A picture is worth a thousand words, and maybe a thousand points if you play your cards right! Okay … maybe not that many. But as you travel around Barcelona, you’ll want to make sure you snap plenty of photos of all the best places to show your opponents that you’re the best photographer around, and win the photography contest! Ready to give it your best shot?

What Is It?

A point-to-point movement game where players move around the map each turn, then take an action. Players can spend transport cards to move a faster, but can only refill their hand if they stop at an information point. If they want to travel even farther, they can use their action to take the metro and go to any other unoccupied metro point. Otherwise, their action can be to take photos of natural light locations (which will allow them to score points for landmark cards at the end), landmarks (worth 3 – 5 points at game end), or skyline buildings (score for each set of connected buildings, according to individual city skyline tiles). If a player is lucky, they can encounter the dragon with their action, who will let them take a photo of anything they want, or refresh the available landmark photos. The game ends once a player has 8 landmark photos, and the player with the most points wins!

Who Is It For?

  • Ages 8 +
  • 2 – 6 Players (Shines at 3+)
  • Fans of light, family games
  • Fans of the theme / landmarks of Barcelona

Variants

Starter Kit – This version of the game takes out the natural light track (meaning players will always score all of their landmark cards, and don’t have to worry about that extra step), takes out the “zoom” feature for photos (so players always have to be on an exact spot to take a picture), and takes out the city skyline tokens (so players just score for how many skyline tokens they have, and don’t have to worry about groups).

This was a nice option for beginners, or if you’re playing with a younger audience, and I appreciated the rules being in there. I think if you are already familiar with games though, you’ll probably be able to jump right into the standard mode with no problem. I think the standard mode is much more interesting thanks to the addition of the natural light track and the city skyline tiles.

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Vibrant board, nice art on the cards, very visually appealing overall
  • Components – Everything is nice quality. I also love the little camera player boards, great choice for the theme
  • Multiple paths to success – you can have a heavy focus on landmarks or skylines and do well either way
  • Transport cards are a nice touch so you can move faster to accomplish your goals. And I like that you don’t automatically draw a new card when you use one, which helps emphasize their value
  • Natural light track is a great way to ensure a player doesn’t just rush to 8 cards and try to end the game, they have to take extra steps in order to be able to score them all

CONS

  • The red and pink player pieces are very close in color, which can make board movement confusing in a full player-count game
  • Luck of the draw can definitely play a part if landmark cards keep coming out near a certain player(s) and they’re able to collect them very quickly
  • Since it plays a decent player count (6) I do wish that once 1 player collected 8 cards, you could complete the round so everyone had equal turns

Final Thoughts

I thought this game had a nice look, a fun theme, and gameplay that was simple enough (or could be made simple enough through the variant) that I could play with just about anyone. Plus, this is probably about as close as I’m ever getting to really taking photos in Barcelona, so that’s cool.

For me, it was a little bit too light, so I felt like I saw all of what the game had to offer after just a few plays, and didn’t feel the need to keep coming back to it. But with the wide player range, I think it’ll be a good choice for any group that enjoys this style of game at a family-weight.

Additional Information:
My Final Rating: 6/10
Designers – Núria Casellas, Eloi Pujadas, Joaquim Vilalta
Artists – Craig Petersen, Sophie Wainwright
Publisher – Blue Orange Games
MSRP – $27.99
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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