Illimat has the style and flavor of a classic card game with a dynamic twist. As you play, you combine cards and collect them, trying to gather more than your opponents. But hidden Luminaries and changing seasons can alter your plans. Featuring a cloth board, metal tokens, and illustrations by Carson Ellis.
Illimat supports two to four players and a single round takes approximately fifteen minutes. The cloth board is divided into four fields, and the box the game comes in is also a component of the game: it sits in the center of the board and sets the seasons for each field, which affects the actions that can be performed in each field. Turning the box and changing the seasons is a critical part of the strategy of the game.
Illimat has been playtested with devoted gamers and people who haven't played a game in years. The result is a game that's easy to learn, dynamic, and just a little bit addictive.
—description from the publisher
- Beautiful board presence and chunky components
- High interaction and shared incentives
- Streamlined rules and quick teaching
- Dynamic and swingy scoring due to volcano and color stacks
- Strong production values
- Early game can feel directionless and may require a leap of faith before incentives cohere
- Initial board state is sparse, which can feel mystifying
- Icons on tokens and boards are small and hard to read
- Round length around 90 minutes, longer than some players expect
- Planning can feel unclear early on before the incentives emerge
- Resource management and area control driven by dynamic volcanic market and incentive manipulation.
- Volcanic island with a central volcano, surrounding forests and a canoe-based movement.
- Abstract procedural with shifting goals and scoring
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Canoe movement ( rondelle ) — Players must move a canoe token around the board in circular increments and interact with multiple action options.
- Forest tile collection — Visit forests to collect tiki tokens that can be placed on canoes or on board sections.
- Intermediate and final scoring — Scoring occurs both mid-game and at the end, with complete scoring of all sections owned by players.
- Placement on Volcano board and scoring by color stacks — Tikis are stacked on the central volcano, and scoring uses the highest stack per color with multipliers for non-highest colors.
- Shared incentives and collaboration — Players can align incentives by positioning tiles and tokens to benefit multiple players, adding negotiation-like interaction.
- Volcano and holy stones — Tikis placed into the volcano generate holy stones that can be spent to move tokens or take actions.
- Volcano bonuses — Special actions that modify scoring or allow moving tiles across volcano sections, adding strategic control.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- The way the scoring works is each player is going to score every single one of the sections that they have in front of them.
- It's beautiful. It's got great board presence.
- these icons are so small.
- It's a thinky game for sure.
- A little concerned about the start.
- I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it's a secret train game.
- Nobody disliked it.
- There's a lot to think about.
- I could see myself playing that game again.