Most games you can play once or twice and while not necessarily grasping the nuances of it, you at least get an indication of what the general game strategy is going to be.
Iye – from designer Onur Şencan, artist Eda
Esentürk Durşen, and publisher NeoTroy Games is among those games
which didn’t play out that way.
Designer Onur Şencan has had a long relationship with games.
“My relationship with gaming is actually a bit strange,” he
related via email. “While I love all kinds of games, my wife and I met 10 years
ago while playing a real escape game (she was a horror character chasing me,
and I couldn't escape from her). My parents also met 42-43 years ago at a
university chess final.”
Now he dabbles as a designer.
“This is the third board game I've designed, but my main job
is designing and playing events for corporate companies. Since I started
designing board games, I've been trying out at least 300 different games a
year,” said Şencan. “Of these, Grand Austria Hotel and Rococo: Deluxe Edition
are the ones I wouldn't mind seeing on the table. Azul is still one of the best
options for new players to enjoy the board game.”
But what about Iye?
“Actually, the first thing I tried to achieve with the game
Iye was to design an abstract strategy game that I could play myself, that I
wouldn't get bored of, and that had a lot of replayability,” said Şencan
“Whether playing Iye on a tabletop or in a board game arena, players can expect
an enjoyable two-player abstract strategy game where each game is different
thanks to its quick-to-understand, fast-playing, and completely random setup.
“In my opinion, the best thing about the game is that no matter how many points
your opponent is ahead in that round, you have the possibility of winning that
round by putting him in an impossible position with just one move.”
In Iye, (pronounced EE-yeah), you lay out 25 tiles face down
on the board, then take turns moving ‘the drum’ around the board. In Iye the
tiles are nice – albeit just cardboard – with sort of geometric art
representing different elements.
The drum is a cardboard standee and that would have been
nice as a wooden meeple.
Of course production has its constraints as Şencan notes.
“When I first brought this game to the publisher, it had a
leather board and pieces like Azul's. However, due to demand and insufficient
production conditions in Türkiye, we had to select the most optimal components.
My dream is to increase awareness of the game through positive board game geek
reviews from those who try it on BGA (the physical version of the game is
currently only available in Türkiye). This way, it can be republished with my
dream components in the future, and thus, it will have the potential to reach
the global market.”
The Meeple Guild hopes this humble review helps in that
regard.
Now for the game itself, the basic movement for the Shaman’s
drum is one, or two spaces vertically or horizontally. When you land on a tile,
and you must, the tile does to the opponent.
At game’s end the player with the most of each type of tile
scores points of varying values.
Initially the tendency is to just dance around the board
until it’s empty, without delving into the deeper possibilities.
Those possibilities lie in sacrificing collected tiles to
make special moves, in the hopes of doing one of two things, preventing your
opponent from having a legal move – an automatic win – or forcing them to
respond by using one of their collected tiles to turn game-end scoring in your
favour. It is here where a far greater depth percolates to the top which in
initial plays can easily be overlooked.
The use of tiles of course is a balancing act, as one used
to move they no longer count at game end.
In recognizing the depth Iye goes from ho-hum initial play,
to a game worth a much longer look, and a definite recommendation.
