Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Developer Stefan Brück at alea describes Saint Malo as "a light, dice-rolling strategy game in which the players draw their own city buildings, walls, and people on wipe-off boards".
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Line Drawing
Draw lines to connect, divide, trace, or claim parts of the play area.
Paper-and-Pencil
Record choices and results directly on a personal sheet.
Dice Rolling
Roll dice to introduce uncertainty into actions, production, movement, or resolution.
Re-rolling and Locking
Keep selected dice and reroll the remainder to pursue a desired result.
Read the full game description
Developer Stefan Brück at alea describes Saint Malo as "a light, dice-rolling strategy game in which the players draw their own city buildings, walls, and people on wipe-off boards". In more detail, in Saint Malo players roll five dice to gain various resources; combinations of dice create enhancements like characters or buildings, which can provide additional victory points, money, or special actions, such as altering the outcome of a die roll. Players draw symbols for their holdings on erasable boards showing a grids of their cities to create individual towns. Players could build storehouses on particular squares, for example, then place a merchant nearby to gain money each turn. Another important character is the soldier; players must acquire these to defend themselves from pirate attacks that can decimate their towns. Saint Malo rates a 2 out of 10 on Alea's difficulty scale.