Stupor Mundi

Stupor Mundi comes from an Italian designer, yet it arrives on the table with the flavour of dried German bratwurst: in its look, its weight, and its whole manner. That tradition has produced Hansa Teutonica and Stone Age, so the sausage is not inherently at fault. This particular result is merely middling and forgettable.

Play is conducted through the familiar dense layer of cards, cubes, and assorted small obligations. It is eurogaming in full uniform: plenty to arrange, track, and turn into something useful, but the material never develops the character needed to justify all that traffic on the table.

Nor does the contact between players pull it out of that dry routine. The most revealing moment came halfway through the second round, when the group had to look it up to discover that we had already played it months earlier. Some games win you over again; this one had not remained present enough to be recognised.

I did not have a bad time, which is its small mercy. But beside Darwin, Neuton, and Autobahn from the same designer, Stupor Mundi feels like the draft that escaped the drawer. It is an easy no for me: too dry, too busy, and ultimately too slight.