Dragon Island

Publisher: R&R Games

Designer:  Mike Fitzgerald

Players: 2-4

Time: 60 min.

Dragon Island is a game about players taking the role of mages on an island, gathering resources, fulfilling contracts, taming dragons and using them for their benefit.  The player with the most points at the end of the game will be the winner.

Dragon Island is a tile placement and resource management game.  At the beginning of a player’s turn, they will play one tile from their hand of three tiles. This step will gain them resources as you will collect a resource color of each tile touching the tile you place. These resources are used to build buildings. Many of these buildings will gain points at the end of the game but some will offer special benefits. When you place a tile, there might be other things that will trigger such as dragons appearing.  You can tame these dragons by paying 3 gold, because that is what they like, and then placing that gold on the dragon card.  If you tame a dragon, you can place it in front of you and use its special ability but you have to make sure you retain the gold you used to attract the dragon as other players can make you lose that gold through the casting of storm spells. If you ever lose all three of those pieces of gold, you will lose the services of that dragon.

The last thing you do on your turn is turn in an order IF you are on a spot that matches it.  To match it, you need to be on the specific colored tile and have the same amount of colored tiles next to it.  So, you might need to be on a yellow tile with 2 red and 1 green tiles next to it.

Players continue to play until all tiles are placed.  The player with the most points is the winner.

Positives

• Components are great quality and it looks really cool on the table.  Everything is bright and pops when you see it.
• Quick to learn and easy to play.  The player aids are fantastic in this game.  Everything you need to know is on the player aid (just like the blog).
• Lots of strategy….where to place what tile, where to move to, what tile to place.  Lots of tough decisions out there. Planning is also critical to success.  You have to be able to focus on the contracts in your hand and plan how to achieve them.

Neutrals

• Some contracts might be impossible to accomplish, while some will just fall in your lap or someone else’s lap. It was funny how I would look at my contracts and say that will never happen, and then, through a couple of placed tiles by my opponents, an opportunity to complete it would appear.

Negatives

• Player interaction is brutal!  There is some….but when you have the perfect spot to put a tile so you can get a contract completed and someone puts a different tile in that spot, you literally want to rip their head off and put it in that spot.  It is so demoralizing.  Chances are, that contract will never get done.
• Replayability…..there is very little.  The only thing that changes each game is how the tiles are put out.  Other than that, you play the game the same way every time.

Final Thoughts

I will take a pass on this one….I just have no desire to play this again.  I played about 6 rounds of it and was ready to move on.  It is a nice little strategy game, with some neat looking components, but nothing worth keeping.

-Tim