Playing La Stanza

In previous La Stanza previews, we provided insights in game play and took a closer look at characters. Today, in our last preview, we will show you the main game board. Furthermore, receiving money and bonus tiles will be discussed in detail.

Let’s start off by showing you the main game board! The game board is divided into six rooms, of which five are colored discipline rooms and one is a bonus tiles room. Each room bears its own specialisation, both in terms of possible actions, as in floor, objects and decoration in the room. In each of the five discipline rooms, there is a different action available. Strength 1, 2 and 3 grants you specific increasing benefits. Depending on the room, these consists of: steps on the money track (blue), books granting bonuses (red), discs to increase future action strength (green), museum tiles for majority scoring at game end (yellow) and colored meeples for remoting actions from other rooms (white). Also available in each discipline room are multiple masterpieces, of which each player may at most create a single one per room, granting you a good number of Prestige Points.

Continuing where we left off two weeks ago, the brown player hires two blue characters (as depicted in the picture below), bringing his/her blue action strength to 3. The brown player executes the action in the blue discipline room (as per the rules), or is able to execute the action from another room by discarding a meeple of the associated action color (blue in this case).

So, discarding a colored meeple lets you “remote” an action of the associated color, when your player meeple is not located in that room. You may still hire one or more characters, but this is no longer mandatory if you discarded a meeple. You may also discard a colored meeple while actually having your player meeple in the associated room, but not being able to recruit a character. Discarding a colored meeple thus cancels out both conditions that normally apply to each action. In the end, the sailboat of the brown player moves 3 spaces on the money track by this action (in this example, from $9 to $12), as shown in the picture below.

Instead of executing a main action, you can alternatively receive money from your Financier. That is the bottom left tile on the player board shown earlier in this article. To receive money, move your Financier tile one space to the right (possibly displacing your rightmost character) and get UP TO the amount shown by your sailboat on the money track. In this example, the brown player would refill its money up to $12.

The last explanation in this preview has to do with bonus tiles. In the middle bottom room on the main game board, 12 bonus tiles are available (one of each, see picture below). You can claim such a bonus tile if you land your turn in this bonus tiles room. As per exception, you won’t take a character tile here and multiple players can land on this spot simultaneously.

If you meet the requirements of one or more bonus tiles, you can acquire precisely one of them each time. You do so by discarding a meeple in its color and placing one of your player discs on the now empty spot. For now, the rewards are up for you to decipher :D, but we’ll list the requirements. Have reached a white meeple on the money track (blue), have two discs in the same box in the religion room (green), have written a book in each color (red), and finally, have a total museum tile value of at least 5 (yellow). If you meet double the requirement, you are able to acquire a second tile of that color in a later turn. But be quick, since each tile is only available once!

We hope you are as excited for this game as we are! To be able to get your hands on La Stanza, you can support us on Kickstarter. We will offer both a Basic edition and a Deluxe edition. The Deluxe edition will contain larger custom wooden parts and metal coins. It will also come in a box with gold foil embossing. We have a list of Stretch Goals prepared, of which some are exclusive to the Deluxe edition. But more on this later ;). This Kickstarter campaign will launch on Tuesday January 8th!