Luther: The game

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Luther: The game
Game data
author Martin and Erika Schlegel
publishing company Cosmos games
Publishing year 2016
Art Board game
Teammates 2 to 4
Duration 45 minutes
Age from 10 years on

Luther: Das Spiel is a board game by the German game designer couple Martin and Erika Schlegel about the church reformer Martin Luther , which was published by Kosmos Spiele in 2016 . The game was designed and equipped on the occasion of the Reformation anniversary in 2017 (Luther Year) in cooperation with the state office "Luther 2017" and the office of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and contains, in addition to the actual game, a booklet with information about Martin Luther and the central Places where he worked and people who have to do with him. The painter Lucas Cranach the Elder and his Luther portrait also play a central role in the game .

Style of play

With Luther: The game is about as a player to understand the life of Luther and to get information about Luther. By traveling on the game board, meeting with key people and completing the Luther portrait by Lucas Cranach the Elder, players receive experience points that are used to decide victory at the end of the game.

The portrait of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder plays a central role in the game.

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

  • a game board on which, in addition to a counting track ( Kramer track ) for counting the experience points and several storage areas for cards, there is above all a route map with the various central locations from Luther's life and the Luther portrait of Cranach the Elder
  • four pawns
  • four experience stones
  • four way rings
  • a Luther rose
  • 20 tiles "Cranach paints"
  • 20 cover plates for the painting
  • 70 food cards
  • 60 special cards
  • 44 portrait tiles, including 14 with the portrait of Luther and five each with Katharina von Bora , Friedrich the Wise , Philipp Melanchthon , Lucas Cranach the Elder , Johann Tetzel and Karl V.
  • four overview panels.

Game preparation

At the beginning of the game, the game board is spread out in the middle of the table. Each player chooses a game color and receives the corresponding game piece, the experience stone and the overview board in this color. The game pieces are placed in Eisleben , Luther's birth town, and the experience pieces are placed on the starting field of the scoring track. Then each player receives a provision card worth one and two day trips, the remaining provisions cards are shuffled and placed on the playing field as an open draw pile. The 60 special cards and the portrait tiles are also shuffled. The special cards are placed face down in two stacks on the cheese and bread fields. The portrait tiles are distributed to the locations on the game board and then revealed, the remaining tiles are placed next to the game board as a supply. The basket rings are also placed next to the game board.

The Luther portrait is covered with the 20 cover tiles with the word side up and the 20 tiles “Cranach paints” are shuffled and placed face down as a stack on the playing field. The top five tiles are turned over and the five cover tiles with the same words are removed from the picture and taken out of the game together with the “Cranach paints” tiles.

Before the game starts, a starting player is determined (according to the rules of the game, “the youngest player”). This player receives the Luther Rose as a marker.

Game flow

Steps per turn
  • Starting player lays down a food card
  • Take provisions
  • Player actions
  • Cranach paints

The game runs in several rounds until the Luther portrait is completely covered. In each round, each player chooses two provisions cards that allow him to travel and collect portrait cards. Each round takes place in four game steps. First, the starting player lays out provisions cards from the draw pile as pairs until there is one more pair on display than there are participants in the game. Then the starting player chooses a pair of cards and puts it face down in his hand. For each bread tile he may draw a special card from the bread field and for each cheese tile he may draw a special card from the cheese field. If it is an advantage card with a green seal or a Luther card with a blue seal, he can look at it and put it in his hand. Event cards with a red seal are placed face down in front of the player without the player being allowed to read the text. After the starting player, all other players choose a pair of cards and, if necessary, also draw special cards.

Player actions
  • to travel
  • Expand Luther picture
  • Play advantage card
  • Discard Luther and advantage cards and draw provisions cards

The player actions of the other players follow this supply phase. When it is a player's turn, he must first read out the event cards in front of him and execute them. Then he can perform various actions once per turn:

  • Travel: The player can travel from one location on the game board to another location that is a maximum of three steps away. The player receives half of the travel expenses paid for the trip as experience points and marks this on the scoring bar. If there is a portrait tile at the destination, the player picks it up and places it face up in front of him; The prerequisite is that the player actually travels. A trip can also end at the place where it was started; it costs provisions according to the day trip and counts the corresponding amount of experience points. If the last portrait tile of a region has been removed, a new portrait tile is placed face down on each of the four locations in the region and then turned up.
  • Expand Luther picture: In each game round, a player may play one Luther card with the blue seal. He can play it out if the corresponding word is still present on the covered Luther portrait. In this case the corresponding cover plate is removed and removed from the game together with the card. For a cleared field in the Luther portrait, the player receives two experience points, in addition, he receives one additional point for each open field in the same row and column.
  • Play advantage card: In each game round a player may play an advantage card with the green seal and use the advantage directly.
  • Discard Luther and advantage cards and draw provisions cards: Once per turn, the player may discard any number of Luther and advantage cards and draw one provision card for each discarded card. Unlike at the beginning of the round, he does not receive any special cards for cheese and bread cards drawn.

After all players have carried out their actions, the starting player reveals the top tile from the Cranach paints stack and removes the corresponding cover tile from Luther's portrait. If this is not possible because the corresponding tile has already been removed, further tiles are uncovered until a cover tile can be removed. Finally the starting player passes his Luther rose on to his left neighbor, who becomes the new starting player. This supplements the provision display with as many pairs as necessary until there is one more than one player.

End of game and evaluation

The game ends after the round in which the last cover plate was removed from the Luther portrait and the painting was thus completed. A final round is then played, after which the experience points are evaluated. The players receive the following experience points:

  • the more different portrait tiles a player has, the more experience points he gets. Each portrait tile is combined with others to form sets and scored. The player receives a maximum of 28 points per set for 7 different tiles (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 = 28). Individual, multiple existing tiles count as a set of one tile and give you one point accordingly.
  • the player with the most Luther portraits receives 12 additional points, the player with the second most 6 additional points. In the event of a tie for position, all players with the appropriate number receive these points.
  • For each additional 5 day trips that a player still has on surplus provisions cards, he receives one point
  • Each remaining Luther and advantage card earns you an additional point.

The winner is the player who has the most experience points after the final scoring. In the event of a tie, the player with the most portrait tiles of Martin Luther wins and if there is still a tie, several players have won.

Origin and reception

The board game Luther: The game was developed by the German game designer couple Martin and Erika Schlegel in cooperation with the state office "Luther 2017" and the office of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) on the occasion of the Reformation anniversary in 2017 and published in 2016 by the game publisher Kosmos Spiele . It was published in October 2016 for the International Game Days (SPIEL '16) in Essen.

On reich-der-spiele.de, the author Martin Schlegel speaks about the game in an interview and describes the history of the game. In 2013 Martin Schlegel developed a game for the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung entitled Chancellor of Germany , which was not published. On the basis of this game and the prototype Mona Lisa smiles , also developed by Schlegel, he developed Luther after initial discussions with the Kosmos editor Wolfgang Lüdtke , whereby the original quiz elements of the Chancellor game were replaced by the Cranach portrait, which was derived from the Mona Lisa game was adapted. The thematic processing with the selection of the central people and places from Luther's biography came from his wife, Erika Schlegel, who also set up the glossary.

The game was picked up and discussed in several reviews, including in the spielbox and on various online platforms. On spielkult.de the game received eight out of ten points for the equipment and the game idea and seven points for the game mechanism. At the same time, the reviewer confirmed to the game authors that they “actually managed to achieve something important in the game. It is not Luther who determines the game, but rather the well-fitting mechanisms. And by the way, the player learns as much as he wants from Luther's life. ”As a result, she describes Luther as“ currently one of the most beautiful games I know on this subject. Its easy comprehensibility and the ability to convey historical knowledge without compulsion make the game absolutely recommendable for the aforementioned target group. ”The test on brettspiel-news.de comes to a similar result: the game receives four out of five stars and is described as a “successful game implementation”, in which “historical knowledge is conveyed in small amounts with almost every card”.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Official rules of the game for Luther: The game
  2. ↑ Martin Schlegel on the board game Luther: Winning with Faith. Interview with Martin Schlegel on reich-der-spiele.de, August 28, 2016; Retrieved April 27, 2017.
  3. ^ Luther - the game on spielkult.de; accessed on May 9, 2017.
  4. ^ Test: Luther - The game by Erika and Martin Schlegel on brettspiel-news.de, October 9, 2016; accessed on May 9, 2017.

Web links