The world hidden in a book – review of the game “The Book of Wonders” by Martino Chiacchiera and Michele Piccolini

Roots

I started my contact with this game with a blank slate – until the Rebel announced its release, I knew nothing about it, which happens less and less, because I follow both BGG and announcements on global markets quite intensively. Looking at the authors’ profiles, you can see that this is the debut of one of these gentlemen, while the other has already had a hand with many well-known titles (eg Icaion , Mysthea , Deckscape or, recently, The Witcher Stone ). I liked the idea of ​​a kind of combination of Everdelli Tree with Plush Stories and I knew that I would definitely play it. I played. And I feel unsatisfied.

Trunk

At first glance, the Book of Miracles looks exemplary. It has a very nice mold, the cards are quite stiff and the figures are quite nice. You cannot complain about the quality of the tokens, and in addition, a few geekboxes for storing components have been added – a great idea. The main course here, however, is the title book, and at this point I have quite a glitch. The illustrations are very nice, and the idea of ​​bending elements etc., which is immediately associated with what you did during the arts in grades 1-6, looks great on paper. In practice, however, this is no longer the case. In my opinion, the board is very unreadable, and the paper is definitely not good for unfolding and folding several times. A big profession for me.

Leaves

In terms of gameplay, the game is just a slightly simplified dungeon crawler. Each player has a character, several actions to perform, and special abilities that they can use. The game consists of several scenarios, the first of which is actually a tutorial, and each subsequent one slightly expands the gameplay. This approach is most appropriate here – reading cards aloud and making choices gives the impression of an interactive book and the game is very good on this level.

The only thing that bothers me is the ubiquitous randomness (d6 dice), which can only be influenced in a very limited way, which can sometimes make the level of difficulty cosmically high. We have lost against the odds for this very reason. I must mention that I did not play it with children, so I do not know what impression the game would have on them – nevertheless, the developers have included some interesting mechanics that I will not reveal here, and are quite interesting, although a bit infantile for me.

Flowers?

I have mixed feelings about the final grade. On the one hand, awakened by Plush Stories , I was counting on much more, but on the other hand, I realize that I am not necessarily the target of such productions. What should be the biggest advantage here, bothers me the most and I think that the first scenario is the best because it is played flat on the back of the book. If someone is looking for something to play with children after playing the title I mentioned above, I definitely recommend it – I have not seen anything better on the market. If someone did not play Plush , I recommend both items, but I would leave the Book for dessert.