Alma Mater

Alma Mater arrives on the table determined to account for every bit of its production: plastic books, meeples, and a lavish spread of things to handle. The books have that pleasing little heft which makes an adult with a Tuesday evening free feel briefly well looked after. It is harder to excuse duplicate card sets in two languages when many of those cards have no meaningful language dependence, or a sealed bag that simply omitted my red discs. The university theme is hardly the star, but it sits neatly around the work being done.

At heart, this is worker placement. You commit workers to the actions that develop your own engine, and before extra workers are unlocked the constraint is properly felt, especially with three players. Alongside that, you collect coloured books and turn them into new students and professors, who then feed your lectures. The interesting decision is that your economy is not built solely for your benefit; it also depends on what you are prepared to let other people buy.

The book market is its most distinctive touch: you sell books to opponents, they receive victory points, and you receive money, so every deal carries a small but perfectly civil sting. Research and the busts of great scientists sit above this as a complex, variable achievement structure, changing the available combinations from game to game. It also means the first play asks players to absorb an intimidating amount of information; for groups less fluent in reading euro actions, playing two practice rounds and then starting properly may be the kindest teach.

This is an enjoyable, thinky, intelligently tight euro, even if it does not reinvent the category beyond its market. It is rather like a good steak after work: it will not change your life, but you know precisely why you ordered it. Genre regulars should not be disappointed, though I see it more as a game for a handful of good plays or a sensible second-hand purchase, unless the shelves are not already full of modern replayable euros.

Updated session

By roughly the fourth play, familiarity had begun to turn into fatigue: the combo engine feels rather similar each time, particularly without new students to shift it about. Four plays in a short spell is a demanding test for this sort of euro, so the first impression is not overturned, but repetition exposed a limit that was not obvious at first. It remains a good euro for the people it is for; it simply does not sustain continuous play as well as it first promised.