Murano: Light Masters First Impressions
Murano: Light Masters sees you use glass to build intricate items.
This game goes in circles.
At the beginning of the 13th Century, all the glassmakers in Venice were forced to move to Murano. The island became famous, and Murano was the largest producer of glass in Europe. Embody a glassmaker and collect coloured glass to make the most beautiful items while staying ahead of your competitors! Welcome to the Glassmakers Island!
Murano: Light Masters Game Play
Interesting one this…
I’m usually a few weeks behind when writing about the games I play so I often don’t remember the detail when giving my thoughts. Usually, I look at a PDF of the rulebook and it all comes flooding back.
But with this game, the rulebook doesn’t have any of the detail of the version of the game I played. There are a few including solo and different variations of the main game but the rules and components I used were not in the rulebook on the website or BGG. So here goes…
There is a board in the middle of the table with different glass gem symbols on two wheels. On your turn, you move a wheel one step and collect gems based on how the gems align on the wheels.
There are also some bonus actions you can take including selling your gems or sweeping up ones that have been placed in the corners of the board.
The gems you collect are stored on your warehouse card so you can only hold 8 at most.
What are you doing with them? Well, you have cards that you cannot reorder that have requirements to build objects. You trade in the gems, gain money for having empty spaces on your warehouse card and then put this card aside.
These cards have special abilities that once built, you can activate to do one of several things.
For example, you can sell gems for an enhanced price or gain gems of a particular colour.
When a player has built all of their things the game ends. Players lose 2 money (Lira in this case) for each one they have left and the player with the most money wins.
Theme
Murano is famous for its glass so it all checks out.
Setup
Put out the board, deal some cards and place some others. Fairly straightforward.
Components & Artwork
The big wheel in the box works well and allows for a bit of planning when looking at what gems you need.
The art is minimal and has a nice aesthetic.
Ease of Teaching
It is easy to teach and it’s all open information as far as I can remember.
Murano: Light Masters Summary
This is essentially a slightly more convoluted version of Splendor. There you collect gems and cash them in for cards that award points and/or more gems. Here you’re restricted to which gems you can collect and you have a specific requirement to fulfil in a certain order.
The wheel is a fun and pretty way of restricting what gems you get on a turn. Scoring for being efficient with your storage space gives you something to think about. Knowing when to best use your bonuses and how to chain everything together into an efficient machine feel good.
So overall it’s a nice light, engine-build-y, set collection-y type game that looks good on the table.
Jesta ThaRogue
