Flamecraft is a worker placement game set in a cute fantasy world.
Will you be enchanted by it?
Artisan dragons, the smaller and magically talented versions of their larger (and destructive) cousins, are sought by shopkeepers so that they may delight customers with their flamecraft. You are a Flamekeeper, skilled in the art of conversing with dragons, placing them in their ideal home and using enchantments to entice them to produce wondrous things. Your reputation will grow as you aid the dragons and shopkeepers, and the Flamekeeper with the most reputation will be known as the Master of Flamecraft.
Flamecraft Game Overview
Quick Rule Summary
Players take turns moving their Dragon piece to a shop, collecting resources from that shop, adding a dragon card to the shop from their hand and activating an ability on a dragon in that shop. (Got that?)
Instead of all of that, they can enchant the shop they moved to by trading in resources to complete goals for reputation.
How to Win?
Placing dragons in shops, activating certain dragons and completing enchantments all give reputation among other things.
The player with the most reputation at the end of the game is the winner.
Main Mechanisms
This is the “Worker Placement or Action Selection” dilemma I have. You’re clearly sending a worker to do a job but moving a worker never feels like worker placement. Whichever you think it is, that’s what this game is.
There’s also resource management.
USP
The cutesy art and ease of gameplay will be a big selling point for this game.
Theme
I like the idea of these little dragons helping people out. Not all of the shops require any kind of flame though so I’m not sure how they help out there?
Setup & Rulebook
The setup is fairly straightforward for the most part. I played this at Essen the first time so it was already set up but I’ve played it since coming back and I helped setup a bit. The Gametrayz insert is actually useful for once.
There are 5 decks of cards each needing to be shuffled after being trimmed for the player count. It takes a while but it’s fine.
The rulebook is bright and clear but it wasn’t always easy to find the answers to the questions we had.
Components & Artwork
The components are great. Now, in both games, I played with the deluxe upgrade which has wooden pieces, metal coins and plastic dragons. These are infinitely times better than the cardboard/wooden pieces in the base game and I wouldn’t want this game without them.
The art is cute too, very much my kinda thing.
Ease of Teaching
This is very easy to teach. All the symbols make sense and all the actions are described on the helpful cheat sheets.
There are a lot of dragons but only in 6 colours and each dragon of the same colour does the same thing.
The hard part for new players will be the Fancy Dragons. These are not only hidden cards in hand but the hardest part of the game to understand. They score either mid-game or end-game points and are obviously conditional depending on certain conditions. Players need to know what they’re doing with these.
Similar Games
If it’s simple worker placement games we need I’ll just look to Lords of Waterdeep. That’s been the long-time king of the entry game of this type. I think Flamecraft is more accessible and the theme will be more appealing to a wider audience of gamers.
Flamecraft Review
Positives
Nice and simple gameplay but you still need to play your best to win.
You’re not blocked from spaces but you have to pay people if they’re already there which is a good compromise.
Resources are far from scarce but dragon cards and enchantment cards are making you work to get them.
A great overall look to the game but…
Negatives
…those deluxe components double the cost of the game as you would expect.
There can be a lot of downtime in a 5 player game.
Awkward end game where players have uneven turns which can feel unfair. (But apparently, it isn’t)
The very long board takes up a lot of table space and doesn’t leave much room for your player board. if you play on a thin table, you have to make sure it’s right in the middle to help players sitting on both sides.
I’m not sure about long-term replayability without at least one expansion.
Summary
A very fun and cute game I enjoy quite a bit.
Jesta ThaRogue