La Stanza

I went into La Stanza with confidence, since its designers made it an instant blind buy for me. And yet, the night—and almost the whole week—ended on a negative note. The production is beautiful, but it is a very shiny wrapper around something that, unfortunately, does not work as it should.

The game has me constantly trying to optimise a situation that shifts heavily on the board. There is a pleasant brain-burn in that effort and, thanks to its short duration and zero downtime, the rounds move quickly. But when the board develops so unpredictably, making a plan and adapting it as things unfold becomes much harder than I would like.

The interaction feels primarily like a race: everyone is rushing to exploit the available opportunities and the scoring tiles. That is where the system goes crooked, though, because the tiles are not balanced, the racing lacks the tension or clarity it needs, and I do not see enough different victory paths to save the situation. Rather than meaningful choices, I often feel as though I am playing against randomness and hoping the right thing comes my way.

For me, it is a bad copy of Newton: it retains a little of the tension of optimisation, but loses the strategic flexibility and fairness that would make it interesting. If you enjoy looking at lovely production while a scoring tile decides how well you did, be my guest. Everyone else: stay away.