Scythe is a board game for one to five players designed by Jamey Stegmaier and published by Stonemaier Games in 2016. Set in an alternative history version of 1920s Europe, players control factions that produce resources, develop economic infrastructure, and use dieselpunk combat mechs to engage in combat and control territories. Players take up to two actions per turn using individual player boards, and the game proceeds until one player has earned six achievements. At this point, the players receive coins for the achievements they have attained and the territories they control, and the player with the most coins is declared the winner.
Stonemaier Games crowdfunded the development of Scythe, raising over $1.8 million through a Kickstarter campaign. Scythe was released to critical and commercial praise for its gameplay, combination of Eurogame and combat mechanics, theme, and the game artwork, which was produced by Polish painter Jakub Różalski under the name World of 1920+. Three major expansions, a spin-off, and a digital version have been released for the game.
Gameplay
Scythe takes place in an alternative history version of 1920s Europe that is recovering from the effects of the WWI. Players represent different factions seeking their fortune in the redeveloping landscape. Players build an economic engine by selecting one of four main actions each turn. Each action is listed on the top of a personal player board, and players cannot take the same action in consecutive turns. They may also take a corresponding second action as listed on their player board. Actions allow players to move units on the board, trade for or produce goods, bolster their military for combat, deploy mechs, enlist recruits for continuous bonuses or build structures. The actions themselves may also be upgraded, making them either less costly to enact or stronger when deployed.
Each player is given six stars, which are placed on their player boards when they complete specific goals, such as deploying all four of their mechs. The game immediately ends when one player has completed all of their goals. Players then tally the money that they receive from achievements earned, territory controlled, and gathered resources based on their in-game popularity achieved; the player who finishes the game with the most money wins.
Development and release
Scythe was designed by Jamey Stegmaier, the CEO of Stonemaier Games, and was revealed as a Kickstarter campaign on October 13, 2015. Backers contributed over $1.8 million to the campaign. Physical copies of the game were delivered to backers in July 2016; it was later released in Gen Con and other retail stores the following month.
Approximately 130 alternate history artworks were illustrated by the Polish artist Jakub Różalski. The game's theme is set in the 1920+ alternate history universe, which was inspired by the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921, and also later used in Iron Harvest. The plot focuses on the conflict between several nations in Central and Eastern Europe that occurred in the aftermath of World War I. The factions are Polania, Rusviet, Saxony, Crimea, Nordic (based on Poland, Soviet Russia, Imperial Germany, Crimean Khanate, and Scandinavia, respectively). The video gaming website Polygon also stated that the artwork also was "the inspiration for dozens of objective and narrative cards".
During playtesting, Stegmaier asked players to quantitatively rate the game with a maximum score of ten, and described that "when I start to see those ratings creep over 8, I know we’re getting really close". Scythe also includes the Automa, a solo-player mode designed by Morten Monrad Pedersen, who also contributed to other Stonemaier Games products including Wingspan and Viticulture. He stated the difficulty in designing one-player games was for the Automas to resemble human players while being streamlined, which required "a purging of unnecessary mechanics" to reduce the downtime.
Expansions
Scythe has received three major expansions and several promotional packages. The first expansion, Scythe: Invaders from Afar, was released in 2016. It added new player mats and two new factions into the game, increasing the player count from five to seven. The new factions are Albion and Togawa (based on United Kingdom and Japan, respectively). The second expansion, Scythe: The Wind Gambit, was released in 2017, featuring airships and adding variable end-game conditions to the base game. The Wind Gambit was met with praise for its new victory conditions and components, but the airships were critiqued for providing only limited appeal as the game progressed. In 2017, The Wind Gambit won the Golden Geek Award for Best Game Expansion.