive leaf, a crown, a helmet, a flag, a ring and a statue, which match the symbols on the tiles. On your turn, you play one of these cards and move any of your pieces from Atlantis (or on the path if they’re already there) to the next tile showing the symbol of the card you’ve played. If the tile your piece lands on is unoccupied, your piece remains there, you pick up the first unoccupied tile behind the tile you’re on, draw a card from the draw pile and your turn is over. If, however, the tile is occupied, you must play another card and move to a tile (featuring the new card’s symbol) further along down the road, because no tile can be occupied by more than one piece at a time.
When you create a gap between tiles, as when you pick up the tile behind the tile where your piece has landed and it’s a stack with only a single tile, you replace it with a water tile. You can cross that gap for nothing if you lay down a bridge (one per customer and everybody gets to use it to cross the gap for nothing). Without a bridge, crossing that gap costs you the lesser of the two tile values to either side of the gap. So, if there’s a “3” tile on one side of a water gap and a “5” tile on the other, you’d have to pay “3.” That cost is paid for with tiles you’ve already collected (their value) and there’s no change. You cross a gap requiring the payment of three points in value and all you have collected at that point is a “5” tile, and you’re just out of luck. You can also pay using your cards – one point in value per card you choose to give up, but this, of course, reduces your movement options on your next turn. If you don’t have the resources to cross such a gap, the piece can’t cross it.
Very quickly in this game, tiles start to disappear and water gaps start to open up. No sooner do you find yourself collecting points, than you discover that you have to give them back to make any headway along the increasingly deteriorating path. In this sense, the game really does maintain its sense of theme; the city is sinking into the ocean behind you and your path to safety – the mainland – is washing away all around you. Any plans you might wish to devise to pick up tiles offering the most points (from 1 to 7) have to take into account any opponents’ pieces in their immediate proximity, as well as whatever it might be costing you to bridge a series of gaps just to get to that high-points tile.
The seven tiles and card back from Atlantis
No matter how carefully this is explained to you, either by reading the rules or having someone explain it, you won’t be able to ‘get it’ until you’ve actually gone through the process a few times (one’s ‘ah-hah!’ moment in the first game of it will tend to come late). What seems simple – pick a card to play, move a piece forward to the next tile with the symbol on that card – turns complicated when opponents are occupying tiles and the water gaps start to emerge and increase in number. You will find situations in which you can’t get your pieces on to the mainland without paying for gaps, whose cost exceeds the points you’ve earned. Not only that, but after the first person gets three of their pieces onto the mainland, everybody else has to get their pieces onto the mainland, without the ability to draw cards or buy them and they have to pay (with collected points) to get over any gaps. It’s significant that in something of an ‘aside’ the rules state that “if you cannot pay the crossing costs, keep track of your negative score.” You score each of the valued tiles you’ve managed to hold on to, plus a single point per card left in your hand (first person to get three onto the mainland draws four cards and the game is over, except for opponents deducting points as they move onto the mainland, too).
It’s a simple game to figure out in terms of process. I watched a group of four newcomers, including myself, catch on to the process rather rapidly, and only as the game developed, discover that it contained a few surprises that had to be encountered as the game progressed and arguably should have been thought about when it started. It’s one of those games you will play differently the second time you play it, aware of the surprises ahead and planning for them a little more diligently.
It’s new to the BoardGameGeek Web site and has only drawn about 67 ratings at this point, with an average rating of 6.58. Commentators like its “simple (but) tortuous decisions,” it’s fast play and the degree of interactivity and involvement. Detractors note a lack of challenge (I’d disagree) and too much chaos (with which I have no objection).
Though compared to a game called Cartagena because of its objective of moving multiple pieces to a destination, it’s better, in my opinion, because the literal path to victory is unstable; deteriorating and making movement more difficult and challenging with every turn.
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