Noctiluca by Z-Man Games
Price: ~$35.00 (pre-order)
Players: 1 to 4
Playtime: 30 minutes
Perfect for: Players who enjoy dice drafting and strategic set collection.
Noctiluca is a game of carefully collecting dice to complete sets and score points. To answer the obvious question “Noctiluca” (great word) refers to a family of marine life that exhibit bioluminescence when they are disturbed. Before talking more about how Noctiluca is played, here is more background on the theme as described by the publisher, Z-Man Games:
In the remote depths of the jungle lie the Cerulean Pools. For most of the year, the pools are tranquil and unassuming. But on the warmest nights of the year, the otherwise quiet waters are filled with shimmering lights as the dormant noctiluca awaken. As the most skilled divers in the land, you and your friends seek to retrieve these glowing creatures from the pools. Before diving into the water, you must strategically plan your path to collect the noctiluca you need.
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In Noctiluca, players set up a board by randomly placing groups of multicolored six-sided dice on different spaces—5 per space on the external ring, and 4 for each space on the internal ring (see above). The four bright neon colors of dice represent the different types of Noctiluca creatures players will be collecting throughout the game. Players are also given starting “jars” by way of cards that have several colored spaces on them. The goal is to have each player collect the correct corresponding dice from the board to complete/fill up their cards in order to score points. Finally, players receive a secret card that indicates the color of Noctiluca dice that they should prioritize collecting in order to score bonus points at the end of the game.
What works in Noctiluca is the simple, yet strategic, gameplay mechanic. On a turn, a player places a pawn on an unoccupied by space on the outer edges of the board and declares both a number (from 1 to 6) and a direction. The player then retrieves all the dice, regardless of color, in the direction indicated which they can use to fill their jar cards, having two actively being worked on at any time. However, if the player cannot place all the dice they have collected, they must pass their leftovers to the next player, who can then use one of the remaining dice in their jars. This drafting system is very easy to understand but does require some thinking in terms of optimizing long and short-term actions. Once all 12 pawns have been placed, the round is complete, and the game of Noctiluca concludes after two rounds.
While Noctiluca is a fun, colorful, and engaging game, the scoring schema feels mismatched to the simplicity of gameplay. At the end of the game, there are five quasi-related ways the point total is calculated: 1) the numbers/value of the cards completed; 2) colored point tokens collected for each corresponding card completed; 3) bonuses to the player with the majority of point tokens collected by each color; 4) the number of dice collected that correspond to the secret bonus color distributed at the beginning of the game; and finally 5) the number of remaining dice on unfinished cards. If that sounds overwhelming and slightly confusing, that’s a correct assessment.
Noctiluca is a perfectly fine drafting game that people can jump into really fast; so much so that it should appeal to families with younger or more casual gamers. The scoring is a minor issue, and most people make up some simple house rules if they find the current mechanic a little too complex.
Recommended if you like: Potion Explosion, Sagrada, Splendor
Final Grade: B
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