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Samara box art
2015 Ranked #6,194

Samara

A worker-time management game where builders invest months in skills, strength, labor, and prestigious construction projects. Every choice occupies workers for different durations, so efficient scheduling determines who can build the most impressive settlement.

Family Games City Building Medieval Turn Order: Time Track Category: Combinatorial

Players

2-5

Play time

25-50 min

Age

10+

Complexity

2.12/5

Rating

6.23

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.4/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 4.0/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.6/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.0/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.5/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

Travel back through history to a settlement called Samara, where you lead a group of builders. At the start of the game, they can build only a sandcastle, cave or huts.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

Travel back through history to a settlement called Samara, where you lead a group of builders. At the start of the game, they can build only a sandcastle, cave or huts. For more complex buildings, you first invest time in skills, strength, or new workers. Building special projects gives you benefits or hurts all your rivals. In the end you want to have the most prestigious buildings. The worker timetrack is the key mechanism. Each of your choices costs a number of your workers a number of months. Your workers can spend time on: Improving skills to build with wood (saw tool), stone (trowel tool) and glass (blowing tool). Building houses or special projects. Getting a new worker or exercising to become a stronger worker. Going on vacation. The spaces on the game board determine how many workers (1-4 on the left board axis) are occupied how many months (1-9 on the bottom board axis). Players plan to let their workers spend time effectively, choosing when to invest and when to build for prestige. The prestige points determine who is the best foreman of Samara.

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Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
No editions imported yet.

Player resources

Rulebooks, player aids, FAQs, and solo resources.

No files imported yet.

Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
2–5
Best with
2–5
Play time
25–50 min
Age
10+
Complexity
2.1/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
Corné van Moorsel

Artists

2
Philip Kustov Josh T. McDowell

Publishers

2
Cwali Tasty Minstrel Games

Linked items

No published linked games yet.