Treos
- Board's Eye View
- Oct 17
- 2 min read
In Arne aus dem Siepen's Treos, the 2-4 players are all in pursuit of a magic elixir of good luck. In fact, the elixir is on sale in the local market for anyone who can rustle up the bargain purchase price of 20 gold. The game then is a race to be the first player to collect 20 gold.
The game is attractively presented, with art by Gabriel Campagnolo, and it's played on a modular board. And tho' you're competing for a lucky elixir, Treos isn't reliant on luck: your movement around the board is down to card selection rather than dice rolls, and there's a deck building element to the game as you enhance your movement cards. Movement cards specify not just how far you can move but also the directions you can take. The game tho' is all about visiting locations, and collecting and fulfilling pick-up-and-deliver quests to earn gold and the better movement cards. The latter serves to quite literally ramp up the pace as the game progresses.
The players' characters have asymmetric set collection objectives and each has a different special ability affecting their movement. Each round, you play your five movement cards: one is used to bid for turn order and three are played to program your movement as well as that of a 'highwayman', used to hinder the other players by blocking their movement. The fifth card can either be discarded or played to the top of your draw pile so that you have it in the next round. Meanwhile, an Event card is revealed each round that tweaks the rules just for that round.
The rules indicate that the game takes around 20 minutes per player, and we reckon that's about right. Tho' there are a lot of components and the board can look quite busy, Treos has straightforward, intuitive rules and can be played and enjoyed by all the family. The highwaymen introduce a 'take that' element, especially as players anticipate and seek to block each other's likely paths, but this isn't a game that feels overly dominated by sniping. Bidding for turn order and programming a series of movement actions at the start of a round can be a challenge for those who haven't previously experienced these mechanics but Treos manages to introduce the concepts in a very accessible way. That means this Lookout Games title also doubles as a gateway game to more complex programming games.