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Out of the various new games I’ve played recently, Skyrise stands out as a fun, easy to learn game that has plenty of interaction and replayability. Skyrise isn’t a deep game, but it has layers and plenty of scope for tactical play. Let’s look closer.
In Skyrise, you play a visionary, one of a team, tasked with helping build a city in the sky. Victory points are scored based on the influence you gain across the city zones and the patrons that support you utilising an auction-based mechanic to determine priority in respect of who gets to build where.
The essence of gameplay
The game is played over a city scape, with four large zones or quadrants and one central hub. Each player has a set of buildings, small, medium and large and one of the nice mechanics is that each building has a number. The higher the number the higher the priority it has for claiming a placement.
Each player has the same set of buildings in terms of shape and size, but each building has a unique number and the numbers are such that each player will have an assortment of priorities, some better and some worse compared to any other player. The numbers are public knowledge, so buildings are placed upside down in view of all players, so each player knows the potential play of his or her opponents. In addition, each player has a rather cool looking wonder to place that immediately wins placement. These buildings are unnumbered, but you only have one each!
Players take it in turns to place a building, upside down, on a valid building space. Each player must either place a higher numbered building in an adjacent space or pass. If no one can or wants to place next, the last player to place gets to complete the building and claim any token on the space.
The player to successfully build last gets to place next. There is plenty of scope for tactical play with players choosing how high they want to go, or how far they want to push their luck, to succeed in placing knowing if they win, they get to choose the next placement and thus steer the passage of play. Each player when determining if they want to build must consider whether they want to end up on any given space, this will depend on what victory points they are focussing on as there are different zones and tokens reflecting different arts. Each round represents a new auction and the upturned buildings used the bids, to determine who places the highest scoring building for that round and as a result influencing where the next round of placements can begin from.
The look of the game
Skyrise is a very elegant and classical looking game. The components are very nice to handle and gameboard whilst fairly basic is still visually appealing. The buildings are all distinct in colour and design and based on real-life buildings and I like the tactile side of play. As the game progresses, you get a very nice look to the game with skyscrapers towering over the other building in the different quadrants. The components are of good quality too, with the buildings quite robust and chunky enough yet easy to handle and play.
Interaction
One of the strengths of this game, if you like interaction, is every game, by definition, involves players pitted against each other, placing their buildings hoping to either win the auction with the highest building piece in the place that helps them or by helping deter others or even influencing the placement by other players. Players can be in a position where if they want to win the round they may be forced to play a high scoring building, or even their wonder, that they would rather save for a later round.
In addition to building on spaces to gain the token and influence associated, there are victory points to be gained by achieving objectives. These can include having a set number of buildings adjacent to lakes or controlling a set number of specific area types. In addition, points are to be gained by controlling each quadrant, with the winner being determined by whoever has the most tall buildings, or medium, or small.
Push your luck element
I generally don’t like push your luck as a game mechanic, because well, it based on luck rather than skill. But in Skyrise, the game is more about control and influencing building placement. Yes, the element of push your luck is still there, but it doesn’t rely on the luck of dice rolling, so the choice when to use or not the building pieces you have still retains an element of skill and judgement. I like this, it helps you feel you have more control and are less subject to the fickle winds of fate.
Replayability
Even after a single game, it is easy to see how each game can be so different. With each set of buildings having their own numbers to the randomness of the value of patrons and tokens on the board. Players will make different choices and take different building pats during the course of each game and since each game is actually quite quick, there is the possibility that you can get a couple of games in during a game session of a few hours.
Value for money?
Skyrise isn’t cheap. But I don’t think its overly priced either. The quality of the components is good and I think they are robust enough to last a good while with regular play. It is a nice game to look at too and personally I like games that are both nice to play and nice to look at as ultimately it is the overall experience that counts.
