Looot

Looot is a game about Vikings looting goods and bringing them back to build their own villages. Players are all in the same raiding party, but you are from different villages so whatever you manage to grab first is for your own village only. You have your own player board on which you place the items you bring back. While you raid, you can claim objective tiles to place on your board. If you manage to surround them with the right items, you will get to score them. However if you fail you will lose points.

On the main board where you raid by placing pawns, you start on the coast and expand inland. A new pawn can only be placed in an empty space next to a landing site or another pawn, either your own or an opponent’s. You are working together on this raid after all. It’s just that you don’t share the loot. For some of the items, you claim one when you place a pawn on it. For some, you claim when when you place a pawn next to it. For watchtowers, you need your pawns to connect two of them in order to claim a pair of items. 

On your personal board there are some preset structures you can build. You need to place specific items next to them to complete construction and score points. These structures are basically objectives you are trying to fulfil. Throughout the game there will be a selection of objectives you can claim to place on your board. They work in a similar way, except if you fail at these voluntarily claimed objectives you will be penalised. 

The palace requires many items to build

An item placed on your board can count for multiple adjacent objectives. Make use of this well and you will be much more efficient in scoring points. 

One interesting aspect of the objectives is they increase the values of items you collect. All item types have a default value, and they are scored at game end. If you find that you are collecting many of a particular item, you probably want to get objectives which increase the value of that item. Gourmet class mutton anyone? 

You have several single use powers, e.g. allowing you to place a pawn in an occupied space, or claiming two items instead of one. These can be life savers in case you get stuck in a bad situation. 

Looot offers a pleasant play experience. It can totally be rethemed to kids raiding a candy house. You have goodies all over the place up for grabs. There is a fair bit of planning involved. You want to claim as many objectives as possible so that you’ll score more points. It is a fun spatial puzzle trying to maximise the items you loot to fulfil multiple objectives. Claiming objectives is also about risk management. In case you fail, you will lose points, and that can be painful. You have to watch out for yours and your opponents’ pawns running out. That is when the game ends and you don’t want to be caught unprepared. I enjoy the market manipulation aspect of the game. Boosting the value of items you collect can be highly lucrative.