- Publisher : Plan B Games
- Designers : Inka Brand, Markus Brand
- Artist(s) : Dennis Lohausen
- Players : 2–4
- Playing time : 60–90 Min
- Weight BGG : 3.06
What's this?
Descendance is a worker placement game where you will have to manage your family over several generations.
Life in the village is difficult, but it also allows residents to grow and prosper as they please. A villager may wish to become a monk. Another may feel ambition and aspire to a career in public service. A third may want to try his luck in distant lands.
Each player will take the reins of a family and guide them to fame and glory in different ways. There is one thing to remember, however: time will not stop for anyone and with time, people will disappear. Those who immortalize themselves in the village chronicles will bring honor to their family and move one step closer to victory.
How do you play?
Each player will have a farm which will be used to produce wheat, but above all to move a pawn used to measure the time that your family members will spend to carry out the different actions of the game. Indeed, the new and original mechanics of Descendance consist of give birth, work and die to the members of his family.
It’s simple: each action will take time, and each time you have to kill a member of your family, you will start by killing the first generation marked with the lowest number.
The main board has several action locations, and on these locations, there will be colored cubes which will mainly serve as resources.
So, on your turn, you will take a colored cube and perform the action corresponding to the location:
🔸Harvest wheat
🔸Give birth to new family members
🔸Train members in crafting to acquire different goods or animals.
🔸Participate in the market by selling crafting goods for victory points (VP).
🔸Take your family on a journey to obtain different bonuses and VPs.
🔸Send someone to the council chamber for different bonuses and VPs.
🔸Involve your family members in the mass, the most diligent will have the most PV by being in the first row.
Thus, you will play in turns by placing your family members on the different action locations in order to make them die with the aim of recording them in the village archives.
However, be careful, as you will need to plan in advance who will die, as places in the archives will be limited for each location.
When the archives are full, the end of the game will be triggered.
Is it good?
Descendance is an excellent worker placement game with a particularly original mechanic: the death of your meeples. It’s a German-style game that I really like: wooden cubes and meeples, brown colors and a multitude of strategies despite the fluidity and speed of the game.
You will be faced with difficult choices throughout the game, requiring precise timing to best execute your strategy and above all fill the village register before the others. It’s tense, it’s fun, it’s everything I love in a game.
The game has been re-released with all the expansions integrated and a new, more modern design. So you no longer have any excuses not to play it.
It’s a classic.
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Review Village
Positives
- Different strategies
- The original mechanics of the death of your meeples
- The wooden cubes that represent both the resources and the number of available actions
Negatives
- A slightly plastered theme with its wooden cubes
