Designer: Patiu Alexandru, Horatiu Roman

Artist: Maria Surducan

Publisher: Valiant Game Studio

Genre/Mechanisms: auction/bidding, dice rolling, push your luck, storytelling, take that, trading

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Zestrea is already fully-funded. In fact, pledges currently total more than 2x the initial funding goal, with 1 day left to go on the campaign.

Player Count: 3-6

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: high

What It’s About:  A marriage negotiation game about having children, feeding families, and arranging marriages, Romanian-style.

How It Works:  Zestrea is played over 8 Turns, each consisting of 5 steps: Hard Times, Production, Auction, Weddings & Negotiations, and Food.

During Hard Times, a Good Times/Hard Times card is revealed, and the instructions are read and played. Good Times cards are revealed during the first 3 turns, Hard Times cards in the following 5 turns. During Production, Boyars roll the dice once for every Couple that has Land, producing Zestre and babies. Players with Single Villagers can not produce babies, and players with 7 babies can not produce any more babies. During Auction, a Fate card is revealed from the State pile. The Boyars read it and auction it for Zestre.

During Weddings & Negotiations (the main step of the game), Boyars are allowed to negotiate, make deals, and attempt up to two marriages from different Boyars, in any order they desire. Each wedding attempt costs 2 Zestre, which can be split by both involved Boyars or paid in full by either. The wedding attempt is then determined by a dice roll (which can be adjusted with Fate cards). If successful, the Maiden joins the Lad to become a Couple, and the Boyar who gave away the Maiden draws a Fate card. During this step, players can also buy or play Fate cards, buy Land (paying 4 Zestre), adopt babies (paying 2 Zestre), trade Fate cards with other Boyars, and give & receive gifts of Zestre and/or Fate. They end the turn by proceeding to the Food step.

During Food, Boyars pay for the Villagers’ food. Couples eat 1 unit of food together, as do single Villagers. Babies do not eat food, and instead Grow during this step. Boyars who can’t afford to pay for food have to sell Land to do so, and those without enough Land to sell starve to death.

In the final turn (when there are no more Hard Times cards), players can no longer buy Fate cards. At the end of the round, players count their remaining Zestre, including counting each Land as 1 Zestre. The Boyar with the most Couples receives an additional 5 Zestre, and then the Boyar with the most Zestre wins.

Comparisons:  Some popular games that involve trading and negotiation include the likes of Cosmic Encounter, Rising Sun, Sidereal Confluence, Through the Ages, and Twilight Imperium. But much of what gives Zestrea its unique flavor is its singular theme. A few other trading & negotiation games that stand apart from the pack for their unique themes include Die Macher (featuring political elections), Diplomacy (a negotiation war game first published in 1959), Ponzi Scheme (an economic trading game where players attempt to scam and trick potential investors) and Two Rooms and a Boom (often played at conventions, it can accommodate up to 30 players as a bluffing, negotiation, and social deduction game).

What Should I Pledge?:
$26 Great Boyar/Boyaress: a copy of Zestrea in English, plus digital wallpaper for your desktop & phone.
$71 Divan Ad-Hoc: the Great Boyar/Boyaress pledge, plus a video chat with the development team.
$102 The Boyar’s Ear: everything in the Divan Ad-Hoc pledge, plus the ability to receive your copy of Zestrea in Romanian instead of in English, and access to the Zestrea Hotline with Alex.
$307 The Boyar’s Dowry: everything in The Boyar’s Ear pledge, plus the Zestrea woolen bag and Zestrea wooden box.
$410 Historical Figure: everything in The Boyar’s Dowry pledge, plus your own digital portrait as a Zestrea Boyar/Boyaress.
$502 Ban: everything in the Historial Figure pledge, plus you’ll be added to the game as an actual Boyar on one of the cards that will be printed in all copies of the game.

Add-Ons:
None.

KS Exclusives:
None.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S., if you forego the pledge levels with the vanity rewards (your likeness drawn on a card, for instance, or the video chats with the development team), then all you really need is The Great Boyar/Boyaress Pledge for $26, plus $40 in shipping (shipping is expensive on this campaign, as the game ships from Romania), for a total of $66.

If you really want the wooden box and woolen bag, then you’re looking at $307 for The Boyar’s Dowry plus $50 in shipping, for a total of $357.

Zestrea completes its Kickstarter on Thursday, November 21st and tentatively ships in March 2020.