Murano

Murano is a worker placement game set in the beautiful city of Murano, Italy. The game board depicts the islands of Murano, with the islands being divided up into building sites and walkways. Surrounding the islands is a series of action spaces, with gondolas being present in some number of them at the start of play.

On your turn, you move one of the gondolas in the direction of play to an empty space, then take the action shown there. You can't pass another gondola while moving or land in an occupied space, but for a coin you can move a gondola that's in front of the gondola you want to move, and you can pay to move multiple gondolas, if needed.

Some actions place shops on the islands, with shops coming in different types. You mark a shop to show ownership, and when tourists show up later, they will shop at various stores depending on their proximity and the goods they offer. You also need to take actions to move your personal gondolas to islands so that you can take actions there.

The goal of the game is to score victory point cards in hand, and actions on the board will let you gain additional VP cards to give you direction to your actions or let you profit from what you've already done. You can also use some of the buildings to create glassworks, and those glassworks come into play on the VP cards, through tourist sales, and via an action space shown at the bottom of the game board image that lets you sell different types of glass for money.

I really enjoyed playing Murano. It's a very strategic game with a lot of replayability. The different paths to victory make it interesting to play multiple times. I also like how the game forces players to be careful with their money and resources. The game is a bit on the heavier side, but I think it's a great choice for experienced eurogame players.

One thing I did find a little challenging was the rulebook. I found it to be a bit confusing in places. However, once I got the hang of the rules, I really enjoyed the game.

Overall, I would highly recommend Murano to anyone looking for a challenging and strategic worker placement game. It's a great game for families and those who prefer indirect conflict in their board games.