Note: This preview uses pre-release components and rules. What you see here may be different from the final, published game. This post was a paid preview, you can find out more information here.
When I heard about a preview opportunity for a game about wizards and volcanoes, I jumped at the chance to check it out. But did I teleport myself into a worthy gaming experience or should you keep on wandering by?
Hexes of Sygon, launching soon on Kickstarter, is designed by Alec Cacheris. The game supports 2-4 players and should take about 2 hours to play.
Gameplay Overview:
In Hexes of Sygon, you’ll be playing a wizard tasked with manipulating your environment by casting spells that will build and develop settlements within the realm. The landscape can be harsh at times as there are three fuming volcanoes periodically erupting and threatening the surrounding area with flowing lava and ash.
In this game, you’ll be controlling three wizards that will cast spells to build up your settlements by collecting spell components from the map. On your turn, you will start by moving your wizards across the landscape; they can either walk freely from one hex to another or spend gold to teleport further away. As the terrain becomes harder to navigate, wizards will need to rely more on teleportation. Ash hexes created when a volcano erupts and walls built by enemy wizards block normal movement, so gold will be essential to maintaining mobility. You’ll also have to pay gold to your opponent to move into a hex containing their wizard.
The next phase allows your wizards to begin affecting their environment by casting building spells to erect towns and walls on hexes. To build a structure, you’ll need to turn in a specific combination of spell components and gold. Once a hex has been settled, it’s possible to expand by adding markets and workshops, which produce additional resources and extend your victory point total. A game of Hexes of Sygon is won by reaching a certain victory point threshold and most of those points come from the buildings in your settlements. Walls are useful for protecting your towns from volcanoes and enemy wizards as well as for generating victory points by helping to completely surround a hex. During this phase, you can also cast exchange spells, which allow you to trade gold for spell components or even sell unneeded component cards for extra cash.
Following the building phase, each of your wizards can cast a spell to either forage for spell components on their hex, steal gold from opposing wizards and towns, or protect themselves from being stolen from. At the end of your turn, collect resources from your buildings and adjust your score according to the current board state. Towns collect gold based on the value of the token on the hex they occupy as well as a spell component card of the type associated with that hex’s terrain. A workshop will provide an extra corresponding component card and a market generates a flat 2 gold.
Once all players have had a turn, check to see which volcanoes erupt. This is done by rolling a 12-sided die that will result in targeting 1-2 of the three volcanoes. If any of them did not erupt in the previous round, then apply the aftermath effects of an eruption. First, all walls bordering the volcano will be destroyed and any unprotected hexes will have the value of any gold tokens on them reduced by 1. If neither an adjacent wall nor a gold token is present on the hex, then the owner of an existing settlement will have to destroy one of their buildings there. If the hex is unsettled, the tile is flipped and turned to ash, which destroys any walls or wizards in the area. As ash spreads across the map, the target point total for achieving a victory is reduced, accelerating the game’s completion. If any players have reached this total at this point, the game ends, and the highest score wins.
Gameplay Impressions:
If you’ve ever wanted a board game where you could direct a group of wizards to build doomed settlements among erupting volcanoes, here’s your chance. The mechanisms of resource management and network building could have been draped in any old worn-out theme, but wizards are always a welcome veneer. And there aren’t that many games out there where volcanoes are constantly pouring ash onto the fruits of your labors.
Gamers will recognize a few elements in Hexes that are reminiscent of The Settlers of Catan, so much of the foundation of the gameplay will be familiar to anyone who has played that classic game. The randomly constructed map of resource-generating hex tiles is there, but the method for producing those resources is much less arbitrary than in Catan. In Hexes of Sygon, players will have agency in being able to move their wizards around to forage for spell components and will receive the specific resources produced by their buildings rather than from a random die roll.
The opening landscape of the playing area will naturally lead to some locations that are obviously better positioned and will determine which spell components might be scarce. The only hexes that produce Crystals could be clustered together, so initial town placement and early wizard movement will be key to securing a source to fuel workshop production, for instance. Players will also want to seek out high gold-producing hexes early on since wizard mobility and all buildings require a steady flow of cash. Strategic placement of settlements will also depend on where the volcanoes are located. Do you build a town on a hex that’s between two volcanoes? It may be lucrative in terms of gold production and the spell component it produces, but it will necessitate frequently building walls to hold back the destructive lava flows.
There’s also no trading of resources allowed in Hexes of Sygon, so you won’t have to worry about convincing anyone to take your excess Elixir for their rare Spice. You can just cast exchange spells to transform other resources into the component cards you need. Additionally, there are special spell cards that can be purchased during the game with powerful effects, such as allowing you to foresee (choose) which volcanoes will erupt at the end of a round or to summon a blizzard that will force enemy wizards to pay gold when moving or foraging. These cards can be useful ways to disrupt other players or to steer your plans towards fruition.
There is a fair amount of player interaction in Hexes of Sygon, with diminishing board space and resources being hard fought over. As settlements pop up around the map and volcanoes begin to spread ash from hex to hex, there will be fewer and fewer viable locations for expansion. And remember, building settlements is the primary source of victory points in the game. Erecting walls can hinder enemy wizard movements; it is possible to teleport past an opponent’s wall, but it will cost gold, and thus drain resources. Careful positioning of your wizards can also introduce obstacles as other players must pay you gold to enter a space occupied by your wizard. Foraging is useful in the early stages of the game for jumpstarting your building before component cards can reliably be produced by settlements. But each hex can only be foraged twice in a game, so reaching and exploiting those resources for yourself can be critical to success.
There’s also the gold stealing mechanism, which could be a potential source of income and player interference. However, it doesn’t seem that clever players are likely to allow that tactic to become very lucrative. At the beginning of the game, it’s difficult to set up a stealing situation because you must take from at least 2 different hexes. So, players are usually spread out enough and can throw up a wall or two relatively easily, which makes opportunities to steal uncommon. Later in the game, though, placing walls to block stealing becomes almost trivial, so finding a spot that’s worth maneuvering to pull off some great heist will not be all that simple. Therefore, while the threat of stealing will certainly force players to devote resources to defenses, it’s not likely to provide much as a strategy for free gold.
Final Thoughts:
Hexes of Sygon will appeal to players who enjoy games like Catan, but are looking for less randomness, more agency, and none of the frustrations of fickle trade partners. The theme is unique and intriguing; reflavoring generally mundane game elements such as spending resources to build structures as casting wizard spells with unique components to cause buildings to appear is a nice touch. And teleporting your wizard around is always fun. Be prepared for a tight, interactive game where both opposing players and the environment itself are colluding to deny access to much-needed resources.
Hexes of Sygon launches soon on Kickstarter, so be sure to check it out so you can learn more about the campaign and back your copy.
To be clear, Matt’s preview is on the 3 and 4 player Hexes of Sygon (HoS) gameplay. Since his time with HoS, a 2 player variant has been fully developed. The 2 player board size also scales to the number of players, but the steal mechanic is a little different. With 2 players, a thieving wizard can steal from as few as 1 hex tile and still steals from all surrounding hex tiles. However, the thieving wizard cannot steal from opponent wizards and towns located in the same hex unlike 3-4 player HoS.
Hexes of Sygon also expands up to 6 players and there is a 2v2v2 6 player variant where players on the same team take their turns simultaneously.