Board game review of Sapa Inka: With a lot of love for history

The burst games GmbH is actually a sales partner for miniature games, role playing games, parlor games, trading card games, game accessories and much more. With the LuPri brand, made up of the Latin words Ludos Prime (German for good games), the company from Weil im Schönbruch sells brushes as well as its own interesting board games, which are intended to create a certain attraction for occasional and frequent gamers. We were allowed to test the card game Sapa Inka extensively and were able to talk to managing director Martin Jörg about the game. You can find out how we found the family-friendly Open Drafting game "Made in Germany" in the following review.

The Sapa Inka (translated "the only Inca") was the ruler of the Inca Empire. In the game we take on the role of the children of the Sapa Incas and fight for the favor of our father to succeed him. To do this, we use the skills of our followers, obtain important building materials and use them to construct impressive buildings, which bring us favor and mystical trophies.

building an empire

A round of Sapa Inka is quickly explained. In our turn we can use one of two options. We can either activate one of the followers on display or use our building materials to construct a building in our hand. At the beginning of a round, each end of the game receives three random followers that are face up in front of you and a building card that is not shown to the other players.

With the first action option, we can choose one of all the followers that are openly displayed and carry out the effects of this person. These each have two effects that either produce building materials, allow the player to draw new buildings or give the opportunity to trade or build. If we use one of the followers of an opponent, he may use one of the two effects.

Set-up for a two-player game. Both players have followers (left & right) that are used to obtain goods or buildings. Below are the trophies that can be obtained by constructing buildings, which generate additional victory points. The ring in the middle is there to record the current number of victory points. Image: Sven Karsten

In our second option, we use the collected building materials to build buildings that are in our hands. These give us victory points and, if necessary, trophies, as well as bonuses for each round. Trophies are obtained by collecting the most symbols of a type. These give either direct victory points or victory points for a certain number of other symbols. However, opponents can also get the majority of all symbols. As soon as this happens, the trophy must be passed on to them and you lose the victory points you received as a result. The bonuses, on the other hand, give either additional building material at the beginning of each round, the possibility of exchanging them or let the players draw new building cards.

The game continues until the first player to reach 20 victory points. The round is then played to the end. The person with the most victory points at the end of the round becomes the new Sapa Inka.

Made in Germany

The game material of Sapa Inka consists of cards and cardboard. Both feel very high quality. The cardboard markers are nice and thick and give you the feeling of really having something in your hands. Quite unlike many other games that make their cardboard markers feel flimsy and therefore unwieldy. The game looks a bit old-fashioned with its design, but that doesn't bother you in any way. On the contrary, all the symbols are nicely laid out and the words are easy to read. It's also nice that the game instructions contain some background information on the subject of the game and explain what the Sapa Inca actually is and that one of his children was inherited. It is also positive to note that Sapa Inka was produced entirely in Germany and thus the ecological footprint has been kept as small as possible.

Sapa Inka's maps feel good and are nicely laid out. Since the symbols are nice and big, you always have a good view of your opponent's cards. LuPri even received praise from Peruvians for the artwork at the games fair in Essen. Image: Sven Karsten

We found the box that was too large to be annoying. For what the game offers, it could have been much smaller. The only reason for the size is the victory point ring. It makes Sapa Inka visually clearer on the table, but gives us no added value in a playful way. A small rectangular board would have been more than enough in our opinion. The box takes up an unnecessarily large amount of space on the game shelf and the remaining components fly around wildly in the box.

“The theme suited the game too well”

In conversation with Martin, one of the two managing directors of LuPri, we talked about the victory point ring. The disc depicted on the ring was historically just too good a fit for the game, so a board was out of the question. Since the Inca liked to divide things by four, which can already be guessed from the name of the Inca empire "Tawantinsuyu = empire of four parts", the score of 20 also fit the game. The ring not only looks good, historically speaking it also fits the game perfectly with its five-point distances. Making a ring out of puzzle pieces to keep the box smaller was out of the question for Martin as he's had a lot of bad experiences with it. The jigsaw pieces wear out too quickly at the points where they are put together. Therefore, in the end, the decision was made to use a whole ring. This one is also nice and thick and will certainly hold up better than four individual parts.

Summary

As a family-friendly open-drafting game, Sapa Inka cuts a fine figure and is sure to be a hit again and again as it's quick to set up and play. However, Sapa Inka does not have a great replay appeal, since you mainly do the same thing. You see what options the game has in store for you, collect building materials and buildings and start building. A lot is left to luck. The tactic is to make the most of the luck of the cards.

As soon as a player reaches 20 points, the round is played to the end. The person with the most points at the end of the round wins the game. Image: Sven Karsten

However, that doesn't mean we didn't have fun with Sapa Inka. The race for victory points was consistently exciting, especially at the end of a game. The trophies greatly influence the points race, since the additional points generated by them can also be stolen again. For example, it happened that a player deliberately built simple buildings in order to attract the majority of symbols of a type. He was able to prevent his opponent from initiating the end.

In addition, Sapa Inka was incredibly playable with any number of players. The game was played for two within 15 minutes and was a lot of fun. With higher numbers of players, the games lasted about 45 minutes.

Preview	Product	Rating	Price
	LuPri LUP70003 Sapa Inka game from 8 years *	Currently no reviews	20,00 EUR	Buy

Last updated on 26.05.2023/XNUMX/XNUMX / Affiliate Links / Images from the Amazon Product Advertising API. * = Affiliate links. Images from Amazon PA API