Pest

Pest won me over at first with its unusual theme: wandering Plague Doctors facing a magical disease that is ravaging the kingdom. It is a distinctive worker-placement / pickup-and-don't-deliver euro, with the feel of an honest big production and several nicely interwoven little systems running at once.

At its core, the game has me placing workers and managing what I collect, without falling into the usual “pick up and deliver” routine. The rounds revolve around the choices I make to fight the disease and make use of the design’s various mini-games.

The main pressure comes from the flow of patients arriving at my clinic, which reminded me of Messina in terms of feel. I have to keep that flow under control, while the game is particularly punishing when I decide to take too much risk. This is not a relaxed euro where I can simply do my own thing without consequences.

My thorn in the side is the plague-spread cards, which are random each round. Depending on how they come out, they can make the game far too difficult for everyone—and I can live with that—or far too generous for everyone. The latter always bothers me in euros: I do not want to see everybody maxing out every track. So no, Pest is not uninteresting; it has character, pressure, and appealing ideas. It is simply not a must-have for me.