Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 1-2 hours
The Components
Draco Mundis comes in a small box with:
Board: A small 4-panel board depicting an 8x12 grid. There's a faded map shown in the background, but it's entirely irrelevant to the play of the game.
Tokens: A total of 80 cardboard tokens. That's 20 for each player, in the player colors (light gray, red, dark gray, and black). Each token depicts a character, an item, or a land. The artwork is all attractive, though it ends up a bit muddied due to the dull colors used for the tokens.
Icons on the tokens designate movement and combat value for a character, but gives no hints toward the special powers of the characters and lands; a few special power icons could have taken care of this.
I also had a few problems with keeping tokens straight: the dark gray and the black are too close in color; and the jungle looks too much like a swamp (another type of terrain) for comfort.
Player Screens: The game includes player screens to remind you of all the powers of all the tokens, but this is done through very complete textual explanations of each token--which you don't want to have to read in play. The screens were further subpar because they don't include either a list of actions or a list of how to game victory points. We didn't use them a lot as a result.
I usually expect entirely great components from Asmodee, but I was disappointed in Draco Mundis. Both the quality of the components and the beauty of the artwork was up to the usual standards, but after that things fell apart. The dull colors took away from the beauty and there's a lot lacking in usability, which is somewhat of a blow to the game (though only for a first-time play).
On average, I've given Draco Mundis a "3" out of "5" for Style: the good and the bad component decisions balance.
The Game Play
The object of Draco Mundis is to eliminate other characters (particularly dragons), to mess with other players' camp sites, and to occupy important territories at the end of the game.
Setup: Each player is given a set of 19 tiles, which include 11 characters and 8 lands. One at a time, players lay these tiles on the board until all 19 have been laid. These characters are laid face-down other than the explorers, which are laid face-up.
As you'd guess, the majority of the gameplay comes through what these various tiles can do.
The Characters. Each character has two main characteristics: movement and combat value.
Movement value is designated per direction. For example the journalist can move 1/1/1: that's one space in every direction by backward. The hunter is 1/3/1: he moves forward very quickly and can move sideways slowly. The dragon is a rarity, a character that can only move in one direction (forward, with a 2). Meanwhile, the biplane and SS307 machinegun can move in any direction, but the biplane moves much more quickly going forward.
Combat values vary from 0-4. The dragon is (appropriately) the toughest of the units.
Some of the units also have special powers (or impact victory points in special ways:
- Journalist. Can't be attacked and earns victory points if she ends the game in an enemy campsite.
- Hunter. Can protect a campsite.
- Cannibal. Can move onto another character to capture them.
- Biplane. Can fly over territory that would cause others to stop.
- SS307 Machinegun. Can destroy a campsite from adjacent.
The Lands. Each player also 8 land tiles which he can try and use to disguise where his characters actually are and/or given them advantages. The land types are:
- Campsite. Blocks movement, except for journalists and hunters. Worth VP if captured by a journalist or destroyed by a Machinegun.
- Mountain. +1 combat. +1 VP if held at end of game.
- Jungle. +2 VP if held at end of game.
- Swamp. -1 combat.
- Bengali Tiger Territory. Blocks movement, shouldn't be put next to your own campsite.
Gameplay: On his turn a player takes two actions from a menu of several:
- Peek at a face-down token.
- Flip a face-down token.
- Orient a character.
- Move a character.
- Start a fight.
- Activate a special ability.
- Turn up an arbitrary token.
Peek: The player can look at a face-down token next to one of his face-up characters.
Flip: The player can flip a face-down token next to one of his face-up characters, but if it's a character, a fight starts immediately.
Orient: The player orients one of his face-up characters in a direction of his choice (to allow later movement), optionally flipping it face-up if it's currently face-down.
Move: A character moves up to the number of spaces shown on his arrow in a specific direction. He must stop before a face-up character, before a face-down token, or on a face-up land.
Fight: A character specifies a target adjacent to one or more of his characters. He adds up the combat values of all his characters adjacent to the victim and compares it to the victim's combat value. The higher value wins, and all the losing characters are removed from the board (and saved for VPs at the end of the game).
Activate: Use a cannibal or a machinegun ability.
Turn Up: Some special conditions allow players to turn up tiles that aren't adjacent to their characters (basically, when they have no face-up characters, or toward the end of the game). This speeds the game toward its finale.
Ending the Game: The game ends when all the tokens on the gameboard are face-up. The players now count VPs:
- +7 VP: Your journalist is in an enemy camp.
- +5 VP: Each enemy camp you destroyed.
- +3 VP: Each enemy dragon you destroyed.
- +1 VP: Each other enemy character you destroyed.
- +2 VP: Endgame control of a jungle.
- +1 VP: Endgame control of a mountain.
- -5 VP: Your campsite is next to your Bengali Tiger Territory
Variants: A variant introduces the Dragon Trap, which can be pushed around, and which dramatically decreases the combat value of dragons.
Relationships to Other Games
Draco Mundis is a largely abstract game with pieces that have variant powers. Think Chess, but fun, and with the piece locations initially hidden.
There are definitely similarities to Boelinger's best-known game, Dungeon Twister. I think that Dungeon Twister is both more colorful and more dynamic than Draco Mundis, however they have similar ideas about figuring out interesting tactics to use with a group of initially hidden game pieces.
If you didn't like Dungeon Twister, you're unlikely to like Draco Mundis, though the opposite isn't necessarily true (since Draco Mundis is more abstract).
The Game Design
Draco Mundis is generally a clever game that has lots of neat, tactical decisions in it. Every turn you're constantly trying to assess how you can beneficially move your forces, to set up conditions to capture other peoples' characters, but the two actions you have to use is never enough. As a result, you start doing everything in baby-steps, inevitably telegraphing your moves, and hope that you can get away with what you're doing anyway.
There are two potential problems with the game. First, there's real opportunity for Analysis Paralysis (much as is the case with Dungeon Twister), if players get too caught up in what they can do with all their different pieces. Second, there seems to be some possibility for deadlocking, if players get into a situation where no one can manage an immediate advantage, and if you're not late enough in the game to start flipping tiles arbitrarily.
Despite these potential problems, Draco Mundis is a fine game that will be enjoyed by anyone looking for a clever and colorful tactical abstract. I've given it a high "4" out of "5" for Substance: quite good.
Conclusion
Draco Mundis is an interesting game that offers abstract play, but with quite a bit of color. Unique pieces that do different things allow for quite a bit of variability (and fun) in the game. If you like abstracts, but they don't have to be "pure", this game will probably entrance you.
