In the last section, single note has the majority again. Blue and Purple each earn 3 points, and Yellow earns just 1 point for their double note. Impressions

Double-note composer has the majority here. Yellow and Purple each have one double-note marker: they each earn 4 points. Blue has a single-note marker and earns just 2 points. Royal Court tile exampleIf you take a city tile, you discard the tile to the side of the board after you gain its reward. The rewards could be resources, money, victory points, actions, and more. For example, there’s a city tile that grants you 3 VP for each religious music Opus card you have. This is one of the Opus card set collection benefits I mentioned above. Alternatively, if you take a royal court tile, you gain an immediate reward, then you take the tile which has an endgame scoring objective based either on Opus works you’ve funded (Opus cards in your tableau) or for your participation in completing the Requiem, which brings me to the fifth and final action in Lacrimosa. The last action, this fancy cross, is, thematically, you’re paying these composers to work on Mozart’s mass. Practically speaking, this is a little area control mechanic wrapped up with some engine building. In the end, I never found myself getting too excited about the turns. There are opportunities to build mini-combos, but I never found myself getting too high or feeling tension. The gameplay is fine and I would probably be up for a game of Lacrimosa in the future, but it’s not something I would play regularly. There are some interesting decisions, just not enough to get me excited. While there is some variable setup with different composers and different cards, I don’t think there is enough variety to justify too many repeat plays. Final Score: 3.5 stars – A medley of mechanisms and quality production are almost enough to supplant the fact that Lacrimosa is missing a few notes.

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Players gain victory points throughout the game, but they can earn extra points for certain end game perks. Royal Court tiles (bought while Traveling) reward points for sets of Opuses or Requiem movements. Finally, players score the Requiem. What a journey. Lacrimosa suggests thematic saturation but leaves most of it in the imagination of the player. Sure, we’re given a five-movement unfinished composition, a map featuring prominent cities in Europe, musical notes on tokens and in-era artwork. Even the end-of-round bonus tiles showcase era-specific date ranges. And yet there’s not a lot here that truly connects to a narrative experience outside of the passage of time. No historical tidbits, no juicy gossip, no career highlights. But Devir knows how to produce a game, and they continue to choose great designs that are a lot of fun to puzzle through. Even with the thematic disconnect, I’d still place this in the upper tier of Devir’s collection, right below The Red Cathedral. And if you’ve taken time for yourself to heal from the news of Mozart’s sudden passing, there’s no better time than the present to see if this new addition to the mid-weight strategy game is as impressive to you as its inspiration is to so many others. After you pay the corresponding composer tile costs, you collect the reward on the tile and place it face down on your player board where you removed the Requiem marker you just placed. The rewards may be one-time, immediate benefits, or in some cases, ongoing special abilities. There are composer tiles that allow you to perform a particular action a second time, some that give you an extra story point during the Maintenance phase, and others that give you victory points whenever you gain, perform, or sell certain types of Opus cards.

The other disappointment is in upgrading your hand of cards. I love this idea, but the upgraded actions never delivered. This is a combination of the limited turns in the game where upgrading a card will only benefit a future turn and the fact the upgrades weren’t that much better than the base cards. The real tragedy is that both games feature a mechanic that I adore–more on that in a moment–that gets buried under too much ancillary matter. Voi che sapete che cosa e amor, Donne, vedete s’io l’ho nel cor.

Contributors

Be strong! For there are many good tidings to come, though this will not be without a counterpoint here or there. It is my intention to share this new game without misinterpreting its impact on my gaming group. Published by Devir Games and designed by Gerard Ascensi and Ferran Renalias, Lacrimosa plays from one to four Mozart aficionados, or maybe just some competitive euro gamers. So what can you do exactly? There are five core actions in the game. One is to tell stories of travelling around with the man himself. The centre of the main board is dedicated to a map of Europe. You will pay certain resources to travel from one major city to the next and take designated reward tiles for doing so. These tiles vary from one-off effects such as monetary bonuses or resources to end-game scoring. A simple mechanism but each round that goes by upgrades the tiles left behind, offering a risky decision as to grab that tile while you can or to wait and hope nobody takes it before you can nab its powered up version. After eight of the nine cards are utilized the round ends and players gain their income. Income boosts player’s Story Points for the next round (these are the currency for specific areas of the board), their coin, as well as provide one-time use story tokens to boost available resources. The main board is reset, the market row adjusted for the next era, and a new round begins. Upon ending the final round, players score their obtained Royal Court tiles, their contribution to the Requiem, and receive points for any leftover resources. A large vertical board with a hefty amount of beige and plenty of color highlights that pop into focus. Game Experience: I wanted to do a late-review turn, pivoting to what makes Lacrimosa good, but each strength is immediately followed by, well, by a “but.” A player can Perform an Opus to take a small amount of ducats (listed on the card). If their needs are greater, players may elect to sell a piece of music. This yields a higher amount of money, but they must then discard the Opus. Players start with the Nannerl minuet. It’s not worth much when performed or sold. Operas (such as Don Giovanni) are more expensive to commission (cost at top), but raise more money when they are performed or sold.