Spyrium caught my attention from the gameplay description.  It was only after that that I discovered it is designed by the creator of Caylus and Caylus Magna Carta (the latter being one of me favourite games).  So, this doubly interested me.

The game has steampunk-ish setting and players are each head of an industrial conglomerate an spyrium is a mineral high in energy.  The player who scores the most victory points (VPs) by the end of the game wins.

Spyrium uses a clever worker placement system where players place their workers in between buildings which are laid out in a 3×3 grid.  Players take turns either placing or activating a worker; however, once a player starts activating their workers, they can’t place any more during the current round, so you have to choose when to switch from one to the other.

Activating a worker allows the player to use one of the two cards that the worker is positioned between, so you have a choice until you use them.  The cards in the 3×3 grid are either characters (which give you one off benefits), buildings (which allow you to build your own buildings used for special effects in future turns), and patents (which give you on-going abilities plus score VPs at the end of the game too).

Using a card by activating one of your workers next to it costs money equal to the cost of the card being used plus the number of workers (of any player) that are positioned next that building.  So, placing your workers can hinder others, give you a choice of uses, and the order you use them in can make a difference too.  Workers can generate money too which is also based on how many other workers (of all players) are next to the same building.

Each round there is a special event that each player can use, and the 3×3 grid changes each round too.  The cards seem to have good variety so games should have some variety each play.  After 6 rounds, the game ends and players score VPs for buildings they built as well as patent cards (which score VPs based on something else like amount of cash remaining).

Definitely interested to play this one.  More information and the rules can be found on Ystari’s Spyrium page: bga.me/spyrium