Águeda: City of Umbrellas – Showers of Colors

Have you ever heard of The Umbrella Sky Project? Born from the Ágitagueda Art Festival in Águeda, the Umbrella Sky Project suspends umbrellas high above the city’s narrow streets, creating a beautiful, colorful canopy. Captivating and inspiring, the Umbrella Sky Project has spawned many other pop-up art installations, and now, a board game as well.

Águeda: City of Umbrellas is a worker placement, tile drafting/placement game for 1-5 players. Águeda is best for players at least eight years old, and a game lasts between 30-45 minutes.

Setup

Each player chooses a player color and takes their meeples, player board, café board, scoring marker, mural tiles, and two coins.

They put their player and café boards next to each other. Then, they put three meeples along the top of the player board and three on their café board. Their scoring marker goes on the market board in the middle of the table (at zero). Each player puts their three tourist tiles on the left side of the player board. And finally, aligns the six mural tiles face down on their café board.

Draw nine umbrella tiles from the bag and put them in the appropriate spots on the top of the market.

Draw two shop cards for the market. Randomly assign the colored wooden shop markers on the cards and market to show the public goals for the game.

Gameplay

On each player’s turn, they take umbrella tiles in a diagonal line from the market board. When taking a one-tile line players also take a coin from the bank. When taking a three-tile line however, players must pay a coin to the bank.

Players place these umbrellas on one of the three lines of their player board, proceeding from the leftmost spot. If a player covers a paint brush, they may flip their mural tile of that color on the café board. Once a player flips both mural tiles in a horizontal line they take the meeple for that line and put it on their player board at the top for a future turn.

Finally, players may place one or two of their meeples on an empty tourist tile. They assign each meeple to one of the colors on the tile, and gain one point per color that appears in that line on their player board. If a player cannot or chooses not to place any meeples on a tourist tile, they are “taking a break”. Return all meeples to the top of their player board and rotate the tiles. Each tile slides down to the next line and the tile at the bottom is moved to the top row.

Players take turns in Águeda until one player fills their player board with umbrella tiles. Once someone does, each other player takes one final turn.

Players add to their score for the final state of their mural tiles and shop card achievements. Subtract one point for every empty spot. The player with the most points wins!

Solo Mode

Águeda has a solo mode as well. The solo mode AI deck requires players to balance the colors of the tiles the automata captures after each turn. After a player’s turn, an AI card instructs the player to discard umbrella tiles from the market. These may be the tiles that appear the most or least, and sometimes the color matters. These tiles score points and go into the AI player’s pile for additional end-game scoring. It’s different than running an automa through their own turn, but it does the job to set up a foil for a solo player.

Impressions

At first blush, there’s a lot going on in Águeda. Players have to manage their murals, coin supply, and strategic placement of their umbrella tiles and meeples. Add to this the need to cycle tourist tiles to maximize points. The number of variables to balance quickly seems like it would become unwieldy.

And yet, Águeda is still incredibly smooth. The biggest hiccup in this game is forgetting to refresh the market with new umbrella tiles. But even this is immediately brought into focus at the beginning of the next player’s turn. Águeda does a masterful job with sequencing. Within each sequence of the game, there are only a few decisions to make:

1. Choose a line of tiles, one of eight available
2. Put the tiles on one of three lines, orienting them to hit the paintbrush icons
3. Place a meeple or two (or don’t) on one of three lines

Sure, there are plenty of factors that make these decisions more complex, like the market cards and the tourist tiles. But, at the end of the day Águeda limits the number of choices at any given time, dramatically helping with analysis paralysis.

It takes a special kind of game for me to be willing to play it solo, just to get more reps in. I’m not convinced Águeda is that game. Once I figured out how the AI scored, I felt like I could manage my own board and the market well enough to keep the AI’s tiles fairly balanced. I ended up being able to beat the highest difficulty without too much trouble. I’m not sure this one shines as a solo player experience.

Will it Last?

In our plays we didn’t see people trying for many different kinds of strategies. This does make me worry a little about how long Águeda will last. But, its smooth gameplay, gorgeous art, and great tactile experience (I just love these umbrella tiles) really work for me – and for my kids.

Plus, knowing that the game is based on a real thing that is genuinely cool means Águeda will have a spot on my shelf, at least for a while.

You can pick up your own copy of Águeda: City of Umbrellas directly from 25th Century Games, on Amazon, or you can ask for it at your friendly local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Águeda: City of Umbrellas from 25th Century Games for this review.

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