This week there were only four of us so it gave me the chance to tick off one of the four player games on my unplayed list. Monastery was designed by the Ragnar Brothers and is a tile-laying/area occupation for scoring type game, reminding me a bit of Carcassonne but with extra stuff.

In our game, a fair bit of the extra stuff didn't have any effect: The secret way tiles weren't used nor the icon effects on some buildings. It worked ok but we all agreed that playing last was a huge disadvantage. Being able to pick the cheaper letter tiles was a major benefit. Guy played this pretty well, filling his grid with a turn to spare so whereas the rest of us were using our last turn to claim the last couple of letters we needed, Guy was able to grab as many blessings as he could.

We all thought Monastery played ok but didn't see much to elevate it over any of the other similar games of that type and length.