Buzzworthiness: Sagrada

“People are like stained glass windows.  They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is only revealed if there is a light from within.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Time for a review of…

image by BGG user Floodgate

Sagrada is a 1-4 player dice game from designers Daryl Andrews and Adrian Adamescu.  It was published in 2017 by Floodgate Games.  In the game, you are an artisan working on the famed Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain.  The church is well known for its use of color in its stained glass windows, and you are trying to make yours the best in the church.

Sagrada comes with four window frame player boards, 12 double-sided window pattern cards, 12 Tool cards, 12 public objective cards, 5 private objective cards, 24 favor tokens, 4 score markers, a double-sided Round Track/Score Track, 90 dice in five colors, and a cloth dice bag.  To set up the game, each player takes a window frame and two pattern cards.  You’ll choose one and insert it into your frame.  Each pattern card has an easier and a more difficult side, as indicated by a number of dots on the bottom (3-6).  These dots also tell you how many favor tokens to take.  Each player is dealt a private objective, which will give you a color of dice to be trying to collect.  Deal out three public objectives and three Tools to the center of the table.  All dice go in the bag, and you’re ready to go.

image by BGG user kalchio

On your turn, draw out a number of dice equal to double the number of players plus one.  So 5 dice with two players, 7 with three, and 9 with four.  The solo game is a little different – I’ll get into that later.  Once the dice have been drawn and rolled, the first player chooses one to take and add to his window.  The next player then chooses, and so on until everyone has a die.  You then double back and everyone takes a second die in reverse order.  So the first player will get the first and last choices, while the last player will get two in a row.

Each time you take a die, you will immediately add it to your window.  The first die taken must be added on the edge of the window, and every subsequent die taken must be added where it is touching at least one other die, either orthogonally or diagonally.  Orthogonally adjacent dice cannot have the same color or the same number (thematically referred to as the shade).  White spaces on the board have no further restrictions, but spaces of a certain color or shade will only take dice that match that spot.

Also during your turn, you may choose to take advantage of one of the Tools on the board.  These give you different ways to break the rules – take two dice at once, move dice around on your board, change a number, reroll dice, etc.  You must spend Favor tokens to use these, however.  The first time anyone uses one of the Tools, it costs one Favor.  If anyone else wants to use that Tool for the rest of the game, however, it costs two Favors.  You’ve only got 3-6 Favors, so watch out for that.

Once everyone has taken and placed their dice (and it is possible that you won’t be able to place any dice), the die not taken gets placed on the Round Track to indicate that the round is over.  Once all ten spaces of the Round Track are filled, the game is over.  Flip the Round Track over to the Score Track and start scoring.  Your private objective will score one point per pip you have on a die of that color on your board.  The public objectives will each give you points, as long as you’ve been paying attention and filling up your board according to what it’s looking for.  You’ll also get one point per Favor you have remaining, and lose one point per empty space on your board.  The high score wins.

Solo play changes a couple of things about the game.  In each round, you will draw four dice.  Only two will be used per round, and each unused die will be placed on the Round Track.  The tools you have in play can be used by adding a die to the card that is the color shown.  This shows that the tool has been used and cannot be used again.  After the tenth round, you will add up the pips on all untaken dice.  This is the target score you are trying to achieve.  Scoring occurs normally.

image by BGG user Peukon

COMPONENTS: The first thing I have to say about Sagrada is that this game has a beautiful table presence.  When I first played, it was in prototype form at Gen Con 2016, and it was pretty much just the window pattern and the dice, along with the tools and objectives.  The gameplay was the same, but it just looked pretty plain.  It was certainly functional, but with the upgrades created through the Kickstarter campaign, the game has evolved into something else visually.  The main attraction is the window frame boards.  They are thick cardboard, with a slot to insert the pattern, and spaces that are perfectly spaced so the dice fit exactly where they’re supposed to.  Was it necessary?  No.  But not only does it add a unique touch of beauty to the game, it also makes it so knocking the window pattern doesn’t scatter your dice everywhere.

The dice themselves are translucent, which makes sense when you consider that they’re supposed to represent glass.  They’re fairly small, but since you’re potentially rolling nine at a time with four players, that makes sense.  The bag is just big enough to fit my hand without me feeling like I’m going to have to cut it off (the bag, not my hand).  The Favor tokens are glass stones, which are fine.  It makes sense to be bartering glass for the use of tool.  The cards are well written and easy to understand.  The Round Track and Score Track have the same stained glass look at the window frames.  So do the score markers, and this is the only thing I’m going to ding Floodgate about here.  The score markers are tiny little chits, in player colors and with a 50 on one side for when you cross the 50 mark.  But they blend in horribly with the score track, and it would have been so much better if they had used cubes or something instead.  I know there’s an aesthetic thing going here, but the chits don’t work well.

Overall, however, the components in this game are top notch.

THEME: This game really has an aesthetic theme rather than any sort of narrative theme going.  It would fall more on the abstract end of the spectrum, but there are definite thematic touches throughout.  Each window pattern has a descriptive name – sometimes Latin (Aurorae Magnificus), sometimes Spanish (Fulgor del Cielo), sometimes English (Symphony of Light).  The Tool cards are all named for real glass making tools, such as the Grozing Pliers, the Copper Foil Burnisher, or the Lathekin.  And of course, the dice themselves really lend themselves to looking like stained glass when completed.  So I’d say the theming is pretty strong, making what could have essentially been an abstract puzzle game into something more.

MECHANICS: This game centers around the dice draft.  That’s the primary mechanism that drives the game through all ten rounds.  It’s very simply done – draw dice, roll them, then one at a time select them.  A snake draft is used so that the first to take a die gets the best choice and whatever’s left.  This is the same type of mechanism that was used for settlement placement in Catan, as well as in other games that I’m not thinking of at the moment.

Placement rules can really mess with you if you’re not paying attention.  Not being able to place a die orthogonally adjacent if it is the same color or number is bound to bite you in the butt at some point.  You’re bound to say something like, “Hey, this blue three will go perfectly next to this red 6 and this yellow 1!” and then two rounds later say something like, “Why did I put this blue 3 next to this blue space AND this 3 space?”

The game also features variable endgame scoring, which is a mechanism that I think has been gaining in popularity lately.  That’s where there are different scoring opportunities that show up in some games and not others.  It adds to the variability of the game, and changes strategies throughout.

STRATEGY LEVEL: I recently started re-listening to the Ludology podcast, and they often talk about input randomness versus output randomness.  Output randomness is when you make a decision, then use some sort of randomizer to find out what happens.  Input randomness is when you use a randomizer, then make a decision about what happens as a result.  Sagrada has a lot of input randomness – you roll the dice, then have the dice draft and use tools to manipulate results you don’t like.  It’s a very tactical game, but it’s very engaging throughout.  As mentioned before, the variable endgame scoring opportunities mean that you’ll probably be changing how you place from game to game – in one game, you might need to be paying attention to the colors in the rows, and in another game you might just be worried about collecting certain numbers.  And don’t neglect your private objective – I’ve seen a couple of games won just on the strength of people getting high numbers on their color dice.

ACCESSIBILITY: This is not a complicated game to understand.  The complexity really comes from figuring out the best configuration of dice on your board, not from the rules.

SCALABILITY: Sagrada plays from 1-4 players, and I think it does pretty well at all player counts.  Downtime will be a little longer with more players, but I like that all dice are in the game.  At the same time, the 2- and 3-player games have a bit more of a push-your-luck element as you don’t know if the dice you need will be coming out.  The solo game is interesting – being able to determine your own target as you play is cool, but you then have the disadvantage of not knowing exactly what you need, and trying to just save small numbers.

REPLAYABILITY: With 24 different patterns, 10 different endgame scoring cards, 12 tools to use, and 5 different private objectives, there’s a lot of replay value in this game.

INTERACTION: This game has low interaction.  Really, the only thing you can do to affect others is in the dice draft.  As you are picking dice, you might make some of your choices based on what other people want – if Dave really needs a blue die and there’s only one available, you might take it out of spite if you don’t care what you want.

TIME: This game moves very quickly.  The last few rounds will probably slow down a bit, especially with more players, but overall, the game goes fast.

FOOTPRINT: You need room for the player boards, the objectives, the tools, and the Round/Score track, as well as a good place to roll the dice.  Probably a medium sized table would be most comfortable here.

IS IT BUZZWORTHY? This was one of my favorite games at Gen Con 2016, and I’m very happy with the way it turned out in the final version.  I’d say if you like puzzle games, games with dice, and games with unique themes, check this one out.  I really enjoy it.

Thanks for reading!