Lands of Galzyr Review

We’re off to the Lands of Galzyr! Adventure awaits us in this land of Daimyria where the anipeoples of near and far come together to live and prosper. You arrive in a bustling port, an unknown and lowly character. Seeking adventure and fame – by the end of your adventures, the folks of the land will be singing your name, and telling many a story of your heroic deeds. At least, that’s what you hope for. Let’s see what happens…

1-4 Players | 2 Hours | Designed by Seppo Kuukasjärvi and Sami Laakso

The world of the Animalfolks – Daimyria, which Snowdale Design has created as a setting to their games Dale of Merchants, Peacemakers, and Lands of Galzyr, is certainly a vibrant and delightful world. I find this kind of fantasy world particularly fascinating because of one particular decision the authors have made that is quite unusual. The land of Galzyr is located in Europe, (yes, the Europe of Earth, the one you are on now), and not in some vague location like a fairy tale, but specifically on the Black Sea. I love this – it’s our world – but everyone is animals …so I guess it’s not exactly our world. Animals from Australia have characteristics that Australian humans have, while also being native Australian animals. I could go on but I hope you get the point. It’s quite a novel idea for a fantasy world in my opinion, and it works so well in blending the familiar with the fantastical to draw you right into the story and world of the game.

How does it work?

Lands of Galzyr is a narrative adventure game that is very much on the ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ book end of the narrative/story boardgame spectrum. Gameplay elements are very light and the whole experience focuses on the story and adventure you will experience while playing the game.

Each game takes place over a number of days (e.g. 7 days is essentially 7 rounds) during which players are free to wander the map and explore stories, missions and quests. Each player’s turn, of which there is one per ‘day’, is pretty simple. You first optionally move your character up to 2 spaces around the board, and then you interact with a narrative element of the game. These can be locations on the board, quest cards you hold, or random events at your current location. Basically anything with a red 4 digit number on it is something you can do.

When you’ve picked what you want to interact with on your turn, you use the ‘app’ (storybook website) to look up that number. If you’re playing alone you do this yourself, if you have other players with you one of them will do it for you. An introduction to the story element will be read out, (maybe somebody is lost and needs help getting home) and then you will be presented with a series of decision points and challenges.

Stories have decision points in them, where you can simply choose from two or more options which will influence your outcome. More often though, you will be presented with challenges you need to overcome using your character’s skills. Using the example above, you might be given options to ‘search for a way back to their home’ or ‘ask around to find out where they live’. Both these options would require different skills which you may be better or worse at depending on your character’s current stats. To attempt a challenge, a player rolls 5 dice and hopes to roll the symbols that mean success for that challenge type. If you are specialised in certain skills you can substitute in dice that will give you a better chance of succeeding in those rolls. This mechanic is simple but adds a bit of uncertainty and tension to these challenge moments.

Players will travel around the map, following quest threads and seeking ‘prestige’ points for doing good deeds. When the game ends, maybe someone will win but it’s not really that important, Lands of Galzyr is more about experiencing the world of Galzyr and having some fun along the way.

What do I think?

Lands of Galzyr sits in this very interesting space in the tabletop world. It’s not quite an RPG, it’s not quite a boardgame. I think it can equally appeal to both crowds. Games take about 1-2 hours to play and while there is technically a way to ‘win’ it really doesn’t feel like winning is the goal while you are playing – it’s about the experience, the people you meet, the challenges you face.

The Good Stuff

• The game has a very nice welcome experience – upon opening the box players are greeted with a welcome letter that introduces the characters and runs you through the first time setup. There is also a travel brochure for Galzyr included, which introduces the setting and is a fun touch. It’s great to be able to hand it to new players to give them a rundown of the ‘world’ before starting to play.
• The game has a very simple gameplay loop which allows the experience to really focus on the narrative. It’s so simple I would say that basically anyone who enjoys a story could play along with this one, there’s really no complicated actions or mechanics, it’s really just making narrative decisions and rolling dice to see how you go on challenges.
• The ‘app’ guides you through the game pretty well. I didn’t find myself needing to check any rules in the rulebook as the app really manages the flow of gameplay so well, presenting players with narrative, instructing decision points and challenges and even acts as a bit of a tutorial too.
• The story is really detailed and I personally found it to be great quality. Most games of this kind you generally find the writing to be a bit ‘cheesy’ or ‘tropy’ but I was really impressed by the quality of the writing and world-building. It felt to me on the vibrant and engaging end of the writing quality scale – though I do admit the light hearted nature of a lot of the story beats could be interpreted as cheesy. I really think that the writing is the strength of this game though, and I really liked getting into the story while playing.
• There are so many choices you make in the game that feel like you have meaningfully impacted what is happening, or something genuinely surprising will come from your decisions. I like how the app is employed to help limit the visibility of what your decisions will do. One particularly great example of this was when a player used a gun to ‘solve’ a challenge. The player didn’t know in advance, but the app asked ‘did the player use a gun’ and because they did the outcome was wildly changed (sneaking through a locked door vs shooting it down and alerting the occupants).
• The included soundtrack that accompanies the app is full of great atmospheric music that fits with the world really well!
• The game has a really high level of production. All the components are really nice, the cards are high quality, the board and player boards are nice quality cardboard, and the skill markers are an interesting and unique component that work really well.
• I think one of the most interesting parts of Lands of Galzyr is there doesn’t really seem to be any firm concept of success or failure when you play through a story. Of course, things can clearly not go so well, but there is usually some sort of resolution and you feel you made progress.

The Bad Stuff

• There are two ways to use the ‘app’ – one is through the website which I had no issues with, but the other which is to install it via some app service thing, I tried and it didn’t seem to work that great. The app made my phone very hot and burnt through my battery in half an hour! Not sure if this is my phone or the app or what… but I recommend using the website version.
• I was disappointed to find that the character story (e.g. the storyline you start out on that is a quest tailored to your specific character) only lasts 1-2 games. After that there seems to be no more character specific content.
• Building on the previous point, there isn’t much in the sense of overarching story or narrative within the game. There are lots of little stories, and some quests that go for a bit longer and have multiple ‘stages’ or will ‘resurface later’, but there is really no core storyline within the game. In a way, this serves the casual player better.
• I don’t think this game is “great” for solo players. It’s great to play with another player so you can laugh together and enjoy the interesting and funny stories together. I’m happy playing a ‘serious’ narrative game solo but I think this would be less enjoyable without the shared experience due to the nature of the stories being more of a ‘hey haha look what happened’ sort of thing.

Lands of Galzyr is a one of a kind game – I think that the combination of being very light mechanic wise and very well rounded narrative wise fits into an interesting space that neither boardgames nor RPG games are currently servicing. The fact that you can really just wonder and discover a world with no real obligations, impending senses of doom or pressing missions makes this a very ‘cosy’ experience and much more of a ‘choose your own adventure’ sort of thing than many other games that offer a narrative adventure experience. I think this is a great game for fantasy lovers, people who want to share a fun narrative experience, and especially those who want to enjoy that without getting bogged down with ‘actions’ and ‘combat points’ and ‘skill trees’. I think the accessibility of the game means it’s a great option for families to enjoy together, as it’s easy for kids to play (maybe with a bit of reading help if needed) and engaging for adults. Lands of Galzyr is easily at the top of my list of narrative experience games and if you want to give it a go, you can check it out on the Snowdale Design website! — Oh, and there is a new expansion coming out soon!

The copy of Lands of Galzyr used for this review was provided to The Boardgame Detective at a discount for review purposes