Vampires involved in town planning to modernise Transylvania may seem an unlikely theme for a game but that's the premise in J B Howell's SiliconVania, where 2-5 players are competing to build their individual tableaus. The game is published by WizKids and art is by Mihaljo (The Mico) Dimitrievski.
In SiliconVania, players will be drafting tiles from a display and laying them out on the 4 x 4 grid on their individual boards. They'll also be recruiting 'specialists': cards that initially give them a variety of add-ons that can tweak end-game scores but which, from mid-game onwards, are played to determine your 'city objectives' (ie: which tile adjacency bonuses you'll be scoring). This element gives each game a clear developmental arc, and it can give rise to some interesting dilemmas as players find themselves sacrificing the prospect of immediate gains in order to optimise their end-game scores.
Tile drafting is done by playing 'silent bid' cards to determine the order in which players select from those on display. The lower numbered cards let you add a vampire (which could potentially be a point at the end of the game) and the higher value cards cost you one or two vampires. You add the tiles you draft to your individual board and you also take any benefits shown on those tiles, which could be more vampires, coffins (needed to 'house' the vampires in order for them to score), blood (again contributing to end-game scoring), animals (for set collection bonuses) and/or advancement on the Innovation and Survival tracks, which again give milestone bonuses and can contribute to end-game scores.
At the same time as they bid for the tiles, players play a specialist card from their hand to determine who gets first choice from the specialist cards on display. The specialist cards all show an initiative value (highest number is best) but they also give a special bonus or action. Again you take the bonus when you use the card to bid.
As is the norm in city building games, the tiles in your individual tableau benefit from various adjacency rules; so, for example, Mausoleums should be adjacent to a Blood Bank. The twist in SiliconVania is that these adjacency rules only kick in for scoring if you've played a specialist to choose that scoring option. In the case of the Mausoleum and Blood Bank, for example, that requires a Noble as a specialist. Play multiples of the same specialist and you'll score for the relevant city objective that multiple of times. This means players can adjust their scoring priorities midway through the game to reflect the layout they've put in place. We also liked the fact that among the special abilities available, particularly on low-numbered specialist cards, are powers to swap tiles in your display with those in an 'exchange pool'. It can be very worthwhile saving these specialists for playing later in the game, albeit usually at the cost of ending up with Hobson's Choice of the specialists in the display.
SiliconVania can be played as a light family game without thinking too much about your options but hardened gamers will play it as a programming game where their every choice is optimised for its end-game scoring potential. Nevertheless, SiliconVania plays quickly over its eight rounds. The scoring can throw up some surprises - so you won't be entirely sure who has won until those scoresheets are all added up and checked...