Fredericus - a game review

As I've mentioned in the past, my friends and I enjoy playing tabletop games. We frequently try to find fun new ones, or play old favorites.

For Christmas, I had given one of my friends a game called Fredericus. We all got around to playing it together back in June.

The premise of the game is that you are a falconer, sent out by the king to capture mythological beasts. In play, this means that you have certain goals-- which you generally keep secret from the other players-- and you attempt to collect certain other cards.

The layout of the game is particularly neat; you arrange the cards in a sunburst pattern. As the game progresses, cards get taken or moved around, or stacks can be reversed. You try to get the cards you need while blocking others from getting what they may need. You have two "birds" with which you can capture the mythical beast cards, and each bird can do so in a different way.

Overall, I found the game quite fun! It was a little bit confusing the first time through, but once we played a round the rules got clearer and the second one went much quicker.

I would recommend this for an older age group, because of that complication. But it's certainly a neat one, and not your typical roll-and-go board game!