Preview Essen 2009: Strada Romana

Autor: Walter Obert
Editorial: Blackrock Editions, Gamesinitaly, Ghenos Games, Giochix.it, RioGrande
Duración: 45 minutos
Tema: transporte en Roma imperial
Mecánica(s): movimiento de peón, hacer conjuntos
Número de jugadores: 2-5
Reglas en castellano: http://www.giochix.it/rules/SR_SPA.zip
Sitio oficial del juego:
Sitio en BGG: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/38858


Botón derecho, Ver imagen, para tamaño mayor

Situado en la roma Imperial, en la vía que une esa ciudad con el puerto de Ostia.
Este juego ganó el Concours International de Créateurs de Jeux de Société del 2008 y el segundo lugar en el mejor juego familiar Premio Archimede 2008.

Su producción masiva está fechada para la feria Essen 2009.

De las reglas en CASTELLANO (hecho que se agradece) aparece que es un juego en que hay que mover unos vehículos de transporte, a lo largo de un camino, para juntar objetos que hagan pares.

Además, hay que apostar por los vehículos que llegarán primero a destino, en cada sentido de la ruta.

Es un juego familiar, con muy bonita gráfica, calculo que para personas de 7 años en adelante, que puede ser introductorio.
Es del nivel de dificultad de Ticket to Ride, tal vez un poco más, por la forma de puntuación final.

Creo que si tiene un buen precio en la feria, y agradeciendo su preocupación de poner las reglas en español, puede ser una buena adquisición pensando en los menores o para atraer nuevos jugadores a esta afición.

Interesante entrevista al autor:

Mini-interview with Walter Obert (Strada Romana) « JogoEu
"1 – You will present Strada Romana in Essen? How you define your game?

WO – Yes, finally the game will be published for the next Essen fair. Hmmm… It’s ever a surprise, for me, to see how many different results can be obtained starting from the same, usual elements. In this case I take 10 wagons, 5 for side, running between Rome and harbour of Ostia. No one owns any wagon, but the player can move each of them on his turn. On the narrow road, you can pick some kind of goods and requests to make contracts, secretly bidding for the best runner, and trying to cut out the other players from the best routes and contracts. A strange mix of different mechanics, well integrated between them.

2 – Winning the Boulogne Billancourt in 2008 make the find-a-editor a easier task? Who firstly had the interest to publish Strada Romana?

WO – Usually the winners of BB award has a great chance to be published, because the jury makes a really good work to show the game to many publishers and have it played by them, not only French ones. And the prize itself is a great promoter for the winners. I like to remember the second place at the Archimede award, in the same year, too.After usual submissions and “compliments-but-we-are-full-for-the next-year”, the publisher of the game named “Strada Romana” must to be italian: Gameinitaly, a new publisher. We have a lot of requests for different countries. A roman road must travel a lot! :-)

3 – How do you “get” the idea for the game basis?

WO – This is fun. Sometime I try to have new ideas crossing very different things: it’s one kind of creative thinking. I found the basic idea reading an Asterix comic, viewing some picture of traffic jam with wagons and chariots blocked in the roads of Rome. The theme was amazing, and worked well with a kind of “homage” to a great game, Heimlich & Co. from Wolfgang Kramer. I even thought that it was possible to make a more complex game starting from that mechanic. Crossing Roman road jam with moving secret identities, that’s the mission. The first result was really flat, bur after some tests at IDEAG (Italian meeting of game designers) I found the solution.

4 – What are the strongest arguments of your game?

WO – There are 3 different ways to obtain winning points, all tied together, and simple rules to achieve them. Simple to learn, difficult to play smartly.

5 – What do you think about this year SdJ winner?

WO – Every year I read a lot of discussion about them, often similar each other. The real stuff is the winning criteria itself. I think that the prize has become so important to influence the guidelines of the producers. Therefore is fundamental to not fix its criteria, always keeping open the possibility to win for any good game. If one of the main objectives of the SDJ is to give to German families a good and wide range of interesting titles, Dominion represents a meaningful choice in terms of innovation and originality. It has opened a new category, like Shadows over Camelot some year ago. Without SoC today we would not have Pandemic, and the SDJ some years ago rewarded SoC, therefore the jury had seen right.

6 – This year, will you participate in the Boulogne Billancourt?

WO – No, I don’t have the next game ready. But I want to partecipate in the next round and I hope go to Paris again!

7 – Tell us about your best dreams in the game area.

WO – This is difficult. For myself, I want to have more time to try different games and to publish one good game for year. For my country, I want to promote gaming in different areas of society, starting from children, classrooms and families."
http://jogoeu.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/mini-interview-with-walter-obert-strada-romana/