Description
The Dreamscape board game (designed by David Ausloos, Pierre Steenebruggen) is a unique “dream building” game. Incarnate a dreamer collecting dreamshards in mysterious locations such as the lair of the Clockwork Golem. Create dreamscapes with these shards, stroll along paths, climb mountains, and pass through waterfalls. A game of Dreamscape is played in six rounds consisting of two phases:
In the Travel phase, wander through the dreamworld in quest for dreamshards. Use with skill the key function of the locations you cross and save precious action points to collect more shards. But avoid Mr Nightmare, who is lurking around to infest your dreams.
Then comes the Creation phase, in which you construct your own dreamscape in 3D, using the collected dreamshards. Score points for completed landscapes as listed on your personal goals. And to shape your Dreamscape constantly evolving, you can rely on the essential location powers.
Furthermore, a series of common goals offer new challenges with each game, influencing your choices while collecting and building your Dreamscape.
The Dreamscape board game offers a game experience that cannot be compared to any other game, with a unique combination of route-planning, resource collecting and ultimately building your own little Dreamworld as a small tableau. In the end, the wonderful dreamscapes you will create will leave you with a magical feeling, constantly renewed.
| Game Details | |
|---|---|
| Name | Dreamscape (2019) |
| Complexity | Medium [3.17] |
| BGG Rank | 2331 [7.34] |
| Player Count (Recommended) | 1-4 (1-3) |
Kevin Mc Gowan –
This is genuinely my top game from 2019 which I have given a “9” on BGG, one of only 32 that I have given out of over 1500 ratings. I was lucky enough to have a friend pick-up a copy at Spiel last year so I have had my copy over a year and we have enjoyed it every play. The idea is to collect dream shards (large wooden coloured discs) which you play to your own dreamscape (player mat) to create dreams (make patterns) to match goal cards you have collected or to achieve global goals both for victory points. Each round has 3 phases, the first phase is just book-keeping. The second phase players take turns to move their player pawn around the central board, on your turn you have 4 actions to either move or collect shards from your current location (there are 6 different locations) you may get to move for free if you have the correct colour disc collected and each round you may also activate one of the locations you visit for its special ability. Phase 3 (which players do simultaneously) is to place the shards you collected on to your player mat, to create patterns (dreams) to match your goal card(s) to get victory points. Once achieved you may replace your card to have a new goal, the cards come in 3 levels the harder the level the better the reward. Unachieved goal cards sit face up in front of you and each has a special ability you can activate with a shard during phase 3, in addition you may discard shards for a bonus, a shard may also give you a bonus when played to your player mat. The game ends after 6 rounds when unachieved cards score negative. There is a lot going on in this game (I would place it towards the heavy end of medium) but it all becomes clear very quickly, the symbology used is intuitive and clearly placed in the relevant play areas as reminders. You are given a lot to think about and you do need to plan your moves to get the best out of the in-game bonuses, in the latter stages play does slow as players do phase 3 but as this is simultaneous downtime is actually quite minimal. Overall this is a lovely game, fully engaging and the theme fits perfectly.