Review of Yggdrasil Chronicles

Blurb from the publisher: 'Traverse the world tree of the Nordic myths! The breathtaking, interactive World-Tree creates an engaging and tactical experience.

Yggdrasil Chronicles is a cooperative game with various game modes.'

What you get: Your EUR 47,50 or equivalent will buy you Yggdrasil Chronicles, a 90-minute, one to five player asymmetrical cooperative boardgame. The game is a reimplementation of Yggdrasil, another cooperative game that hit the market in 2011 from the same designer and publisher.

In addition to the 28-page rulebook that can also be found on the publisher's website free of charge, the game also contains the following: a Saga book, one three-dimensional Game Board, 44 wooden Pawns in five shapes, 13 small Dice, 5 big Dice, 96 playing cards (44 x 63 mm, namely Artifact cards, Creature Cards, Iotunn cards), 19 standees, 7 God Sheets, 49 tokens, one Sagas Book, and one Charts Pad.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have not perused or playtested Yggdrasil in the past. I cannot thus meaningfully compare the present game to its previous iteration.

Gameplay: Each player incarnates a god of the Scandinavian Pantheon like Tyr, Odin, and Thor. Depending on whether one plays the easy or the hard game, gods will have asymmetrical powers. As an example, Freyr starts with two elves in his pool, while Frigg's chances on the Vanir dice are improved.

The game is played on a three dimensional terrain with three different levels. At the beginning of each round players simultaneously draw the top cards of their enemy decks and place them face down on the Wheel of the Enemies. They may then discuss in which order to play. When a player plays, he performs three steps.

First, he reveals an enemy card of the ones that were just placed. If the enemy is not present on the Wheel nothing happens, that enemy however is now visible. If the enemy is present already, the second card activates him. When activated, an enemy triggers an effect. Effects include rotating the Tree's middle level clockwise, moving different kinds of pawns on the board, losing life points, ending your turn etc. When two enemies find themselves on the same world, that world gets immediately destroyed. As long as a devastated world is not healed, its action is unavailable to the players.

A player may then move either horizontally or vertically, but only in a straight line. If the former, he may go to any of the other worlds on his level. If the latter, he can only go to the worlds immediately above and below him.

Finally, a player may either fight or act. One can only fight opponents in the world he is in. When fighting, a player undertakes risks. If he does not prevent the risks, he loses life points. All fights are always won by the players; the question is how much they stand to lose in each. Risks can be mitigated by moving pawns from Valhalla to Midgard, rolling the correct results on dice etc.

There are nine actions to choose from, one per world inside the World-Tree. Each action is broken down into three flavors: the normal action, the bonus action, and the penalty action. The first is undertaken when both an enemy and friendly gods are present in the same world, the second when you are roaming only with your fellow gods, while the third is accessible when you find yourself alone with an enemy. Invariably these translate into moving pawns, claiming dice, throwing dice, drawing cards etc. If a world is destroyed, a player can heal it by losing himself two life points.

As with any cooperative game, players win and lose together. If Nidhögg reaches the final location in the Saga's book (anything from one to four activations), the players win. If however one god loses his last life point, or if an enemy is activated and its effect cannot be applied, the players lose.

The game is played slightly differently with two players or when played solo. In the first case a third, support god will participate in the game, while in the second case there will be two of them.

The strong points: I almost missed Yggdrasil Chronicles in 2019's Essen Spiel, at the end of the day however I am very happy I did not. The game has a lot of elements working in its favour. The first to perceive is its 3D terrain.

A game of Yggdrasil Chronicles can be spotted from far away thanks to its World Tree. Imagine my surprise when I realized that the tree is not just a prop. Its middle level turns, and alters the situation on the board every now and then. Going to a particular world without losing time requires planning, seeing how what is now above (or below you) might not be there next time you need to move. The elements of each world are neatly stacked inside the world. The game is immediately transparent when it comes to what is happening in each of its nine worlds. You know how well you are doing in that world or the other, how dangerous the situation is becoming, whether you are running out of tokens or if one of your dreaded enemies is close to losing you the game. I admit I didn't expect something that well-designed, seeing how 3D terrains are gimmicks more often that not. Excellent work!

The second thing that impressed me was the interaction between the opponents, the added value of the players' different actions, and how the situation slowly escalates until you find yourself running around like crazy in order to pacify different worlds. The fact that the gods can have different relationships and thus asymmetrical added value in addition to their asymmetrical powers is pure genius. Every single enemy and creature is different, and will hurt you in very different ways. You might think that you have a situation under control, only to realize that things were a lot more fragile and require your immediate attention. You will strive to gain advantages everywhere you can find them, to create combos where each action comes as more potent and more valuable than the sum of its parts. There is also a memory element in that the appearance of enemies is random only in the first turns. From then on, they will follow a pattern, and the players better memorize it in order to now how to handle things. The game doesn't lose its fluidity even though it perceptibly slows down at the beginning of each turn when the players discuss their turn order and how to best tackle their adversaries. Taking the gods' asymmetrical powers into account, at least in the hard game, the players should communicate really well before the shit hits the fan. If you find yourself a breath away from losing, you are very likely to lose soon after.

The rulebook looks very daunting at first, the game however is extremely easy to learn, teach and play. Most of the rulebook explains the numerous pictographs anyway, and after a few plays you will no longer need to consult it. The Saga's Book provides high replayability in that players can try an easy game, a hard game, or a full-blown campaign. Each campaign is thematically tied to Norse legend, with quite some changes in what's going on between each episode. The theme fits the game perfectly. The terrain, the gods, their adversaries, everything contributes towards a high level of immersion and increases the entertainment value. Each episode also includes thematic snippets that pertain to legend in order to get you inside the feeling of each scenario.

The game is language independent. It has dozens of pictographs, and they are not always the most obvious thing to understand. Give the game a couple of plays, and you will realize that in the end they are rather obvious.

The weak points: The game is overall very engaging, it must be stated however that each world and opponent, when seen in isolation, is effectively a one-trick-pony. I didn't mind; I felt that this added to the puzzle element of the game. Some however might cringe about the formulaic approach. When in Muspellheim you remove Fire Giants. When in Vanaheim, you claim Vanir dice. That's how it is; deal with it.

I am not fully convinced by the game's two player and solo mode. The limited information aspect of each player drawing an Enemy is an integral part of the game, as is the communication between the players and the value that the abilities of one can add to the other. In all honesty, the game performs better with the two highest player counts.

The inclusion of all the pictographs and explanations in the rulebook instead of a dedicated player aid, potentially in multiple copies, hurts the game. It doesn't make it harder, it does however make its learning curve steeper for the first few plays. If you are trying to attract a non-hardcore crowd, you might encounter some difficulty with the constant page-flipping.

The artwork is a mixed bag. The coloured pieces are nowhere near what I would have enjoyed seeing in such a game. The box's cover looks amateurish and might even lose the game a sale or two. The gods look wrong, cartoonish almost. Thankfully, none of these distract from the core of the game. On the contrary, the black and white pieces inside the Saga Book are gorgeous. Some of them are closely reminiscent of sword and sorcery, while others comes out as unexpectedly violent in a refreshing way. How often do you see an arrow piercing someone's lung and coming out the other way? This is how the whole game should have been drawn!

The box is rather flimsy taking its size into account. Make sure you do not store other games above it; it will probably give way at some point. I also don't need to warn you about the permanent damage that the tree will incur every time you assemble and disassemble it. I am afraid that there is no escape out of this, unless you have so much storage space to keep your world tree permanently assembled. That is the fate of three dimensional terrain...

Conclusion: Yggdrasil Chronicles is a very pleasant surprise of a coop. Visually impressive, thematically successful, and very engaging when it comes to gameplay, it can provide dozens of hours of entertainment. You get to play a god at the end of days after all.

For more info on Yggdrasil Chronicles visit Ludonaute at https://www.ludonaute.fr.

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