Last night, Jan and I had an enjoyable game of Zahltag, a 30 minute card game about fulfilling building contracts, designed by Franz-Benno Delonge and released by Ravensburger.
Players employ up to 10 in total of four different types of workers, whom they are hoping to utilise on building contracts. Each turn, a card is turned over from the contracts deck and normally it reveals a building contract that requires a specific combination of workers to fulfil the job. Players then examine their hand of worker cards and secretly bid how much they require to be paid to complete the job. The lowest bid gets the job, receives immediate payment, and sets aside the workers needed for that job. These are then tied up until the start of your second subsequent turn, meaning your ability to meet the requirements of contracts arising in the meantime is more limited. Working out when only you are able to fulfil the worker requirements is key here as then you can demand the maximum Eu 8m payout. Mixed into the contract deck are six payday cards, at which point all those players with more unemployed workers than the person with fewest unemployed need to pay Eu 1m per excess worker. Once the fifth payday card is revealed and dealt with, whoever has the most money wins.
The game plays pretty well with two and turns move along very quickly. I suspect the game would play better with three or four players as the bidding would be that bit more competitive. As it was, Jan surprised me by accumulating more cash than me by game-end, as I had thought I’d been a bit ahead of her most of the way through. However, we both enjoyed the game and both rated it a 7.