Time can be a fickle mistress. Its inexorable and uncontrollable march forward portends both hope and loss – hope as a new generation matures and begins to mold the world in their image drawing upon the teachings of generations before, and loss as the old guard reaches its end of time on the planet. For Lemuria, time is anything but constant, as its very foundation was built on the Lemurians’ abilities to manipulate its flow. This ancient city was built utilizing long-forgotten time control technology using a substance called ‘materia’. Materia can be transformed into anything Lemuria’s residents can think of. But while the technology necessary to control time has been forgotten, how to use the power of materia has not. The Star Altar is an integral part of the transformation of material, as it marks the passage of time and controls what materia can be turned into. It’s up to the city builders to maintain the flow of materia, harness its energy and mystical powers, and continue to grow Lemuria into the grand city it has always been.

As one of the city builders in Lemuria, you have one year to gain control of the Star Altar and its arcane technology, ultimately rebuilding this grand metropolis into a thriving and ever-expanding power center.

Lemuria, published by Kuro and Tasty Minstrel Games, is a combination worker placement, area control, and resource management game in which you have 12 rounds – one year – to both work together with other players to achieve your goal(s), as well as eventually split off to compete in gaining control of the Star Alter and revitalizing the ancient city. Oftentimes, it will be to your benefit to team up with another player to achieve a common goal. However, ultimately, you want to become the controlling force in Lemuria, which means you will leave those who helped you waiting at the altar, as it were. In terms of gameplay, players are constantly immersed in what everyone else is doing, strategizing to find just the right time to climb on the shoulders of the competition, combine your strengths, and manipulate the outcome in order to continue on your path to ultimate victory. Or you need to keep your eyes peeled so you can make your winning move just as other players try to gain a foothold.

Each round of Lemuria consist of four actions:

There are also three Festival Rounds – rounds four, eight, and 12 – in which every player who has at least one building in a given area will gain bonuses. So, what might those earned bonuses be? Well, there are four areas in which you can build – Farm, Trade, Political, and Religion. By either having the most buildings, or in the Festival rounds having at least one building in an area, you’ll gain food, gold, discounts on buildings, or victory points.

Rotating the Star Altar begins in round four – this is skipped during the previous three rounds –  and continues each round following. Rotating the altar changes the resources available to you and can greatly influence what you will be able to achieve in subsequent rounds. Keeping an eye on the Star Altar and the resources that are coming up will be instrumental in achieving a winning strategy.

Seeding/Harvesting allows you to either place materia on the altar or collect materia to “harvest” needed resources, which can then be used to construct buildings in order to gain the aforementioned victory points or bonuses during end of round scoring or in the Festival rounds. To erect a building, you place materia of one certain type on an empty space on the Star Altar; this reserves that building for you when the space activates in later rounds. If you have no materia to place onto the Star Altar, you must harvest.

While players ultimately compete to gain the most points and become the Grand Builder of Lemuria, there will be times where uneasy truces must occur. Working together at times – maybe spending gold to rotate the altar into a more favorable position, for instance – players will need to use their wits to strategically position themselves to gain control of the Star Altar.

While Lemuria is chock-full of strategy, it isn’t that mind-bogglingly heavy strategy many games of its ilk contain. This is one where players can quickly get into the flow of the game, make satisfying decisions, and enjoy the journey as they keep Lemuria’s legacy alive. With fantastic artwork and interesting choices throughout, Lemuria packs a lot of game into a small package.

Lemuria is for 3– 4 players and plays in about 60 – 90 minutes. It's released by Tasty Minstrel Games in conjunction with Manifest Destiny, and will be available in September, 2017.

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Rick Schrand is the Director of Sales and Marketing for Tasty Minstrel Games. A long-time board gamer, he slaps himself in the head for getting rid of many of the games that now are considered grail games. So, he is now searching for economical ways to reclaim those lost gems.