by W. Eric Martin

Chilean publisher Fractal Juegos has announced that its big title for SPIEL Essen 25 will be Feya's Swamp, a 2-4 player design from Helge Ostertag and Anselm Ostertag that combines elements of their 2005 design Kaivai with 2012's Terra Mystica, co-designed by Helge Ostertag and Jens Drögemüller.

Here's the short description:

In more detail, each player takes a clan board, playing on either the "normal" side that is the same for all clans or the "advanced" asymmetric side that is somewhat different for each clan. (Players can mix normal and advanced sides in the same game.)

In player order, each player chooses one of seven guide cards to determine the turn order for the round, their sailing range, their construction cost for settlement tiles, and their special ability. (As with pretty much all the elements of this game, more guide cards exist than are laid out, providing many knobs of variability from one game to the next.) Unchosen guide cards gain a fish to make them more enticing next round.

Clan boards, guide cards, and a worker and boat for each clan
In turn order, players place their three starting settlements one by one in the swamp next to an island, then play begins. Each of the four rounds consists of three phases: income, turns, and maintenance. Income is determined by the marked spaces on your clan board that you've uncovered during set-up and play, along with anything on your guide card.

For turns, in turn order you repeatedly:

• Place a worker to take a boat action,
• Place a worker to take a ground action, or
• Pass and take no more actions this round.

For each boat action, your range of movement is based on your guide card, plus any bonuses uncovered on your clan board. To fish, move each of your boats onto the fish of the season — 1-2 of the three colors of fish — then collect fish up to your capacity, which (again) is based on your clan board and your guide. To trade, move each of your boats next to a settlement and unload fish, gaining gold if the settlement is another player's and points if it's one of yours; each settlement can hold at most three fish, and rewards diminish as more fish pile up.

To build settlements, move each of your boats to a location where a settlement can be built, then pay gold based on your guide card and the number of settlements and spirit spaces already present on the island. Each time you build a settlement from your clan board, you receive the bonus depicted (if any) or an upgrade to your income or an ability.

All of the boat actions above require you to take an action with a particular boat in order to move it. To just move boats without this restriction, take the sail action, then move each boat to set them up for next turn or to land on a temple, take the topmost tile, and receive the listed reward, which diminishes for those who arrive later.


With the ground actions, you can improve sailing, which boosts your base sailing range and earns you points; celebrate, which earns you points based on the number of settlements on an island that have fish, while also earning the owners of those settlements points, after which you clear the fish; and add spirit worship, which has you add a neutral spirit tile to an island.

For each of the actions above, you place a worker on one of the available spaces designated for that action, sometimes earning a reward for choosing a space...and sometimes being required to pay mana gems in order to take one of the last spaces available. After each action, check whether you've achieved any of the three (of eight) race cards in play, cards that challenge you to, say, have five settlements on one island, reach +4 on the your sailing track, collect 7+ fish in one turn, or collect 30+ gold in a single trade.

When you pass, take one of the bonus tokens available for that round, return your guide, then select a new guide, then watch everyone else do their stuff. (Each player starts with three workers and can gain more by building the settlement tiles on which the extras are located.)

At game's end, you score for gold and mana gems on hand; fish in your settlements; score cards achieved; and your presence on each island, specifically the number of your settlements on an island multiplied by the number of spirit tiles/spaces on that island. (You use two of six score cards each game, with rewards such as 5 points per settlement next to a temple space or 4 points for each of your settlements on the smallest island or islands.)


As for how Feya's Swamp came to be, Helge Ostertag writes the following: