Publisher: Ludus Magnus Lite
Player Count: 2-4 Players
Game Length: 20-30 Minutes
Complexity 2/5
Cultural trends have the ability to consume the attention and passions of the people. In 19th century London, a curious populace engaged in the search for the strange, bizarre and rare, collecting artifacts, writings and trophies to captivate their contemporaries. In Chamber of Wonders, you’re racing against friends as you travel the far reaches of London in an effort to secure the most amazing wonders, luring the community and build your status as the most accomplished collector of all things fantastic.
Players will engage in a modular, set collecting, worker placement experience where you’ll attempt to gather cards and partake in a variety of mini-games all with the goal of scoring the most points in a very limited timeframe. Efficiency and luck will play a major role as you not only attempt to fill your museum with different items, but you’ll do so in a way that makes the best use of your opportunities. Find out our thoughts and determine if Chamber of Wonders if your next board game adventure as we dive into the game below.
ON YOUR TURN
Despite its opulent and involved presentation, Chamber of Wonders is a very quick and straightforward game.
Variability sits at the heart of the game. Chamber of Wonders begins by selecting 4 unique locations to serve as the 4 locations your team of agents can visit. Each of these locations are represented by 3-dimensional standees displaying its real-life, historical counterpart. Each location is dual sided, with its own separate action you can tie into the game. From there, you’ll choose 4 contact cards representing dealers and shady business types you have the opportunity to engage with during the game. Each of these characters has their own unique action guaranteeing the potential for a completely new gaming experience each game for quite some time.
Depending on the variable setup, players will receive a number of coins and wonder cards to start the game.
Ultimately the winner of the game is the player to score the most points over a limited number of turns (8 or 9 depending on the player count). The primary means of scoring comes from playing your wonder cards in your display cabinets. There are 6 different card themes and they all score slightly different.
On your turn, you’ll place one of your agent meeples on 1 of the 4 London locations. The timing of this placement is key since you can only visit each location once at the most per game. When placed, you’ll activate the action associated with the space and have the option to visit 1 of the 2 adjacent contacts, performing that action.
Each location’s actions vary dramatically and activating the location at the right time can be key to your overall strategy. Each location acts as its own mini-game with its own unique mechanics. Some locations will allow you to sell chamber cards, while others will allow you to gain cards through bidding, trade, theft of push-your-luck style actions. These locations also typically engage the other players at the table limiting downtown between turns. The contacts have similar effects to the locations, but are optional and exclusive to the active player.
Once the active player has completed their location actions, every player has the opportunity to fill one of their display locations with chamber cards. This might mean a single card or a set of cards. For example, the more unique books you play at one time, the more points that display location scores at the end. Some cards have bonuses that can add to end game scoring or hinge on the items in yours or your opponents display cases. Hanging onto your cards as long as possible is key, but you’re also taking the risk that another player won’t have the opportunity to swipe the cards out from under you before you have the chance to play them. Of course, missing an opportunity to play cards with such a limited number of turns can be devastating.
When the final player plays their last agent meeple, players count up the points from their collected artifacts, add up any bonuses they’ve achieved and subtract any remaining wonder cards still in their hand. The player with the highest score wins the game and earn the title of “most envied, amateur museum curator.
ARTWORK & COMPONENTS
Chamber of Wonders, like most Ludus Magnus Kickstarter productions, boasts a dramatic table presence. The 3-D location cards give the game board real height and depth. The artwork is a little dark giving London a more mysterious, seedy feeling. The typography and graphic design sets the stage and theme to transport you safely back to the 19th century.
The display cases could have just been standard cardboard placeholders, but they’re actually 3-D spaces that have to be constructed. They definitely give the game more visual interest, but add substantially to the game’s overall footprint.
The rulebook is well laid out and clearly communicates the wide variety of actions in the game.
I think my only major complaint is actually two-fold: The icons in the game don’t always easily clarify the actions they’re associated with. Because of the iconography and extensive variety of actions associated with them, it would have been natural for each player to have a good player aide, but that was not included. I’ve heard there is an app in development, and it may mainly pertain to the solo mode, but I’m holding out hope it will include the much needed digital player aide.
PROS & CONS
➕ Great table presence with the 3-D game components
➕ Card artwork has tons of personality
➕ Multiple game modules create variety and true replay-ability
➕ Little downtime between turns thanks to simultaneous actions
➕ Multiple gameplay modes for different player counts
➕ Number of expansions to add more variety to the game
➕ Restricted worker placement mechanic does require you to plan out your turns to guarantee the best outcome
➕ Limited actions create urgency and places importance on each decision throughout the game
➖ Fairly large table presence doesn’t feel completely necessary
➖ No player aide
➖ I often felt my actions were predetermined ahead of time by the cards I drew limiting my strategic choices
➖ My game enjoyment varied depending on the chosen module combinations
WHY WOULD YOU LIKE THIS GAME?
Gamers looking for an impressive looking game without too much complexity will enjoy what Chamber of Wonders provides. Additionally, if you’re looking for a game with tons of variability and replay-ability, this has all been built in without having to buy countless expansions. While it’s primarily a worker placement game, there are many hints of other mechanics throughout the game such as bidding, card drafting and push-your-luck elements.
WHAT IS THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS GAME?
I would definitely have to say the game’s ability to provide different game play experiences by combining and contrasting different components is it’s strongest feature. You have the ability to customize the game as you see fit. This also means for different player counts since some location mini-games work better with 3 or 4 players while others provide plenty of impact at 2. This is something you can refine as you work your way through the game.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Chamber of Wonders is a fun and ambitious project when it works. I say “when it works” since my enjoyment of the game varies greatly depending on the locations and contact characters I combined. This was really only resolved over time as I became more familiar with the actions, how they worked individually and how they contrasted. It became a science to properly balance each game while still providing new and interesting experiences.
The gameplay itself is relatively simple. The location mini-game/actions only take a moment to resolve and you’re primarily managing a handful of cards in an effort to compliment your museum and build sets. There is a fair amount of interaction with limited downtime and the game plays at a breezy pace.
As an art director, I’m a huge fan of creative and decadent board game staging. I love building 3-D cardboard pieces that add dimension and engagement to games. Chamber of Wonders brings a lot of that character to the overall experience. The artwork and uniquely die-cut London locations sets a strong tone to the game. I do have to wonder if it might be a little overkill in this situation in relation to the game’s depth and length. It certainly doesn’t take a ridiculous amount of time to set up and tear down, but in a 20-30 minute game experience, it does feel a bit off-balanced.
The personality in the chamber cards was a nice surprise. There are so many strange and humorous wonders to collect. You might end up adding the Necronomicon to your book library, the Holy Grail beneath a countertop display, the hide of Gamera who appeared in Japanese sci-fi films and even a nod to Ludus Magnus’ successful Black Rose Wars game.
Normally it wouldn’t make a huge impression, but the lack of a player aide was a real struggle. While everything is clearly presented in the rulebook, I found myself often flipping between pages to re-verify different actions. I do think this could have been supplemented with more intuitive iconography. Perhaps its just me, but I felt the icons didn’t do a great job telling the story of the action it represented.
I do think there is plenty of fun to be had here, but the excitement was fairly limited in my experiences. The game’s arch was fine, but I was often left desiring more interesting decisions. I wanted to have more choices and choices that mattered to my end-game standing. It’s really a race to get as many cards in your hand as quickly as possible to open up your scoring opportunity as the game unfolds. You might have 6 or 7 more cards than your opponents, but they may not mesh well together. In those cases, you’re quickly working on liquidating the cards so they don’t count against you in the end game. Now if there wasn’t a great option available to sell cards regularly you’ll have to adjust your strategy early and expectations for scoring.
There is an asymmetrical addition to the game where players each receive a special ability card. This certainly helped drive strategy, but if my ability was only needing 2 monster parts as opposed to 3 to make a set, but I never get the right monster parts, it can be frustrating. Despite some occasional missteps, I certainly liked the game better with the ability cards added in.
I also had the opportunity to preview the Sherlock Holmes themed “A Chamber in Red” expansion. This adds a fun Holmes/Moriarty dance around the location board where ending up on a space with Moriarty unmonitored by Holmes (Dangerous Area) forces you to draw a misdeed card that may cause trouble at the end of the game. It also adds a Baker Street location and Dr. Watson contact card that interacts with the misdeed cards. This is a nice, thematic addition to the game that fits in nicely with the time period and fun personality of the game. If you find yourself enjoying Chamber of Wonders, you should definitely add this expansion.
Chamber of Wonders is a beautifully produced game with a lot of replay-ability. The gameplay is fast and often straightforward to a fault. The choices didn’t always hit the mark for me and it feels a tad overproduced for the weight and style of the gameplay. The artwork and artifact choices bring a lot of personality and joy to the experience and I completely respect the creativity that went into the production. I do think it plays best at 3 or 4 players and if you have the right group who enjoys quick plays, bidding and silly, push-your-luck style mechanics, this could be a lot of fun. While Chamber of Wonders doesn’t receive my complete seal of approval, going in with the right expectations and seeing where the true value of the game lies, has the potential to make memorable experiences at the game table.
