- We're jumping whirlwinds and trapping sages.
That's right, it's Element Silver Edition
from Rather Dashing Games.
This strategic
sage
snatcher
pits two to four players against each other
in an element-flinging competition
to catch an opponent's sage.
Setup begins with a game board, placed center.
Assign a sage to each player,
and place the sages on their starting positions.
In a two player game,
the sages begin near the center in these spaces.
In a three or four player game,
the sages begin in these spaces.
Take the element stones
and place them in the element bag.
Give it a shake or three,
and finally,
randomly choose a first player
to start the game.
Gameplay for Element occurs in turns,
during which the active player will draw stones,
move their sage,
and place those stones on the board.
The goal in a two player game
is to trap the opposing player's sage
by blocking all of their movement options,
thereby capturing them.
In a three or four player game,
each player is attempting to capture the sage
of the player to their right.
Once the sage is captured,
the game ends immediately
and the player assigned to capture that sage wins.
At the beginning of their turn,
the active player may draw
up to four element stones from the bag.
There are four types of stones
in the core game:
fire, wind,
earth, and water.
All stones drawn
must then be placed on the board,
either in a free space
or a space that allows the rule of replacement.
The rule of replacement
allows certain elements to be removed
and replaced on the board with other elements.
Fire replaces wind.
Wind replaces earth.
Earth replaces water,
and water replaces fire.
Additionally, each of the four types of elements
have unique game effects on the board.
More on those in a sec.
Once per turn,
the active player may also move their sage
to an unoccupied space.
This can occur at any time
after they've drawn their stones.
Generally the sage can be moved one adjacent space.
Adjacency includes diagonal movement,
but if the player chose
to draw less than four element stones
at the beginning of their turn,
the sage's movement is increased by one
for each stone not taken.
Players now take turns drawing stones
and placing them
while moving their sages to safety.
Let's look at the elemental effects.
Water.
This element can form rivers
and shift around the board.
When a water stone is placed orthagonally
to another water stone
or a straight line of water stones,
that line becomes a river.
Rivers must move orthogonally
a number of spaces
equal to the number of water stones in its line.
This occurs each time a water stone
is added to a line.
The rivers may turn at right angles,
snaking their way around the terrain.
But if the river ever cannot move
its full number of spaces,
this move is illegal and cannot be made.
All stones, sages, and the edge of the board
block a moving river.
Fire.
This element spreads the more it's fed in the game.
When placing a fire stone
next to one or more other fire stones,
the active player immediately draws
a free fire stone from the bag
and places it on the opposite side
of the fire stone that was already on the board,
creating a fire line.
This rule does not apply for diagonal adjacency.
Fire lines can only be orthogonal.
If the space on the opposite side is occupied,
the free fire stone cannot be played,
unless the occupying stone is a wind stone,
because that would obey the rule of replacement.
Earth.
These stones are placed normally.
However, you can place a second earth stone atop another.
That stack becomes a mountain
and is immune to the rule of replacement
for the remainder of the game.
Additionally, any earth stones connected
orthogonally or diagonally
become a range and are also immune to the rule
for the rest of the game.
Any earth stones placed later
that also connect to that range
become a part of it.
Additionally,
a range can block a sage's diagonal movement
between the two earth stones.
Wind.
This element doesn't actually trap sages.
It allows them to jump,
provided the space
opposite the wind stone is unoccupied.
Jumping wind stones is a free action
and doesn't count against the moves
in a sage's one-per-turn movement.
Sages may jump in any direction including diagonally,
but must do so in a straight line per jump
and cannot jump over the same wind stone
twice in a turn.
Additionally, wind stones may be stacked
to create a whirlwind.
These towers allow sages to instead
jump a number of spaces
equal to the number of wind stones in the stack
as well as wind stones within a connected line.
That's the base game of Element.
The silver expansion includes three elements
represented by the silver tokens.
Only one of these three can be in the game at a time
along with the four core elements.
Lightning.
These volatile elements may be placed
on any space of the board
except for a location occupied by a sage.
The lightning replaces any element stone,
including whirlwinds and mountains.
When mountains are removed in this way,
the range effects for connected earth stones
no longer apply,
including their immunity to the rule of replacement.
Wind stones adjacent to a lightning stone
become a storm
and cannot be jumped by sages.
Additionally,
lightning stones may only be replaced
with another lightning stone.
When placing a lightning stone,
the active player may remove
one other lightning stone from anywhere on the board.
Wood.
These elements may only be placed on an empty space.
They cannot replace.
They have two effects:
blaze
and new growth.
When a fire stone is placed or spreads,
it can be stacked on top of wood,
creating a blaze.
Blazes increase the number of fire stones placed
whenever there is a spread from fire placement.
Blazes in a fire line add
one additional fire stone during a spread.
But multiple blazes do not add any more than that.
Blazes may be replaced by a single water stone
or a river moving into their space.
Wood may also
absorb water stones
when a river moves into its space.
This is known as new growth.
When this occurs,
the water stones are removed
and the active player may draw a wood stone
and place it anywhere on the board.
Metal.
This awesome element interacts
with other stones of its kind.
When placing a metal stone,
the active player chooses to either attract
or repel
other metal stones in each of the eight directions.
Once chosen,
the metal stones with an unobstructed path
to the placed metal stone
either move closer
or further away.
Metal stones may be placed on empty spaces
or
they may be smelted.
This occurs when a fire stone is placed
on top of an earth stone.
Both stones are removed
and a metal stone replaces them.
This can happen to earth stones in a range
but not on top of a mountain.
Additionally, metal stones can be removed through corrosion.
When a wind stone is placed on a water stone
or vice versa,
corrosion occurs.
Remove both those stones
and one metal stone from anywhere on the board.
Gameplay continues with players raising mountains,
setting blazes,
and shifting rivers.
Once a player's targeted sage has been captured,
the game immediately ends,
and that player wins.
And that's Element Silver.
I'm Becca Scott,
and I'm haunted by a ghost named Kaylee.
If you're an exorcist or a cleric,
please leave your contact information
in the comments below.
You can watch me and my friends play this game
and other amazing games on Game the Game
right here on Geek and Sundry.
We'll see you there.