All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely (board game) players

Many (many, many) moons ago, I graduated from college with an English degree. Naturally, Shakespeare has been a big part of my life, so when I saw this game at BGG Con last year, I purchased a copy. I loved the colorful artwork and was intrigued by the bidding and action-management mechanic of the game. Fast forward six months later, it’s still sitting on my shelf, waiting to be played. Shame, shame!! (Oh, wait, that’s Game of Thrones).

Shakespeare is a 1-4 player game that lasts about 90 minutes. Players are theater managers recruiting actors, craftsmen, jewelers and others in order to produce the best play. Each player has their own board and starting characters. There is also a main board that shows the resources for the round, turn order, and charts each player’s progress on the Prestige, Act and Initiative tracks. Game play continues through 6 days (rounds). The person with the most prestige at the end of 6 days wins the game.

For each day, players secretly put their cylinders (which represent actions) in their hand and wager how many actions they want to do. Everybody simultaneously reveals their hands. The person with the fewest cylinders goes first, and so forth. Ties are resolved by the initiative track; the person with the higher initiative gets to go first. Players perform actions for each day, then the ambiance track is resolved and reset to zero. Plus, on Days 4 and 6, dress rehearsal also scores the Act tracks.

In turn order, plays can either recruit a new character (once per day) or activate one of the characters they already have. When you recruit a player, you choose one of the characters from the pool. You then place your recruitment card (and not a cylinder) to indicate you have already done this action. (Everybody must do this action for each day.) There is no cost to recruit a player; however, at the end of the game, you have to pay that character in pounds (indicated at the top right of the card) or lose 2 prestige points per character. You can also choose to recruit an extra (who has no cost) by flipping over the character you just picked.

To activate a character, you place one of your available cylinders at the top left corner of the card and perform those actions. You can either move along the Act tracks, Ambiance track, or pick up costumes or set dressings. Also, the first player to activate an actor (which have an activation power as well as a costume space at the bottom of their card) puts a disc in the first available space of the Initiative track.

On craftsmen, the circle with a number indicates the total amount of costumes you can take from the pool on the main board. You immediately place them at the bottom of actor cards. When you fill up the three costume slots, you immediately gain money and/or prestige points from the numerical value of the costumes. And then on Day 4 and Day 6, you gain an extra benefit along a particular Act track from that actor.

The square with the number indicates the total amount of set dressings you can also take from the pool. The set dressings are immediately placed on your board and must be built from top to bottom. Also, the stage must be symmetrical. As soon as you cover a space containing a candle, you gain a prestige point.

Set dressings (other than the black set) also have effects. A pink set dressing gives you a pound. Purple set dressings move all other players back 1 space on their Ambiance track. Blue set dressings moves you 2 spaces forward on your Ambiance track. Green set dressings give a player to gain a +3 token (which helps when taking costumes and set dressings in future turns.)

There are also gold costumes and set dressings. These items can only be picked up if you have a jeweler in front of you. Gold costumes are worth 3 points while gold set dressings are wild, meaning they don’t abide by symmetry laws. However, at the end of the game, you gain one prestige for every gold element you have.

When everybody has passed or run out of actions, the day ends. For each purple set dressing left on the board, all players must move back on the Ambiance track. And then depending on where they are on the Ambiance track, each player either gains or loses money, movement on the Act track or prestige points. The Ambiance track is then set to zero for the next day. Player then have to rest all of the characters they used that day except one. (You indicate this by placing an X marker on their activation site). Those resting characters can’t be used for the next day only. I thought this was the coolest mechanic of the game because you have to balance your available actions and activations wisely.

At the end of Days 4 and  6, your fully closed actors give you a bonus and then Act tracks are scoredl. To gain a benefit on the Act tracks, you must be past the symbol’s space above the banner.  After Day 6, final scoring happens for completing objective cards (if you grabbed one). You also gain 1 point per gold element in your area. Lastly, pay your characters according to their cost on the top right of the card. For each player you can’t pay, you lose 2 prestige points. The player with the most prestige points wins the game. In the case of a tie, the person with the most pounds left over wins the game.

Who out there has played Shakespeare? And what are your thoughts on it? And randomly, which Shakespeare play is your favorite?