So make sure you get in your brain what those are because they give you VERY different things in your life during the course of the game. For a little while during my first play of the game, I was also mixing up interpreting income vs points on the industry tiles. I kept asking what my income was the first time I played because I couldn't read it for shit). My main gripe is the income and score tracker, as I had a difficult time distinguishing the tracks and planning accordingly (e.g. Of course there's only so much you can do to make wood look good but it wasn't anything special. Metals are shaded well in this game - which makes sense considering the time period - but the rest of the art falls flat, especially the crates. The map on the main board has a nice aerial view, with attention to buildings, trees and other topographical details. I could easily imagine buying large printouts of the art for each player color to post in a boardgaming room, especially since their faces look like faces (I've seen too many games that have horrible excuses for human faces and they're the stuff of nightmares). Mind you, I'm not an expert of the fashion from that era so I couldn't tell you about the historical accuracy of those choices (but the rulebook does note that they had someone to consult on historical aspects so yay?) but I like it nonetheless. The art for each of the player order tokens has that antique feeling, and pays attention to the clothing of that period. I have gaming friends that find one side easier to read than the other so this helps folks with those preferences. It's functional and is pretty! I can read other side just fine so it mostly depends on whether I want the feeling to be dark or bright. First off, the main board and the player boards have a night side and a day side. If anything, the only fun bit here is the beer barrel but mine aren't painted or stained in any meaningful way so it really just looks like a thimble to me.Īrtwork by Lina Cossette, David Forest, and Damien Mammoliti: This is where the game is definitely pleasing.

I normally have more to say here but this isn't one of those games that has a tactile experience to note. Other than the really nice clay money, the components are your standard cardboard, cards, and cubes.

Brass birmingham board