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Review of Archaeologia
Blurb from the publisher: 'Become the greatest archaeologist of your time! Dive in the heart of archaeology in the 1930s. Dig into several strata and discover remnants from different eras: the bronze age, the prehistory, the Cretaceous and the Jurassic. Use your tools and other means... But beware! Thieves and black marketers are very common in the digging sites.'
What you get: Your EUR 35 will buy you a copy of Archaeologia, a 35-minute board game for two to four players that has already won a fair number of accolades and appeared on French national TV. The game proudly proclaims that it is not just 'made in France', but that everything related to it, from design and manufacture, is '100% made in Ardeche', a department in the Rhône-Alpes region of south-central France. The box contains the rulebook in French, as well as the following items: 70 terrain tiles, 12 tool tiles, 2 boards, 65 event cards, 10 secret objective cards, 8 wooden markers, 4 archaeology markers and 1 rain tile.
Gameplay: To become the biggest archaeologist of his time, a player needs to either gather 40 points of renown by submitting completed findings to the museum, or have the most points of renown when a player (him or other) has the two dinosaur eggs.
The players set up the game together – the first player sets the latter era stratum on the 16 digs available, while the others cover it up while mixing the digs in the process so that no one knows what lies where. From the beginning already some artifacts will be available in the black market. Each player starts with 12 money and 0 renown, and a preliminary tour is played. Each player places his archaeologist on a digging site, takes three event cards in his hand, examines the contents of one dig through the use of the sonar and takes a secret objective.
From there onwards the game is played in turns. In each turn a player takes an additional event card, executes a maximum of three actions and if by the end of his turn he has more than three cards in hand he must discard the excess.
Actions are the core of Archaeologia. A player can execute three actions per turn, in any order, choosing from the following: move, use the sonar, search on a digging site, resort to the black market or play an even card with an action symbol. In addition to those, a player can freely visit the tool shack, offer his findings to the museum or play event cards without action symbols. If a player does not use any non-free actions whatsoever, he earns 2 money.
Moving allows the archaeologist to go from a dig to an adjacent one. To use the sonar which allows the player to see the strata on any dig except from those affected by the rain, a player must first (freely) visit the tool shack. Digging is only allowed under certain conditions: a player must be alone on the site where it does not rain, he must have the right tool and he must afford the cost. The tool and the investment needed for each dig depend on its actual depth (zero cost and no tools needed for the first stratum, one money for each stratum afterwards with a shovel, a pick and a brush being needed, in that order). The findings are either single (can be found on one dig), double (spread over two digs), or collections (three or four tiles). Collections and double findings require more effort to complete while providing more points of renown when submitted to the museum.
By resorting to the black market the player can buy, sell or exchange his findings depending on their monetary value. The black market accepts all findings, irrespective of them being complete or not.
Event cards vary greatly. One can grant public access to a dig so that everybody can prospect, or temporarily close down a dig, rob his opponents of their findings, sabotage their equipment, alter the weather conditions and so forth. All is fair in love and archaeology.
Secret objective cards provide some much-needed asymmetry, partially changing the goal and modus operandi of each player. One might be the prehistory expert, wanting to collect a single find, a double find as well as a collection from the second stratum, while another might be a headhunter, wanting to obtain three heads of dinosaurs. When a player fulfills the conditions of his secret objective, he reveals it and immediately gains its benefits, namely renown and money. If the objective becomes unattainable because of the course of the game, he discards it and takes a new secret objective.
The strong points: Archaeologia is a very fast game to learn and explain without it being a light-hearted parody. It takes less than three minutes to explain the rules (what you already read under gameplay are pretty much all the rules, slightly abstracted for a more fluid read), and is accessible by pretty much everybody from the age of eight to the age of 1.000.000, as the rulebook proclaims. Additionally, it does not need a big table space. It can thus appeal not only to the hardcore purists but also to the casual or the family gamer.
The game is effectively based on action point allowance (limited number of actions per round) as well as other secondary mechanics like hand management thrown in for good measure. Good memory can really help one's cause. Even though the game is not a brain burner, it is not light either. Tactics and strategy are required since games tend to be tight. Player interaction through indirect aggression is an element of the game, even though it cannot devolve into an all out tit-for-tat. King making was only partially observed during the playtests due to the game being tight by its nature (unless somebody is seriously underperforming). A good use of cards, timing one's actions, managing resources (namely: the money), prudence on what to sell and what to buy in the black market, are all essential elements.
As much as this is an independent effort (Old Casa Games is effectively the imprint of the designer), it has very high production values. The box is the thickest and sturdiest ever; one can practically put pots and frying pans on top and it won't budge. Idem for the tiles and cards. This game will last forever. Even more so, after reviewing quite a few products which didn't bother to state the exact contents in the boxes, I am happy to see that Archaeologia is quite precise about what it includes. Professional publishers should seriously take notes.
The art is very well done, mostly in brown, earth-like colours, giving a wet, damp-like impression, as if one really is really at a dig and later on a musty, dark museum of the 1930s. Research has been put into the game in that the artifacts' depictions are accurate, from the Celtic rings to the Merovingian statues. The game-related information on the tiles as well as the cards is clear and very precise; the tiles have pictographs while limited text is used on the event cards.
The weak points: Each secret objective does not state on itself when it becomes unfulfillable. This is a serious mistake. Good knowledge of the game's components suddenly becomes essential to play the game by the rules. This omission can put a player in a losing situation by default, seeing how he might incorrectly follow tactics towards a goal he has not realised that he can no longer attain.
I found it a bit surprising that there were no balancing rules depending on the number of players (limiting the digs, changing the victory conditions etc). The feel of the game significantly differs depending on how many players it accommodates. Evidently enough, it's quite open and comfortable with two players, while it can become quite the fight with four, with people ganging up on the leader.
Were one pedantic he could question the title of the game seeing how it is mostly about paleontology (dinosaurs!) and not archaeology, the two being different scientific fields. I would have immediately dismissed such commentary; this is a game after all. It must be stated however that the educational undertones that the game promotes might be a bit too much at times. As much as Archaeologia is a product of pure love, it also shows some of the quirks of small press.
High quality components and the desire to produce locally comes at a price. EUR 35 is on the highest end of what somebody would be prepared to pay for a half-hour medium-weight game, especially if it doesn't contain a myriad of components or other gimmicks. As was already stated however, this game can take punishment and will last forever.
Out of the 8-page rulebook, two are about historical, real-life archaeological/paleontological information while one contains the names of the supporters of the initial project (funded via ulule, a French crowd-funding platform). As much as the game has educational undertones and Olivier, the very friendly designer, was talking in great passion about archaeology, I am not convinced about the allocation of rulebook space. Non-game related material belong more on a website or the facebook page – not the rulebook, seeing how they potentially increase the price of the item. The same amount of pages in the rulebook could have had something many times more important and extremely common in Europe these days: the rules in additional languages.
Archaeologia is not a difficult game to explain or play, thus making even more incredible the choice to burden the cards with text instead of pictographs for what I perceive as very simple notions. If the rules for more languages were already in the rulebook, and the cards as well as the tiles had pictographs, the game would have been accessible to everybody from the box. Such an approach would have fitted better with the theme as well, pictographs being one of the first forms of writing in human history. The game can still be played by non French speakers; the rules and one page cheat-sheets are all one needs. The burden however falls on the buyer. For the moment, Archaeologia as is out of the box is an exclusively French-speaker affair.
Part of this could have even been solved by offering the rules on additional languages online like many other small press games do. However, Archaeologia does not have a dedicated website. Its blog page leaves much to be desired, not having any updates or supporting material. On the contrary, the facebook page is substantially better with multiple updates each month. It however lacks basic material like the original full rulebook which is standard practice nowadays. This is truly a pity, seeing how simple, non-costly things like that could seriously expand its reach towards a larder audience.
Conclusion: Archaeologia has substance and can easily find its way to your gaming library. It would have been more accurate to grade it 3.5/3.5 but I don't have that option. The sheer effort alone to independently produce and market such a game with a strong local element deserves the encouragement. Indeed, the game could have benefited from a more clever commercial approach as well as a slightly reduced price; what matters though is that gamewise the end result is solid. Solid enough to have me digging again and again.
To find out more about Archaeologia take a look at http://archaeologialejeu.blogspot.be/ as well as the game's facebook page.
