The ‘multiplayer only’ games that were gathering dust on my shelves and the splendid unofficial solo modes that finally brought them back to the table.
Tzolkin: The Mayan Calendar
Designer: Simone Luciani & Daniele Tascini
Publisher: CGE
2012
Designers Daniele Tascini and Simone Luciani have their names printed on some of the best games that I’ve played (Teotihuacan, Golem, Newton, Darwin’s Journey, Tekhenu), so it was inevitable that I was going to dust off my copy of 2012’s ‘Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar’ and see if there was an unofficial solo mode that let me enjoy this excellent, but multiplayer only, game.
…and make no mistake, Tzolk’in is excellent – fully deserving of the title ‘classic’ as it roots itself firmly in the BGG Top 100, twelve-plus years after its release. It’s a game that has the wonderful contradiction that I enjoy so much in many a good Euro game; it’s at once thoroughly simple and straightforward yet it is also a deeply complex game with more than its fair share of rabbit holes to fall down!
Its simplicity comes from the fact that you can only do one of two things on your turn – either place workers out onto one or more of those gloriously unique interconnecting cogs on the main board (placing them alongside actions / paying ‘corn’ for the privilege) or remove your workers from the wheels to take the action they are adjacent to. That’s it – it’s that simple.
The mind-melting, delicious, brain burn however kicks in - and kicks in hard – for a number of reasons:
• Once everyone has taken their turn, that big wheel in the middle rotates and with it the all of the other interconnecting wheels, taking with them any workers left out on the main board. The longer those workers stay out, the more they are carried to incrementally better actions. Hmmmmm – choices, choices, choices: Do I take my workers back now and take a lesser action, or do I leave them out so that they power up? If I leave them out, then that leaves me with fewer workers to be using for other actions. Tasty stuff.
• Wow, there are so many actions that can be triggered when you take your workers off the wheels – climb temple tracks for bonuses, gain resources, use the resources to build buildings with bonuses, grab some crystal skulls, race to get the skulls out on the board for juicy points and more nudges up the temple tracks, chase strategic ‘monument’ objectives, move up a technology track to permanently power up your abilities, gain more workers…and more. Each wheel that you place workers out onto serves different purposes, but each feels firmly stitched together with tight dependencies – you might have gained lots of resources over there on the first wheel, but hey, you didn’t think ahead and place any workers out on the other wheel to start spending those resources, so I bet you’re feeling a little silly right now. This isn’t just deciding where you want to place your workers in the here and now. This is trying to decide precisely where you need your workers to be in four rounds’ time…
• Ouch, the game’s main resource - corn - is tight in this game. Not only do you need it to pay to place out your workers but as the big wheel turns, eventually it reaches one of four ‘food days’ where you might well be getting a smattering of resources and VP for the things you’ve done thus far, but you better make sure that you have enough corn left to ‘feed your workers’ or face the stiff penalty. Gulp.
…so yup, an easy enough turn structure to explain turns into a gloriously deep and complex puzzle with not only a huge number of possible actions to take but, more importantly, a huge amount of thought needed over when to take those actions.
If I had any complaint about the game, then it’s fair to say that while the big giant wheel looks mighty impressive and unique and alluring, the overall artwork and graphic design, whilst being more than functional and serviceable, is perhaps starting to show its age a little. Nothing, though, that a few blinged-up resources that I’ve acquired can’t brighten up a little!
Perhaps the larger complaint with the base game is that the sheer volume of possible actions to take can feel a little overwhelming. The game provides you with some ‘starting tiles’ to choose from during setup to gain some initial resources and bumps here and there, but they don’t particularly give a huge nudge towards a specific strategic direction and it leaves the player almost having to fumble their way towards the light. It’s not a deal breaker – those strategies do emerge for sure – it just makes for a wobbly and uncertain first turn or two. The excellent Tribes and Prophecies expansion, however, addresses this splendidly with a module that gives you a clear ‘try and achieve these variable objectives by certain points and face a penalty if you haven’t’ steer. Nice - I wouldn’t play the game without this from now on – but don’t take that to mean that I don’t enjoy the base game on its own. Either way Tzolk’in is wonderful.
Solo Headlines: Calendrobo.
I’m certainly not in the camp that says every game must have a solo mode, but I suspect the only reason Tzolk’in doesn’t come with an official solo mode is due to its age and the fact that solo gaming was perhaps less prevalent back in 2012 - or at least more reliant on fan-made solo variants? It’s telling that most - if not all - of Tascini’s follow-up games have included an official solo mode (thank you, Mr. Turczi). So, it’s not that I think Tzolk’in shouldn’t be played solo; it’s more that it just didn’t happen to be bundled with a solo mode which is a shame.
For the longest time, I was completely averse to unofficial solo modes, thinking (wrongly in most cases!) that they were somehow ‘inferior’. Time has taught me that in many cases, that just isn’t true. And so, I dusted off my copy of Tzolk’in and took to the ever-splendid forums on BGG to see what I could find. Calendrobo grabbed my attention. An entry in the BGG 2020 ‘Solomode’ competition, it looked at first glance like it had a simple enough set of rules and didn’t require any additional components or printing. Perhaps it was just that it was the first one that I stumbled on and the comments section seemed to have positive murmurings - It could have been a dud, but wow I struck gold on the first attempt. What a wonderfully simple and effective way to enjoy Tzolk’in solo.
Remember those ‘starting tiles’ I mentioned earlier – players drawing four at random at the start of the game and keeping two of them, giving them some starting resources and perhaps a little strategic nudge here and there? Well, set up the game as you would a 2-player game, take your 4 starting tiles as usual to choose from, and off you go. Calendrobo simply takes all the remaining starting tiles – a stack of 15 or so leftover tiles - and on its turn, flip the top tile over and just do or take the really simple things displayed on the tile – perhaps take 5 corn, gain a stone, move up a temple track, purchase a building tile from the shared display, etc.
It’s unbelievably simple stuff. Flip a tile, do an extremely simple action as displayed on the tile - there is no flicking through the rulebook to figure out what it might need to do on a turn - it’s just so intuitive and wonderfully effective. At the end of each of the game’s four ‘food days’, Calendrobo trades its corn and resources in for points and competes with you on the three main temple tracks. At the end of the game, Calendrobo also scores a fixed amount of points for any buildings and monuments it has purchased during the game.
Calendrobo also ends up playing a slightly different feeling game each time. Its stack of tiles will vary game to game: not only have you randomly taken four of them before the game as actual starting tiles, but there are also more in Calendrobo’s stack than it actually needs in the game, which means that no two games will see it drawing the same tiles. That variety in its ‘deck’ of tiles each games makes for some nice subtle changes each play. There are some suggested tweaks to the difficulty levels, so there should be something here for most levels of ability.
I’ve heard a few people talk recently about solo modes ‘getting out of the way and letting you just enjoy the game’ – Calendrobo is a fine example of just that, a point-scoring bot with little to no additional rules overhead that lets me enjoy this classic Euro.
At a Glance:
If you’ve played more recent ‘T’ games such as Teotihuacan and Tekhenu, and have glanced at Tzolk’in only to feel a bit disappointed that it doesn’t come with a solo mode, then look no further. While the unofficial Calendrobo solo variant might not offer the more human behaving ‘Turzci’ style opponent found in those later games, its simpler approach doesn’t ‘dumb’ the game down. Instead, it just takes a step back to let you explore the deep and engaging strategies that this game has to offer. Excellent.
(I’ve haven't particularly written this as a 'review' as such – more a case of just wanting to shine a spotlight on a great game and flag up a nice way for solo players to enjoy it. For those though that do crave a final score: I’d give the base game a solid 8.5 out 10, pushing up to a 9 out of 10 with the splendid Tribes and Prophecies expansion which helps give some clearer strategic nudges )
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