Disclaimer: This is a paid preview, images and words are my own.

LVL³ is a 2 – 4 player abstract game from Critoxi where you must compete to build up the levels to score the most points!

“A fun, groundbreaking game, LVL³ forces you to think outside the box and devise a strategy to conquer your opponents.” – Critoxi

Set up is straightforward, simply layout the game board and score board and stack the 60 game tiles in five face down piles for the different shapes. Each player is then assigned a colour based on the personality that best defines them: Red = Reckless, Blue = Strategic, Green = Diplomatic and Yellow = Creative.

The aim of the game is to place tiles with at least one of the coloured symbols on the tile, matching an adjacent coloured symbol already on the board. Each player will take it in turns to draw and place a tile by first rolling the six sided dice. The five piles will be designated a number between 1 – 5 and if you roll a 6, this means you can pick from whichever pile you choose. If your pile is empty, well that’s too bad, miss your go!

Sounds easy enough, but here’s the kicker… There are four colours, one for each player and whoever’s colour is played adjacent, they are the ones who score the points, not the person who played the tile! More than one colour can score at the same time, so you may find the lesser of two evils is to give some points to another player in order to get some points for yourself!

So let’s talk about scoring, as I mentioned you will get one point for every one of your coloured symbols that lines up with another of the same colour. Plus if the symbols are the same shape as well as colours, then you get 2 points!

The board will fill up fast so the quickest way to increase your score is to build up! You can layer tiles on top of one another, as long as you continue to use the adjacent placement rule, which allows you to be adjacent to symbols on a lower level as well as your own level. You cannot lay a tile over any gaps however, or have a tile overhanging one below. When you lay a tile on the second level, the points are doubled, when playing to level three or above, the points are tripled! There are also joker symbols in grey, depicting all four symbols, these can be used to complete any combination you choose to receive the optimal score.

There are two ways to win the game, be the first to the finish line of 55 points on the scoreboard, or survive 3 rounds in winning mode! What is winning mode, I hear you ask? Well each player will have two tiles in the game with a special symbol (three layered squares) in their colour. When one of these tiles are played to the board that player enters ‘winning mode’ and on their next turn and subsequent turns they will take a square token of their colour to track surviving a round in winning mode. If that player collects 3 tokens without having this winning symbol covered up by another tile, then they win instantly, despite any current scores! Other players will want to work together to cover these winning symbols and if this happens all token are returned and the race to the finish line continues.

LVL³  is now live on Kickstarter, with pledges starting at £28 / €32 due to fulfil September 2020. If you’re a fan of abstract games be sure to check out the Kickstarter campaign here!

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