Link: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/126163/tzolkin-the-mayan-calendar
Playing Time: 90 Minutes
Weight: Mid-to-Heavy
Genre: Worker Placement & Resource Management
Designer: Simone Luciani, Daniele Tascini
Players: 2-4
Whenever people see Tzolkin on the table, they’re immediately intrigued. It’s the fuckin’ wheel, a beautiful choreography of gears turning, one that invites wonder and curiosity. And for good reason: mastering the wheel is how one masters the game.
Players start the game with 3 workers and on each turn, must either place workers on or take them off of various gears which are all connected to the central wheel. When you place them on, they’ll go on near the origin of the wheel, and when you pull them off, you’ll get rewards for doing so based primarily on how long they’ve been riding the gear. Letting some workers ride for a bit is crucial to getting big paydays, but you also need to compliment this with some short-term thinking, to be sure you have the resources you need to build and the food you need to feed your people.
Tzolkin isn’t a perfect game – it takes a little longer than it should and despite having tons of promise and intrigue, the gameplay path of building construction and wonders never seems to pay off. Despite all of that, it’s a meaty, thinky take on worker placement that will likely never leave your collection once it calls it home.
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