Ex Libris

Ex Libris is a one to four player card game that has worker/tile placement. Players are librarians trying to build the perfect Library for their village. This perfect library has a list of books that the village wants and has banned from reading.Setup has players placing the town board, diviner's hut location, shuffling 17 location tiles, and dealing out library tiles equal to two per player. A first player is chosen, and in reverse player order a library tile is chosen. The library tile will determine the special assistant that will be joining the player's 2 standard assistants. The six category cards for the books in the game will be shuffled, one will be placed face up on the prominent works space, one to the banned books space, and one is given to each player to be their primary focus. The 152 library card deck will be shuffled and a starting hand of 6 cards will be given to players.Players are trying to build the perfect library that people in the town will want to use. They will score points based on Shelf stability (1 point for each card in a rectangular group), most Prominent works (1st 15 pts, 2nd 9pts, 3rd 4pts), Banned books (minus 1 point for each), Categorical variety (least amount of a category of book, 3 points each), Library focus (2 pts for player's category card).When building their library, players must build orthogonally to a card in their play area with the first card being placed anywhere they wish. The cards look like bookshelves and can only be three horizontal rows tall. The cards should be in alphabetical order with an additional number to show the order for the same letter. So, if a player plays a set of letters they are unable to incorporate a letter or number in-between two library shelves played.There are four rounds to a game:The preparation phase is when players flip over location tiles equal to the amount of players with the first round already having the diviner's hut. Locations will be placed in number order and any cards required for the location will be placed.The placement phase is when players will be playing their assistance to location tiles, or their own library tile, one at a time. The locations played on will either be an instant effect or a delayed affect. Instant effects are actions that will activate immediately, which usually involves getting library cards or playing cards to the players library area. A players personal library tile allows them to draw one library card or shelve one library card. It also lists the special ability of the special assistant.The Resolution phase is when delayed affects will transpire and will be done in tile order. Players will then take back their assistants from the tiles and remove any remaining cards on the location tiles.The finale phase is the Cleanup phase which has players discarding all locations drawn except for the lowest numbered location played, first round is the Diviner's hut. The lowest numbered location is placed on the town board as a permanent location for the players to visit, and does not count towards the location limit at the start of the Preparation phase.The game will finally end when a player has enough books shelved to trigger the final round. This is based on the amount of players: 2 players 16 cards, 3 players 14 cards, 4 players 12 cards. One last round is played before scoring.Overall, Ex Libris is an interesting game as players are deciding what cards to shelve and where to place their assistants. This leads to interesting choices as players will decide when they should give up on a letter, or if a library card is worth it even though it has a banned book. The hidden category card allows some hidden information as players would only be able to see some of the areas a player will score. Some of the special assistants are not balanced well as some can help a player dominate the game or simply feel useless. There is a recommendation area in the rule book, and it should be considered to keep the game balanced. The game is not bad, but it is not something that is incredible. It is a fun tile placement that has the worker placement change each game with what location tiles get flipped.If purchasing, make sure that players understand when the game will end. This is something that can quickly surprise everyone, especially if they are really getting into the zone of building their library. Also, make sure the special assistants are chosen correctly as it can not only lead to someone being very powerful, but some also really affect other players like the "Igloo of Information" simply closes off one instant effect location this special assistant is placed on. The solo game is okay, but lacks the depth of playing with other players. It is good at helping a player understand what a player is trying to accomplish when teaching the game.

So I found this game out of the blue as I am always looking for something new for game nights, and thought my librarian girlfriend would get a kick out of it (she did by the way). Her and I have played it between ourselves about four times and with a group of 4 twice. The game is light on strategy for the most part and its pace feels almost like it is set by how fast you want it to go. I would say it is mid to high on the replay-ability and is fairly relaxed with competition (although she still brags about how she destroyed me the first time we played). I would recommend this game for light game nights with adults and for playing as a family. The art work is well done, the game play is smooth, and each book on the shelves has a unique title which adds some fun during the game.

When I'm bored and alone at home, it's nice to know I can turn to Ex Libris for a great solo game. The solo mode is insanely easy to set up. There are no decisions to be made for an AI player whatsoever, which I love, and yet you are still in competition with an opponent--the public library! Of course it is also great to play with friends. The strategy changes in a group setting, but the basic mechanics are the same.The game's theme of library building is so cute, and I love that each card has unique alfabetized book names on the spine of each and every book! Easy to set up and put away, and I love that the score card is a dry erase board so you don't have to worry about running out of paper score cards!

"A, B C, D, E...wait, H? Where is H? Shoot! I can’t even squeeze this in now!"You’ll be reciting your ABC’s quite a lot and asking yourself questions about what goes where, and all the while wondering if you can possibly squeeze a few more letter “M” shelves into your crooked wreck of a library. Ex Libris a fun light-weight fantasy game where you seek out fantastic tomes and try to outdo your opponents. Everyone gets to play a different fantasy faction with a unique power in an effort to not only make the biggest and baddest library in town, but all to outscore everyone else.There are 6 types of tomes in Ex Libris and every game 1 type of tome will be a “banned book” one will be heavily favored (and score extra), and each player will have 1 of the remaining types as their own special focus. You also have to worry about building the actual shelves (represented by a selection of cards with random “books” in a certain letter of the alphabet; you can only build shelves up to 3 high, but as wide as you like, bearing in mind you miss out on points at the end if your shelves aren’t stable (missing spaces, or floating shelves).It’s a great game for literate people and could be REALLY great for kids as an educational tool. It’s not my usual flavor, I picked it up for my wife as a Christmas gift and she really loves it – it’s won me over too.

I got this as a quick game for board game meetups - it seems like it'll fit that well as a fairly simple to 'get' game of getting books and arranging them in alphabetical order, but it also advertises itself as playable with a solo mode. The solo mode works fine as a kind of tutorial to get a handle on how to play the game, but using the discard pile as the 'opponent' in the solo game means a lot of the more interesting ways to get cards are better off being ignored to avoid good cards getting discarded.

My wife works in a library, so this was a no-brainer. I thought it would be a little boring, but it is actually a pretty fun game. The rules are a little tricky if you read them, but there was a great youtube video on how to play that made it a lot clearer.There is actually a lot of strategy that goes on during this game, in all it was worth the money.

Though appearing simple, Ex Libris is a strategy game set in a library with some added twists. Collecting sets of books, ensuring the shelves are stable and in alphabetical order, there is a lot to think about when playing each turn. As a solo player this really works, though would love to see how it plays with more people. The cars are beautifully design and each title quirky and unique. Don't just place the cards without reading them!

Bin emotional in Schieflage bei diesem Spiel: ich wollte es unbedingt haben, sobald ich die Beschreibung gehört hatte, egal was kommt :)Das Spiel macht Spaß, die Ausstattung ist außergewöhnlich schön, kreativ und alles perfekt verarbeitet für lange Lebensdauer.Allerdings sind die Regeln viel zu kompliziert (es mal kurz jemandem erklären: Keine Chance!), und der Lernprozess erstreckt sich über mehr als nur die erste Session.

Every time you play it's different scenario since there is so many moving parts. Beautiful art and high quality parts. I warmly recommend this game.Also: Can be played also with only 2 players or even solo mode!

Attention j ai reçus une édition anglaise. Le manque de visibilité du site amazon permets difficilement de distinguer ce genre de produit car contrairement à la concurrence qui apposé sur sa photo de présentation produit une icône stipulant la langue de l édition chez Amazon il faut chercher dans le descriptif. Ayant acheté le jeu par la biai d un vendeur français je n imaginait pas qu il me vendait un jeu en anglais. Pour le coup aucun retour possible. Sinon au final j ai fini par trouver le même en français et le jeu est très très bien en soi.

Gran juego. Estupendo diseño, buen nivel estratégico. Lo recomiendo ampliamente para jugar en familia incluso con niños de 10 años en adelante.