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The main “Spiel des Jahres 2009” award goes to “Dominion”
designed by Donald X. Vaccarino, published by Hans im Glück / distributed by Schmidt Spiele
What kind of game is that? Players hold hands full of Victory Cards but nevertheless silently swear to themselves: “Next time I won’t go for those bloody victory points, otherwise I will never win this game!” The plain fact that those monologs exist and the expressed intention does definitely make sense proves that this is a totally different and rather extraordinary game. The German “Game of the Year” jury recommended “Dominion” and even decided that this game is not “only” outstanding, but significantly adds to the culture of classic games due to a fresh innovative system.
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Believe it or not, the box contains 500 Action, Treasure and Victory Cards, neatly arranged in a convenient sorting system. But don’t panic: Each game does only need a small proportion of the overwhelming amount of cards. Each game is new and different, tactics and strategies change with every turn. Namely the great variety of Action Cards brings constantly change to this exciting game set against the Middle Ages.
“Dominion” players continuously seek to extend their portfolio of different Action Cards as the number and cunning choice of cards decide on their own scope of action. But in the end the decisive point is: When is the right moment to start collecting Victory Cards? As during the phase of development and construction Victory Cards can be a real pain in the back. |
Each player gets a starting deck of 10 cards: Seven cards with pocket money and three cards with one Victory Point each. The other cards are placed face-up in the middle of the table and may be acquired during the game.
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Moves are rather simple: Draw five cards from your own deck, play your cards, buy new cards and discards both played and unused cards. When a player has drawn all cards of their own deck, their discarded cards are shuffled and form a new face-down deck. You see: Newly acquired cards continuously add to your variety of activities and discarded cards are never really lost. So your own pile of cards grows and grows – but you will not necessarily like it, as having many cards might as well be hindering and annoying. It is this very mechanism that makes “Dominion” a real innovation. It’s no good at all to load your deck with too many victory cards. Of course, it is vital to have many Victory Points in the end but during the game Victory Cards are a real nuisance. They are good for nothing, they simply exist. Imagine yourself drawing your five cards and four of them are Victory Cards – i.e. you have only one card to play – how funny! Clever players avoid such situations by trying to obtain only a few Victory Cards of high value. That’s certainly more difficult, but most times this strategy pays off. |
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The wealth of material and mechanisms should not obstruct your view on the clear and simple structures of “Dominion”. For more than 10 years, children and young people have known and loved the idea of assembling their own deck of cards at the beginning of the game from numerous worldwide popular TCGs. – So it’s easy to start playing the innovative game of “Dominion”. Experts expect “Dominion” not only to sweep like a fresh breeze across hundreds of thousands of playing tables in Germany, but also to serve as a source of inspirations for numerous German and international game designers. |
