Publisher: Lucky Duck Games
Player Count: 1-4 Players
Solo mode: Yes
Game Length: 60-120 Minutes
Complexity 3/5

In Oros, you’re taking on the mantle of a demigod with the ability to move islands and oceans, disrupt volcanos and form mountains. As you build up the land, you instruct your followers in proper worship as you gain wisdom and grow in power.

Oros is a think-y, mid-weight game with a fun, vibrant production that could potentially appeal to both fans of euro-style strategy and abstract puzzles. In this worker placement and tile laying game you’re moving tiles across a gridded piece of earth, dispersing workers to take actions in an often limited selection of spaces, moving up knowledge tracks and building sacred sites as you tussle with your opponents for control of the most valuable land spaces. Points are earned through a variety of means including both how rapidly you progress as well as how valuable you weigh your achievements.

In the review that follows, I’m hoping to familiarize you with what a turn looks like, where Oros succeed and fail and ultimately to help you determine if it’s right for you.

ON YOUR TURN

Each player begins the game with a small group of followers (or workers) they’ll use repeatedly throughout the game to execute actions and initiate achievements. These workers live on a personal player mat where the majority of actions are triggered while overlooking an additional gridded board featuring a map of the known world.

The personal player mat features 6 primary actions that function like a rondel where you move a worker from one action space to another empty space. These actions will allow you to manipulate the map board such as moving land tiles in various ways, forcing volcanic eruptions, sending workers to study, moving workers across the map or building sacred sites.

On your turn you have the opportunity to take any 3 of these actions that are available to you.

The map area begins the game with a humble selection of land tiles. The land tiles are valued from 1 to 4 and feature different geographic shapes allowing or limiting your followers movements. Throughout the game you’ll cause these land tiles to collide and increase in value. The ultimate goal is to bring 2 level 4 land tiles together to form a mountain. It’s on these mountains that your followers can build sacred sites earning you points.

Each of these personal actions can be upgraded by sending workers to study and gain knowledge. Initially, players have the space available to send 2 players to study, but these spaces increase as more sacred landmarks are built. It requires an action to send workers and another to draw them back. Once a worker returns to your player board you can increase the power of any of your 6 primary actions. Each action can be improved up to 5 times earning you bonuses, new abilities and valuable points. One of the key ways to earn points is by upgrading one of the building actions. These upgrades each increase the final value of 1 of the 3 different sacred sites you build during the game.

After each sacred site is built, players advance on the advancement board earning a higher end game point total and ultimately serving as a countdown to the end of the game.

Oros does provide a unique puzzle combining worker placement/strategy and abstract approaches. While your workers trigger the actions, a lot of the gamesmanship stems from forming, destroying and rotating tiles across the map. The map functions like an advanced game of Pacman as tiles wrap around and contour the gridded area. This creates an interesting struggle from both an individual perspective and defensive approach to bring the highly valued tiles together where you can reach them while also protecting them from your opportunistic opponents.

Like any tech-tree based euro, there is always a balance between growing your abilities and securing points. It’s no surprise that doing both well is necessary for victory.

Oros is a 1-4 player game which means there is a dedicated solo mode, but there are also 4 unique AI opponents that can be used to make a 3 or 4 player game. The AI opponents are tied to each of the 4 demigod players and feature varying difficulty levels. It took a game to familiarize myself with the AI icons, but once I got it all straight the AI was a breeze to execute. And it really does need to be a breeze because Oros requires you to have a minimum combination of 3 real or AI players on board. For a solo game you would need to run 2 additional AI.

Once the first player summits the advancement board, the game ends and the player with the most points is the winner.

ARTWORK & COMPONENTS

The artwork in Oros has a clean, friendly feel with bright colors and smooth lines. I found this to be very ironic since the actions focus on violent volcanic eruptions and brutal land collisions. The components including a small army of meeples, tiles, miniature wooden volcanos and much more are all really well done. Initially, I felt the player mats were a little thin, but after a game, they seemed to work just fine. There is a lot to manage here when it comes to setup and tear down, but careful packing takes the pain out of the process.

The rulebook presents everything in an organized and coherent way, but did let me down by failing to address some small rule issues. Fortunately I was able to connect with the Oros community on BoardGameGeek.com and find the answers.

PROS & CONS

➕ Figuring out how to smash and build up land tiles is good fun

➕ The artwork draws you immediately into the game

➕ I enjoy a system where actions are limited based on your previous choices – Oros does a fine job forcing you to carefully consider your actions and plan for the future. Bonus Pro: I also enjoyed how gaining new workers can simultaneously benefit you and limit your actions by clogging up your action spaces.

➕ The tile movement/abstract puzzle is super think-y. The unique way the tiles move across the grid provides freedom, but also an added layer of consideration. Add in the fact that mountains cannot be moved and you find yourself limited in unexpected ways.

➕ I think there is a good balance of complexity and accessibility.

 

➖ When the board gets congested, I find physically moving tiles around a challenge for my fingers.

➖ The AI can be challenging, but I often audibly called out the AI for cheating.

➖ This isn’t a universal con, but game length varies quite a bit based on player count and decision making.

WHY WOULD YOU LIKE THIS GAME?

Fans looking for more out of their abstract, tile laying games are going to enjoy this. Oros brings a fresh and challenging tile-merging puzzle that’s complemented by an entire tech-tree/upgrading system that functions almost like an engine builder.

WHAT IS THE BEST THING ABOUT THE GAME?

Colliding tiles and erupting volcanoes to build new lands doesn’t always work in your favor, but when it does it’s certainly the most satisfying element in the game.

FINAL THOUGHTS

On the surface, I really love everything about Oros. Visually, it’s super attractive—the entire production really drew me right in from the artwork to the components. Huge props to the art team behind Oros.

I love pairing an abstract puzzle inside a euro-game engine. I’ve seen this done quite a bit lately on a smaller scale, but the big map board provides an almost infinite set of opportunities to potentially manipulate these tiles into points, but on multiple levels.

For the most part, my appreciation of Oros as a whole isn’t just on the surface.

I get think-y turns that can be AP-inducing aren’t for everyone. It’s not going to happen every turn and it won’t happen every game, but Oros can be slow to materialize. The issue is, while Oros would appear to benefit the long-term planner, the constantly changing board demands short-term contingencies. Having a player “steal” or move a tile just outside of your action ability (especially early when your powers are weak) can be frustrating. I actually dig the think-y turns and don’t mind the slow gameplay as long as there is an eventual payoff. The real payoff seems to come with time and practice. Early on I wasted a number of turns, leaving my plans exposed and eventually foiled by nasty opponents. The strategy started to become more clear just halfway through the first game and my appreciation for the game’s puzzle grew quickly.

Choices throughout the game are super engaging and I really enjoy the ability to have 3 actions each turn. This definitely counters some of the challenges brought on by an ever-evolving board. The limited action selection system is its own little efficiency puzzle that you’ll get more out of the more you put in. I also appreciated the ability to send individual workers to study and then bring them all back at the right time. It’s a give and take since your ability to get more workers on the board to study coincides with your ability to upgrade the number of workers you can have on the board (which is earned by studying). It’s a simple engine-building mechanic, but it’s accentuated by the need and desire to do a whole slew of other things at the same time.

The biggest regret I have for the game is moving the tiles around the board. As the board grew, I found myself often knocking tile stacks over as I tried to move tiles across the board. I don’t see a better alternative, It’s just one of those things where the tactile nature of the game rubbed me the wrong way. Unfortunately, this is a pretty prominent feature of the game. As I read back over this paragraph I almost feel guilty about how petty this may come across. This may not be a problem for you, but I really struggled with it.

Lastly, I want to address the game’s accessibility. Oros isn’t a difficult game to teach. In fact, it provides a really nice balance between its complexity and ease to teach. The iconography may seem overwhelming at first, but it quickly comes into focus and shouldn’t deter a new player for too long. I was very pleased with how easy the game was to jump into and how quickly I adjusted and adapted to the game’s experience.

While Oros looks like a family game and has good accessibility, this is a think-y gamer’s game that rewards multiple plays and appeals to tile layers and abstract gamers looking for a more challenging experience. I think it’s the kind of game that will either resonate with you immediately or completely put you off… but that’s typically the case with most abstract games in my experience. Oros is a creative, ambitious production that can be really rewarding in the hands of the right audience.