Stats:
No. of players: 2-6
Amount of time to play: 40 min
Age requirements: 8+
Set-up time: 5 min

Drakon Rules Description:

In Drakon you are an adventurer that has been captured trying to loot a dragon’s lair. Instead of just eating you all she decides to allow one adventurer to go free. Whoever is the first to collect ten gold from her magical dungeon may leave. Everyone else is lunch.

This game looks good and plays quick. It is easy to teach and learn as the gameplay is fairly simple. On your turn you either move your adventurer or lay a tile. You may only move your adventurer in the direction(s) the arrows point and you may not lay tiles so that 2 arrows point towards each other. But other than that there are no restrictions on player movement or tile laying.

At the beginning of Drakon you have a starting hand of 4 tiles. After laying a tile you replenish your hand. Most of the tiles have an icon on them. This icon tells you what landing on that tile (or sometimes placing it) lets you do. Some let you take money from the dragon’s hoard or other players and others let you destroy tiles. Coins have a value of 1-3 and are randomly taken from the dragon’s hoard. They are also kept secret so you never quite know how much gold another player has.

Drakon herself makes an appearance in the game and some tiles let you move her. If she ends her movement (up to 3 tiles) on a tile with any adventurers they are returned to the starting tile and lose one random coin. You also suffer this fate by moving into her tile.

As I stated earlier the first player to have ten gold worth of coins wins.

A Quick Review of Drakon:

Drakon is a fun game with a medium amount of strategy and luck. It has a great range as it can be played with young and old alike. The strategy is not too deep as things can change fairly quickly between your turns. That being said it isn’t like on your turn the plan you had set up will always be ruined or have to change.

Game time varies but is never too long and with so many different tiles there is lots of replayability. There can be some politicking as players will try to convince you they are not a threat. Or that someone else is closer to winning then they are. This game definitely has players ganging up on the perceived leader.

I do think after 4 or 5 games it gets a bit too repetitive in one sitting, but the theme is fun and this game can find its way to most anyone’s table.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 3 out of 6
Luck 3 out of 6
Player Interaction 6 out of 6
Replay Value 5 out of 6
Complexity 2 out of 6
Fun 5 out of 6
Overall 4 out of 6