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The players take on the roles of the heads of influential families in Paris at the end of the 14th century. In the shadow of the Notre Dame cathedral, the players compete for prosperity and reputation. Each family controls one of the 3-5 boroughs that surround the site of Notre Dame. As head of his family, each player tries, through clever use of his action cards, to advance the power and prestige of his family, but penalties are assessed those who do not take care of the health of the people who live in their borough. The player with the most prestige at the end is the winner.

For 2-5 players.

Reviews Review Game

Hopuk

From

Lancs in United Kingdom

Review

The first thing of interest you note with this game is that the board is modular and changes depending on the number of players. Effectively, each player has their own board, on which are eight areas, seven in which you can take actions and an 8th rat area, but instead of these being placed in front of you like some games (Puerto Rico for example), the boards are arranged around a tile representing Notre Dame.

There are nine rounds and each round consists of drawing 3 cards from your own deck of 9 action cards. You choose one of these 3 cards then pass the cards on to your left, while you receive 2 cards from your right. You then choose one of these and pass the last card on. Thus you end up with three cards from which you can play only 2 this round. Each card involves placing a cube in a region which then allows you to do the action of that region, such as gain coin, prestige, cubes or other actions.

The object of all this is to gain cubes and coins which let you carry out further actions so that you can gain prestige points which are used to determine the winner after the nine rounds. One thing to watch out for is the rat population which you try to keep under your control as if you get overrun with rats you will lose prestige and cubes from your board!

This is an interesting game with some tough decisions to make each round to make the best of what you have. Some may find it a little 'dry', but its worth playing more than once to see the subtle gameplay to come into effect in this very enjoyable game, the 11th in the Alea Big box series.

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