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Pitch: Ancient Egypt... The temple of Sobek is being built and the market place is thriving. Loads of goods arrive by ship for the construction site and it is a race to pick the best items in order to sell them with the most profit.
Of course, with so much at stake, not all the moves are legal, corruption is everywhere and cordiality scarce. Because in the end there can be only one winner!
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Famous Bruno Cathala's (Cyclades, Dice Town, Shadows Over Camelot, Mr. Jack, MOW...) latest design is a fast paced card game well suited for the whole family, with tactical choices, luck, and a bit of cunning.
Each turn you have to choose if you want to take a goods card, play a character with a special power or display a set of matching goods cards.
While taking a profitable card, you often collect corruption points, which add up in a pile in front of you.
During each round five sets of nine cards are put at the players' disposal. When all cards are gone, there is a scoring for all displayed cards, but beware, the player with the most corruption sigils sees his income almost cut down in half.
The game ends after 3 rounds or if a player has reached a hundred points.
- Solid two-player design with deep tactical decisions and approachable core rules
- Good production value for price, with a nice bag and well-made components
- Arc pawn and corruption mechanics add meaningful tension and strategic depth
- Rulebook is clear and learnable; reference aids help during play
- Iconography can be non-intuitive; players often rely on a reference aid
- Token drawing introduces luck swings; distribution and the chance element can affect balance
- Endgame trigger can surprise players if not paying attention to scoring and corruption
- Set collection and trading with an Egyptian motif and corruption tension
- Ancient Nile river market and trade
- Abstract thematic framing with competitive, tension-filled market tug-of-war
- Jaipur
- Seven Wonders Duel
- Splendor Duel
- Radlands
- Great Plains
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- arc pawn directional twist — The ank pawn switches the accessible market lines; moving it twists access and creates tactical positioning.
- character abilities — Each tile can activate a character with a special ability, adding strategic variability.
- endgame scoring via corruption — Taking tiles can push corruption on your track; end-of-game scoring rewards lower corruption and tallies points from sets and tokens.
- perogue (scoring) tokens and discard effects — Selling sets can grant tokens for points or one-off abilities; some tiles grant discard effects leading to more points.
- set collection — Draft and assemble sets of goods to score, with multiplier effects from scarabs on tiles.
- tile drafting / market selection — Take tiles from a market on a 6x6 grid, with the ank pawn orientation constraining which tiles are accessible.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Sobek two players forget the tagline it's just basically sobek except now it's only a two player game
- I am evil homer
- for a 20 pound price tag maybe slightly over you're getting a really good amount of components
- it's not a gateway game per se
- the endgame trigger can sneak up on you
- this is another solid two player game that if this is your wheelhouse
References (from this video)
- Strategic depth
- Forward-planning mechanic
- Interesting decision-making
- Competitive shopping
- Ancient Egyptian Market
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- tile placement — Take tiles from a market line, with each selection determining the next possible moves
- tile selection — Take tiles from a market line, with each selection determining the next possible moves
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- More than any video I've ever made I would swear by these games
- We've played over a thousand games together