“Build the canals, repel the barbarians, and rise to fame as Yu the Great!”
Link: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/354934/legacy-of-yu
Playing Time: 60 Minutes
Weight: Midweight
Genre: Worker Placement Solo Game
Designer: Shem Phillips
Players: 1
Last year, Shem Phillips, a game designer with an impossibly good track record that includes hits like Raiders of the North Sea and Architects of the West Kingdom decided to take a swing at making a solo game. Now, a solo game doesn’t seem like a great fit for a worker placement game, but reinventing worker placement as a core game concept is kind of his whole bag, and he ended up hitting a home run.
In this game, you play as the titular advisor ‘Yu’, where , you’re trying to rejuvenate a chinese province after years of misery. You’ll be placing workers in order to hire advisors, rebuild your houses, fend off barbarians, and prepare for upcoming floods.
But as the title of the game suggests, this game is actually a whole campaign, laid out in a series of missions which get increasingly difficult. As you take actions you may unlock story nuggets which are well-written and may have drastic effects on future games, both in ways that make things easier or (much, much) harder. The whole thing creates a nice little narrative for Yu. And You. Who plays as Yu. Yu know what I mean.
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