Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia is a remarkably polished object, at least in its KS Deluxe form: the production has presence, the illustrations support the subject, and the rulebook performs the uncommon service of being good. You are assembling entries for the first encyclopaedia by recruiting specialists, taking commissions on particular animals, funding expeditions, and publishing the findings. It is handsome. For once, that is not all it has going for it.

Its core is dice drafting that cares about both colour and number, yet removes almost all luck from the equation. A round begins with room to manoeuvre and steadily tightens, so every die you take says something about what you have left behind for everyone else. Set collection does most of the heavy lifting, with enough engine building and resource management to keep the game busy without turning it into clerical work.

At the end, though, the categories open up and almost everything you have accumulated is counted. The meaningful interaction becomes stopping a player’s single-colour collection, which invites kingmaking and the graceless choice of damaging your own position merely to cut down theirs. Since a collection has no ceiling, once you pass twelve items you simply keep recording maximum points. A splendid system: it rewards the dull strategy with admirable consistency.

That is the game’s large missed opportunity. The play itself is satisfying and generous, clearly lighter than Dominations, and I would play it again; just not without expecting the familiar disappointment at the cashier. A more intelligent scoring matrix, crossing totals with multiplier conditions in the manner of a What's Your Game design, would lift it considerably.

We did not play the expansion, so I cannot credit it with rescuing matters; the suspicion is rather the reverse. Encyclopedia is an excellent journey to a finale determined to reward the wrong thing.