Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 30-60 minutes
The Components
Tiles: This is a tile-laying game, so of course tiles are the main component. There are 120 total which are divided into two sorts ("random" tiles which are placed in a bag and "selection" tiles which are placed in organized stacks) and five terrains (desert, hills, farmland, marshes, and rivers).
The tiles are linen-textured and of average weight Each terrain has various Egyptian icons upon it, which I found distracting at first (because it somewhat obscures and confuses the terrain) and later attractive (because it adds some nice variety once you get over the brief confusion).
Cards: The selection tiles are played based on cards that you use. These cards are light to medium weight cards with gloss finish. Each of these shows one of the terrain types, along with a value from 1-5 or a ?.
Wood Bits Each player gets a set of 20 influence markers, which are large wooden disks in a player color (black, white, gold, or blue).
Bag: A cloth bag for holding tiles.
Overall, I find the components of Horus attractive and evocative. As I noted, they slightly obscured gameplay the first time through, but I had everything figured out before that first game was complete.
I've given Horus a "4" out of "5" for Style: above average.
The Gameplay
The object of Horus is to gain the most points by having the majority of influence in numerous different terrains surrounding the Nile.
Setup: The tiles are separated out into numerous piles. Three tiles (a river-start and two river-ends) mark the Nile river at the start of the game. It's the core around which the rest of the game will be built. Numerous "random" tiles are all shuffled up in a bag. The rest of the "selection" tiles are separated into five piles, one for each terrain type: desert, hills, farmland, marsh, and river.
Each player is given 20 influence markers in his color.
Each player also receives one special river-transport card and another five random cards.
Order of Play: On his turn a player takes several actions in order:
- Draw a Tile
- Play a Card
- Place an Influence Marker
- Draw a Card
Draw a Tile: The active player draws a tile from the bag.
If it's not a river tile, he places it anywhere on the board, but probably adjacent to a terrain of the same type. He can't block the future flow of the Nile, however. There's one other quirk to tile placement: tiles can be placed either in-line with another tile or halfway-off another tile (so that it's corners align to the center of the adjacent tiles).
If it's a river tile, the player replaces one of the river ends with his new tile, then places the river end adjacent to that tile he just placed. Then he takes a second river tile (from the stack) and places it anywhere adjacent to the river (including replacing the new river-end). Alternatively he may turn this second tile over to reveal its necropolis side. This is a special sort of terrain that can't be scored and exists mainly to block other terrains from expanding. A necropolis tile can be placed anywhere.
The Temple of Horus. This is a special tile in the bag which must be placed adjacent to the Nile but not adjacent to any existing territory. It'll double scoring for territories that grow adjacent to it.
Play a Card: Next the active player player plays a card from his hand. This shows one of the types of land (or a ?) and a number from 1-5 (or a ?).
For the moment, only the tile type is relevant. The player takes one of the tiles from the appropriate stack and places it using the normal rules for placement.
Play an Influence Marker: Finally he active player takes one of his influence markers and places it on a free space in a terrain of a size (from 1-5) that matches the number on the card he played. This does not have to be a terrain of the type shown on the card he played.
River Transport: Instead of playing a normal card and an influence marker, the player may instead play the one river transport card from his hand. This allows him to play two river tiles then to move one of his influence markers from a territory adjoining the Nile to a free space in another territory adjoining the Nile.
Draw a Card: Finally the active player draws to replenish the card he played (until it was a river transport, which is not replaced).
Ending the Game: The game ends when two of the types of territories stacked near the board are expended. Then the players score.
Each territory is worth a number of points equal to its size, doubled if it's next to the Temple or Horus or if it's on an island (surrounded by the Nile), but to a maximum score of 5. A player earns the points for a territory if he has the most influence markers in that territory (including ties, which are frequent). The player with the most total points wins.
Relationships to Other Games
Horus is a game that combines majority control and tile laying in a single package, much like classic Carcassonne. However, Horus is both lighter than Carcassonne and plays faster.
The Game Design
Horus is a fun and simple tile-laying game. One of its best points is that it's a filler--often running just 30 or 40 minutes in length--and it does a good job of filling out that length.
The gameplay is relatively simplistic, but there's some nice strategy in deciding what cards to play and what to keep for later rounds. Though the chaos factor goes up with four players, with three there's some real chance to make some long-term plans and still have them be relevant when the turn order gets back to you.
With all that said, there are quite a few sharp edges. For examples, I mentioned that you can "offset" the tiles by half a tile length. Though that certainly looks nice, it has very little game effect. Similar the rules for the river placement seem overly complex. Even the 5-point limit on scoring seems like a kludge. I think some of these elements kept Horus from being a great game.
Nonetheless, it's a good one, which I enjoyed playing and expect to continue enjoying. I've given it a slightly above average rating of a high "3" out of "5" for Substance.
Conclusion
Horus is a nice filler that combines tile laying and majority control with some beautiful Egyptian imagery, resulting in a fun game. It's not hugely deep, nor would you expect it given a time length that runs as low as 30 minutes for knowledgeable players.
In consulting DriveThruRPG we've come up with a number of products which we think might be related, but some might be inaccurate because the name, Horus, is so short. Nonetheless, take a look, as purchasing through the RPGnet Store helps to support RPGnet.
