Imhotep: Builder of Egypt

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Imhotep: Builder of Egypt
Game data
author Phil Walker-Harding
graphic Miguel Coimbra
publishing company Cosmos games
Publishing year 2016
Art Board game
Teammates 2 to 4
Duration 40 minutes
Age from 10 years on

Awards

Imhotep: Builders of Egypt is a board game by the Australian game designer Phil Walker-Harding . The game for two to four players, ages ten and up, was published by Spieleverlag Kosmos Spiele in 2016 and was nominated for the jury prize Game of the Year in the same year . It is based on the game Builders of Egypt , which was developed by Walker-Harding in 2010. The prototype of the game had previously achieved 2nd place in the Premio Archimede authors' competition in 2010 under the name Builders of Egypt .

Theme and equipment

The game thematically deals with the construction of temples, pyramids, burial chambers and obelisks at the time of the builder Imhotep , who was probably the first great builder of the Old Kingdom in Egypt to be responsible for the construction of the Djoser pyramid and the Sechemchet pyramid in Saqqara .

In addition to the game instructions, the game material consists of:

  • five place-name signs
  • a scoring board
  • eight boat plates in four sizes
  • four supply tiles in four colors
  • 120 blocks in four colors (30 of each color)
  • 21 round cards (seven each for a game for two, three or four people)
  • 34 market cards

Style of play

In the game Imhotep , the players try to get as high a score as possible in the form of victory points by participating in the construction of various structures and buying market cards. The winner is the player who has the most victory points at the end of the game after six rounds.

Preparations

At the beginning of the game, the five place-name signs and the scoring board are placed in the middle of the table, the boat tiles and the mixed market cards as well as the mixed round cards are also placed. Each player chooses a color and receives the corresponding supply tile, the players' building blocks are placed in a shared quarry and the starting player is drawn by lot. Before the first round, the starting player receives two building blocks, each of the following one more than the previous one.

All locations can be used in an (A) and a (B) variant, which differ in their structure and rating. This way the game can be made more varied.

Course of the game

Imhotep is played over six rounds, each of which consists of several turns. At the beginning of a round, the boats to be loaded in this round are specified using a round card and placed next to the place-name signs. In addition, four market cards are laid out on the designated areas on the market. The round ends when all boats have been loaded and have each driven to a location.

Alternatives per turn
  • Take building blocks
  • place a building block on a boat
  • drive a boat to a structure
  • use a blue market card

The players play clockwise starting with the starting player. Each player whose turn it is must perform one of four possible actions. He can

  • take up to three building blocks and place them on your supply tile to replenish the supply (there may be a maximum of five building blocks on the tile at the end)
  • Place a building block from your supply on any free space on one of the available boats
  • drive a boat to one of the locations if it contains at least the number of building blocks indicated on the tip of the boat (even if there are no own blocks on the boat) and the jetty at the location is still free. At that location, the stones are unloaded one after the other from front to back and placed according to the local rules.
  • Play a blue market card obtained in one of the previous turns or rounds on the market and carry out the action indicated on it.

Of central importance are the various building sites and the market that the ships head for. In addition to the market, these include the pyramid, the temple, the burial chamber and the obelisks, which have to be built with the help of the colored building blocks:

  • At the construction site of the pyramid, a base level of 9 stones is first built, on which four and finally one stone is placed. Every single stone is paid for with victory points, which are settled directly after delivery.
  • the temple consists of a series of five stones, which are then built over to form a wall. The stones that are visible from above at the end of a round are scored.
  • the burial chamber is an area made of building blocks that is scored at the end of the game. Here it is particularly important to place as many interconnected stones of your own color as possible in order to get a high rating.
  • the obelisks are four monochrome building block towers that are scored at the end of the game. Here the player with the highest tower gets the most points at the end and the others follow accordingly.

At the marketplace, players can get different cards that are displayed depending on their color. Red cards are played directly, blue cards can be stored and used by the player in a targeted manner and green and purple cards are included in the final scoring.

Ratings and end of game

The evaluations of the different actions are based on the respective place-name signs and the time in the game. Deliveries to the pyramid building site are billed immediately, the building blocks at the temple are scored at the end of the round and the stones in the burial chamber and obelisks are scored at the end of the game. In addition, at the end of the game the purple market cards "Statue" and "Decorations" as well as unused blue market cards are evaluated.

The winner of the game is the player who received the most victory points at the end of the game and the last scoring. In the event of a tie, the player who also has the most unused stones on the supply tile wins. If there is still a tie, the two winners share the victory.

variants

In the basic game of Imhotep: Builders of Egypt two variants are named, which should bring more variety into the game.

The more comprehensive of these two variants concerns the various building sites and the market, the backs of which each have a second evaluation page (B-side):

  • On the building site of the pyramid, three pyramids with a base of 4 stones each are built. The player can decide which of the three pyramids he supplies, with some pyramid fields bringing a bonus. As with the front, the pyramids are scored directly.
  • The alternative version of the temple consists of a row of five stones, which are then built over to form a wall. In contrast to the front, the players receive different bonuses for the visible stones depending on their position.
  • The structure of the burial chamber does not differ from the front, but points are now awarded for the majorities in the three rows of stones.
  • On the construction field of the obelisk there are two fields for each color. If 3 stones of one color have been delivered, the corresponding obelisk is moved to a scoring field and settled.

In this version, three face-up cards are laid out on the marketplace and two face-down cards are laid out on the fourth space. The player can either take an open card or choose one of the face down cards.

In the variant The Wrath of the Pharaoh , players are penalized with a deduction of 5 points in the final scoring if they did not contribute at least one stone each to the construction of all four monuments.

Reception and evaluation

reviews
Meta page rating
BoardGameGeek 7.3 out of 10 points
brettspielbox.de 7.4 out of 10 points
brettspiele-report.de 15 out of 20 points

Imhotep: Builders of Egypt was developed by the Australian game designer Phil Walker-Harding in 2010 and achieved 2nd place as a prototype under the name Builders of Egypt in the Premio Archimede author competition of the Italian company studiogiochi 2016. It was published by the game publisher Kosmos Spiele in Nominated for the jury award Game of the Year in the same year and voted 8th in the German Games Award 2016. The game also appeared in an English-language version and was also published in Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary and the Netherlands. In 2017 it was nominated for the Dutch Game Award.

"Caution road work! When the players put together ancient Egyptian monuments from non-slip wooden cubes on the table together, but then it is a real eye-catcher: Obelisks, pyramids, burial chambers and temples grow as three-dimensional structures. Great! The slim, tactical mechanism with its repeatedly tricky decisions, together with the coherent material, forms a well-rounded and exciting family game from the desert sand. "

- Jury for Game of the Year , 2016

The game was mostly positively discussed in various reviews. In the games database BoardGameGeek , Imhotep recorded an average rating of 7.3 (out of 10) with more than 2,700 reviews (as of January 2017). The portal brettspielbox.de rated the game with 7.4 out of 10 points and emphasized above all that the "whole game mix [...] is certainly new and has never been seen in this form". At brettspiele-report.de the game achieved an overall rating of 15 out of 20 points, and here too, in addition to the very good game instructions and the quality of the game material, the long-term fun is particularly emphasized.

For the game, Kosmos-Verlag published the mini expansion Die Wetten with a betting table for download on the website in October 2016 , and the expansion Imhotep: The Private Ships Mini Expansion with four boats for one stone each appeared in the board game Advent calendar 2016 four player colors. On the basis of the game, Walker-Harding also published the 2-person game Imhotep in 2018 : The duel , in which the idea of ​​the various construction sites was adopted while the ships were unloaded in the port.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b Imhotep on the pages of the game of the year ; accessed on January 29, 2017.
  2. ^ A b Premio-Archimede Edizione 2010 from studiogiochi; accessed on January 29, 2017.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Game instructions Imhotep at Kosmos Spiele ; accessed on January 29, 2017.
  4. ↑ Versions of Imhotep in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English); Retrieved January 25, 2017.
  5. ↑ Familieprijs 2017: nominaties , nomination for the Dutch Game Prize 2017, 23 September 2017; accessed on October 21, 2017.
  6. ↑ Ratings & Comments for Imhotep in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English); accessed on January 29, 2017.
  7. ↑ Imhotep on brettspielbox.de, April 10, 2016; accessed on January 29, 2017.
  8. ↑ Imhotep on brettspiele-report.de, July 24, 2016; accessed on January 29, 2017.
  9. ↑ Imhotep - mini expansion - the bets at Kosmos games; accessed on January 30, 2017.
  10. ↑ Imhotep: The Private Ships Mini Expansion in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English); accessed on January 30, 2017.

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