Designed by: Adrian Adamescu,Daryl Andrews
In Sagrada each player is creating their own stained-glass work of art!
Everyone starts with a window frame and a randomly assigned grid of what dice will go where – there are places for certain colours and certain numbers, and blank spaces that have less restrictions. Players also get a secret objective that rewards them for having dice of a particular colour, and three shared objectives are shown face-up: this might reward having a set of all numbers, or a pair of numbers, or no duplicate colours in a row, or a number of other things.
In each of the ten rounds, the starting player will roll a certain amount of dice (twice the number of players, plus one) and players will add two dice to their window, following the placement rules: you must start from the side of your window, and build adjacent to previously placed dice. Dice of the same number or colour cannot go next to one another, although they can be diagonally adjacent. The leftover die serves as a round marker, and a new round begins.
At any time on your turn you can pay favour tokens to use one of the available tools: these vary from game to game but in essence, they allow you to manipulate the dice on your window in order to get around a problem! The first player to use a tool pays one favour token, anyone coming after them must pay two.
At the end of the game you reveal your secret objectives and score them. Everyone scores the shared objectives, plus a point per any un-used favour token. Spaces on your window are minus one point – most points wins!
A little. You can see what dice other players are after, and elect to take them yourself. But to be honest you're often too concerned with your own plans.
Low, though there may be the odd pause as the game nears its end and someone - possibly you - stares blankly at your window before you finally concede there's nowhere to put these dice, and you have to pass.
The rules are very simple. The brain-burning here is about placement, so it starts out low but increases incrementally as you run out of options...
Obviously dice are random. You also have lots of different grids to try too. Outside of that the game doesn't have huge variety, but it looks lovely and plays relatively quickly.
1-4
Players
8+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
It's rather sweet, Sagrada - almost more of a puzzle than a game, as interaction is so minimal between players. But if you like a puzzle this is a very pretty one. If you prefer something with more interaction then we'd recommend Azul.