Lizard Wizard Board Game Review
Designed by Glenn Drover
Lizard Wizard is the next exciting game in the Racoon Tycoon series. This game is an economy, action selection game with a set collection like its predecessor. Published by Forbidden Games, this is a game for 2–5 players with a playtime of around 45–90 minutes. Lizard Wizard offers new mechanics to the original Racoon Tycoon game with a new theme. You are a wizard trying to recruit others to your cause from the seven schools of magic. You must carefully decide on a strategy as there are multiple ways for attaining gold and achieving victory depending on what they decide. Will you be the most powerful Arch-mage?
How to Play
With its multiple avenues for achieving success, it’s up to each player to decide on their course of play to maximize their chances. On a single turn alone, each player has the option of one of these six actions: Gather, Convert, Recruit, Create, Summon, Research/Cast.
Action one is to gather magical ingredients with “Reagent cards”. Reagent cards depict a number of the seven magical ingredients needed to increase your wizard’s mana pool. You can collect up to 3 of the ingredients depicted on the top of the card unless a spell card has been activated to allow more. If the card shows more than 3 ingredients, it is up to you to decide which 3 to take. The bottom of the card shows the players which ingredients’ ratio to mana will be increased on the main player board. This is done by simply moving the mana ratio up one space per ingredient depicted on the card for all ingredients shown and multiple of the same ingredient will push up the mana that number of times on the track. A player can have no more than 3 reagent cards in their hand during any given time unless a spell card has been activated increasing the limit to a max of 5. Players can only carry up to 10 magical ingredients at a time, plus 1 for every Tower card in a player’s possession. Any time players’ storage limit is reached through gathering, ingredients must immediately be discarded down to the limit. Along with the Tower cards, Wizard cards can be a huge advantage while gathering resources as they give you an extra ingredient that is depicted on the upper left corner of the card. Numerous ingredients can be gathered this way depending on the number of Wizards under a player’s control. After a player successfully gathers their reagent, drawing back up to your hand limit of 3, players may, if they have the ability, cast a spell using reagents as catalysts to do so.
Action two is converting gathered reagents into mana. Mana is used during auctions and most purchases, making converting necessary for the other actions. The effectiveness of a conversion depends on the number of a reagent resource a player has on hand and the ratio to mana value that that particular ingredient has on the main player board. Veterans of Racoon Tycoon will recognize this economic mechanical option of “selling” or “trading” in their resources depending on the current “price” for the resource. Players will take the number of resources available and multiply that by the number that that current reagent’s mana value is sitting at. Once a player has collected the appropriate mana the board’s resource ratio to mana will decrease depending on the number of resources they used. In this case, if a player sold two resources they would decrease that specific resource’s mana value by two on the main player board.
Action three is to compete with other Arch-mages to recruit wizards. This is done by creating an auction for one of the two wizards available on the board. The turn player will start the bid using their mana. Bids will continue around the table until all players have passed, leaving the player with the highest bid of mana in possession of the new recruit. Each wizard is linked to a school of magic and helps players collect reagents during gathering. If the turn player did not win the auction, they then get another turn of any one of the six actions.
Action four is to create a tower. Each tower has a school of magic depicted on the top right of the card. Players will want to try and match each school of magic together to gain more points at the end of the game. Towers can be purchased by spending reagent resources or gold(VP). Each tower also gives the player more storage, increasing their personal reagent resource supply limit by one.
Action five is summoning familiars. By using mana, players can perform a summon of one of the two familiars shown on the board. Familiar cards have four sub-actions available to players. Immediately after summoning a familiar, players can take only one of these actions.
Scoring: like tower and wizard cards, familiars also have a school of magic. When players decide to use a familiar to score, they will gain 1 gold coin(VP) per card that they own (towers, wizards, and previously summoned familiars) that shares the same school of magic as the familiar that was summoned.
Gather: like reagent cards, familiars have some resources for players to collect. When used to gather, players will take the available reagent resources on the card and can cast any spell that they currently own and have the proper reagent resources for. This is the one time that the limit to reagent storage doesn’t apply immediately and that more than one spell can be cast at once. Players above their limit have the option to use the reagents in their spells instead of having to discard.
New Research: Players search for spells to better benefit their cause. This is done by clearing out the face-up four spells currently on the board and refreshing the board with four new cards. One of these is then taken and put into the player’s unused spell deck. Delve: a familiar’s final choice of action that allows a player to enter a dungeon. This is a new push-your-luck mechanic that can give you end game scoring as well as giving you immediate VP through gold. To do this, the player will draw cards from the dungeon deck to reveal gold, treasure, or monsters. If the card depicts a monster it is up to the player to decide if you would like to continue searching for spoils or stop. Once a player has uncovered their second monster card, they are defeated and get nothing from the dungeon. If the player successfully stops before revealing two monster cards that player is victorious and will receive the looted gold and treasure. The treasure cards can be worth victory points at the end of the game. The dungeon’s difficulty will increase the more players enter as monsters are always shuffled back into the deck while players keep gold and treasure cards that they successfully gained.
Action six, the final action, is to research and cast powerful spells. Players have the option to research and cast one of the four face-up spell cards shown on the board by first acquiring the card through a payment of the mana cost on the top left of the card. To then cast this newly acquired spell, that player has to have the available reagent resources. If this cannot be done immediately after researching the spell, the player will have to cast it later either using a familiar or after gathering through the use of a reagents card. Each spell card has a duration that is shown on the card through one of three symbols. Spells with a 1x are powerful and activated once, never to be used again. Cards with an arrow symbol will activate, properties gained immediately, and then are placed in the player’s hand to be activated again by reagent resources. The last type of spell cards shows a recycling symbol that represents the active status of the card that remains for the duration of the game.
The Good
Lizard Wizard has multiple mechanics that can satisfy many different players’ desired wants in a game. Its beautiful artwork and a difference in theme can attract more players that weren’t so keen on the previous game in the series. With more mechanics, this game has more depth in strategy and varying methods of winning.
The Bad
Too many mechanics can leave players feeling like some of them aren’t necessary. Seven resources and seven schools of magic can make a playthrough lengthy to get through as game end isn’t triggered until one deck of either wizard, tower, familiar, or spell cards are completely depleted. The luck-based mechanic on the dungeon could be set up better with knowing when the dungeon is completed instead of having to count the treasure and gold cards between players. This game is very similar to Raccoon Tycoon in a way that doesn’t leave veteran players of the series feeling like this is a new game.
First Play-through Experience and Final Thoughts
I played this game with a group of five and then later decided to try the game out with two players to see the varying difficulty and the skill required for both. My first group is in love with the predecessor Racoon Tycoon so I thought this game would be right up their ally. I quickly became aware that though this game has similar mechanics to Racoon Tycoon it has a lot more variability in gameplay and different mechanics that can seem unnecessary. The great thing about having a large playing group is that you can see all the different directions every person was taking. Some had a great time in the dungeon while others were busy trying to bid and collect all of the same school of magic. It’s a very tough decision game where there is no right answer and the decisions you make can affect everyone else. For me, the theme of this game was a lot more attractive to me than the previous game. If I had to choose between the previous game and the current one, I would choose this game. I like that it has multiple avenues for winning and the right strategy for one game can be completely different depending on how many players you have, the cards presented, and the looming dungeon. This is a great game for older ages. With so many mechanics this game can feel a little overwhelming for younger players.
