Sumeria Review

Sometimes you need a game that is a big sprawling epic. Something that runs for five hours, and has you up all night, hating everyone. And sometimes you need a game that is small, brief, competitive, and clever.

Sumeria, from Reiver Games, is that game.

Sumeria, designed by Dirk Liekens, plays 3-4 people and usually runs to about 45 minutes. It comes in a small box, and as is usual from Reiver Games, the components are of good quality.

Here’s how this intelligent little game works. Each player has a number of traders, and take turns either adding a trader to the map, removing a trader from the map, or moving a trader from one stop to the next available stop. Traders in an area increase that area’s influence, and the area with most influence at the end of the round scores better for the player who controls that area.

Sumeria's board. You put your wee man on those little dots. Not your actual wee man! The traders!

So, in your turn you try to manipulate influence across the board, to try and put the city-state which you control into a higher position of influence than every other. You could maybe do this by removing a trader from an area controlled by an opponent, which knocks that area down the influence track. You could maybe do this by adding a trader to your own majority control area, to bounce it back up the track. The game continues in this manner, through play, counterplay and bluff, until a sixth and final round.

Sumeria is an abstract game, but the theme fits well. It seems logical that a large assembly of traders in an area makes that area more influential, so it never feels like you’re just sliding wooden blocks around a map. It’s a game that makes you feel like you’re actually playing your opponents, and not just the game system. There’s nothing better than knowing that the trader you’ve just planted into an area will, when you pull him back out, turn the game in your favour. There’s nothing better than filling up the roads so that your opponent can’t move his trader where he wants him to go.

Ahhh. It’s wonderful to hear the delicious sighs of your enemies as you recall your traders from their areas. To look into their grim face as they realise that the area they fought so hard to control is no longer as fancy-schmancy as they thought it was. To witness a player’s collapse, as an area slides down the influence track, to hear his soft “fucking hell” rise to the stars.

Sumeria’s only downside is that it’s exactly the kind of game you wouldn’t introduce to new players. It’s not a gateway game. Look what happened between the fictional Mark and Jessica.

JESSICA: Hey, listen. You want to play a game?

MARK: Um…sure. What have you got?

JESSICA: How about a majority control game about traders in ancient Sumer?

MARK: How about a fuck off about fucking off?

If you have a group of gamers, though, PROPER GAMERS MAN, Sumeria is going to be a hit. Even if you’re playing with someone who can be very slow at thinking through his turn (Richard, this is for you, my friend), the minute-to-minute tactical nature of the game doesn’t allow people to get bogged down. It’s very much a game of reacting to the short-term tactics of others, and so rattles along at a fair wee clip. The rules are easy to learn, and yet there’s a lot of depth.

Trader in, trader oot. Shake it all aboot. What’s not to like?

Nothing. It’s great.

The lovely Hopey modelling the lovely Sumeria.

Here’s a Sumer song to play us out.

Sumeria Computer Game Testers Wanted

Jackson Pope, the man behind Reiver Games, one of the UK’s best indie boardgame publishers, is working on a computer game adaptation of the recent Reiver Games release Sumeria.

He’s looking for testers to assist with the process.

You can head along to boardgamegeek here and register your interest.

If you’re curious about Sumeria, hang in a little longer – there’ll be a review on the site this very week.

Zaa Ooo Zaa!

Sumeria Is Out There

Sumeria, the latest release from that fine indie boardgame company Reiver Games, is now available to buy at ALL GOOD STOCKISTS as they say on adverts. American adverts, mainly.

Designed by Dirk Liekens,the game looks like a sweet little abstract effort, where you place traders in order to shift influence from city-state to city-state in Ancient Sumeria. I say it LOOKS like this because we at DowntimeTown have a copy sitting right here, and will be covering it very soon.

Visit Reiver Games’ site here for more, and….

WELCOME TO THE SUMERIA OF LOVE. Summer-ia of Love.

Sorry.