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After a morning of shelving “Haunted Furniture and Upholstery”, “Math for Long Baths”, and “Family Trees of Infamy”, you cruise the town’s literary hot spots in hopes of gathering new volumes. After all, a healthy library is a growing library, and you certainly don’t want any of the area’s lesser librarians to score a stupendous volume while you fiddle with alphabetizing!
Welcome to the world of Ex Libris from Renegade Game Studios. Unleash your inner fantasy librarian and make your mark by assembling the best, broadest, and most impressively shelved collection of books anywhere. Let’s prowl the shelves and explore the ‘Top Five’ aspects you need to know about Ex Libris. ~ Launching Your Library ~
Everybody starts with a generic library for the first game, but once you grasp the basic mechanics, bust out the game’s advanced libraries and special assistants. That’s where the big fun begins, because they add a new layer of strategy to the game. Each special assistant grants you a unique power that helps you gather cards and shelve them. Some libraries make life a little harder for your opponents, such as the “Volcanic Biblioteca” (discard cards from locations) or the “Caverns of Comprehension” (try to steal cards from other players). Sure, you can use the generic libraries a few more times if you’re playing with a youngster whose biggest challenge is alphabetizing the books. But when it’s an all adults night, go for the advanced libraries and their ultra-cool special assistant meeples. ~ Exploring the Locations ~ Ex Libris includes 18 locations representing the places around town waiting for a visit from your assistants. Location #1, the Diviner’s Hut, always begins the game in play. The other 17 locations get shuffled and drawn into play during each round’s Preparation Phase.
Players take turns assigning their assistants to various locations and performing the action it offers. Many of the actions help you get more cards or trade cards in your hand for new ones. Pay attention to the icon below each location’s name. Most locations have a lightning bolt, which means that its action happens immediately. Three of the locations show a clock, meaning that the action takes place during the round’s resolution phase, after players finished placing all of their assistants. At the end of the round, the lowest numbered location moves up to the town board and becomes permanent. Since the Diviner’s Hut is location #1 and always begins the game in play, it’s always the first permanent location. ~ Picking and Choosing Your Book ~
The game has six themed categories of books: Corrupted Codices, Fantastic Fictions, Historic Volumes, Monster Manuals, Reference Texts, and Spells and Potions. Categories matter during scoring at the end of the game. During setup, one category is identified as “Prominent Works” which give players bonus points. Another becomes “Banned Books,” which cost you points if they appear in your collection. Finally, each player gets a secret “Library Focus” category which gives them extra points. Players also earn points for maintaining a roughly equal mixture of books from different categories. The category in your library with the fewest books (ignoring the Banned Books category), gives you a nice chunk of bonus points. ~ Building Your Shelves ~ Of course, a library makes its reputation by how it shelves and organizes the books in its collection. Keep this in mind throughout the game as you shelve book cards.
In Ex Libris, players get judged on “shelf stability,” which is measured by a rectangle starting on the bottom row of cards and extending upward. The bigger rectangle you can make in your shelves without including an open spot, the better your shelf stability score. Being a library, alphabetizing the books also counts. Any card that’s not in alphabetical order with the cards next to it is flipped face down. No points for it! ~ Impressing the Inspector ~ Once a player’s collection grows large enough, it triggers the final round of play. When that round finishes, you get out the Official Library Inspection Form B-7c (also known as the wipe-off scoring sheet). It’s time to score! The sheet makes game scoring quick and easy. Begin with an alphabetical order check of all libraries, then count the texts in the various categories. Check everyone’s shelf stability (this may sting a bit). Finally, grant bonuses and penalties for the collected works. Highest score becomes the Grand Librarian! ~ The Verdict ~ Ex Libris may singlehandedly spark a renaissance of reading or increase the number of people wanting to become librarians. Or maybe both. The game’s whimsical fantasy artwork sets the stage perfectly for its theme. The designer definitely gets bonus points for creating 510 unique titles for every volume listed on the book cards. With high replayability thanks to the different libraries and the many town locations, a solitaire option for those days when you want to simulate the solitude of a village library, and easily adjustable levels of direct player conflict, Ex Libris will hit our table many times in the future. (Plus, the book titles are hysterical and the special assistant meeples look amazing.)
You really need a copy of Ex Libris to shelve in your collection! Fast Facts:
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