Board Game: Illimat

First board game of the new year! Woo!

The Game: Illimat
The Publisher: Twogether Studios
Time: 30 minutes, I think?
Players: Me and Michelle

Game Play: Illimat has an interesting history; The Decemberists (a band) made up a game board prop as part of a photo shoot, and then later hired a game designer to actually make the game. And it's...actually pretty cool. 

Players try to be the first to 17 points. In any given round, cards get played into four fields, and on your turn, you can "harvest" cards (picking up cards using a card in your hand of equal value, but you can pick up combinations of cards, meaning you can use a 7 to pick up a 3 and a 4), "sow" a card (putting it into a field, useful to set up a harvest), or "stockpile" cards (stacking cards and combing their values for purposes of harvesting). Every turn, the Illimat (the actual bottom bit of the game box) might turn, changing which season is in effect on a field, which also limits options (f'rex, you can't harvest the winter field). 

The fields, barren.

You also have four "Luminaries," cards that resemble Major Arcana, in the corners. First time a field is emptied, the Luminary gets flipped and typically has some effect or other on game play, either just for the moment or going forward in the round. Points get awarded at round's end for who took the most cards, who took the most summer cards, and who got extras like Luminaries. 

This is what it looks like with all the components in place.

Opinions: I actually really enjoyed this game. The idea, according to the designer, was to make a game that felt like an old card game, and it kinda works (until you get into the Luminaries and the little weird brass "okus tokens"). The card play reminds me of Hearts or Spades, but the movement of the seasons and the ability to harvest cards based on combinations (but not to play cards in combinations; that is, you can play 7 to pick up 3 and 4, but not 3 and 4 to pick up 7) means there's a lot of room for thinking ahead. I'd be quite interested to play it with more people and see how that changes the dynamic. 

Keep? Yep.