In the footsteps of Marie Curie

Game summary

👥 A game for 2 to 4 players
⏳ Play time is around 20 – 30 minutes
🏢 Publisher is Sorry We Are French

Introduction

Marie Curie, born Maria Salomea Skłodowska in 1867 in Warsaw, was a brilliant scientist who defied the odds to pursue her passion. In an era when science was dominated by men, she fought tirelessly to conduct her experiments and carve out her place in history.

As a pioneer in the field of radioactivity, Marie Curie, alongside her husband Pierre, discovered the elements polonium and radium. Her groundbreaking research earned her not one, but two Nobel Prizes and making her the first woman to achieve this honor in two different scientific fields.

Marie Curie’s discoveries laid the foundation for modern science, but her journey was anything but easy. Now, it’s your turn to step into her shoes, will you help her make history and claim both Nobel Prizes?

Let’s get it on the table

The game is played until the timeline marker has reached the last space of the timeline. Then players can complete the current round and the game ends.

During your turn you have to perform steps 1 to 4, after that it’s the next players turn

Step 1 workshop;
take the cubes that are shown below the workshop marker and throw the tokens into the cube tower

Step 2 Research;
In this step you can choose to out of 2 actions

Collect resources; take the resources that felt out of the cube tower in your turn or another players turn. But only the cubes that or on the table, not the one that are at the bottom of the tower.

Write a thesis;Take a thesis you didn’t have written and look at the bonus on the other side. You directly take the bonus and place the thesis on your board. You have to take thesis from 1st of 4th.

Step 3 Experimentation;

During this phase you can perform the following actions in any order.

Purchase an activity card (optional); buy one of the 4 activity cards that are available on the table. Place this card at the bottom of your board in the corresponding category.

Transform resources; exchange resources from your player bord (the Erlenmeyer flask) with cubes from the supply or with VP tokens. Under the Erlenmeyer flask you’ll find the transformation costs.

When you have the Marie Curie tile, you can make a more interesting transformation.

Validate one or more experiment tiles; There are 2 types of experiment tiles, the Beaker Tiles and the Round-bottom flask tiles. During this turn you can validate them in any order you of your choice. You can use the gains from one tile to validate another. Flip the tile when you have validated it and it has been successfully completed.

When a Beaker Tile is validated, it increases the number of cubes by +1, you can take during the research phase.

When a Round-bottom flask tile is validated, it increases by 1 the number of cubes you can keeping your Erlenmeyer flask up tot total of 6 during your turn.

Receive 1 VP for each pair of face-to-face validated Beaker and Round-bottom flask tiles.

Validate your objective tile; At any point you can validate your objective tile. Flip the tile and earn the indicated VP’s.

When your done it’s almost time for the end of the year but first you check the number of cubes in your Round-bottom flask tile. If this number exceeds your storage, you have to return the excess cubes of your choice to the supply.

And the last action you take this turn is to move the workshop marker to the next space on the Workshop tile.

The game ends

At the end of the game, so when the last space of the timeline has been reached. All players take one final turn to make sure everyone has had the same number of turns.

Count up the VP tokens, including the Marie Curie tile (also 1 VP). The player with the most tokens is the winner and steps into the footsteps of Marie Curie.

Final Conclusion & rating

Weight: 2.00/ 5
Replayability: 7
Our rating: 7 out of 10 dices

In Marie Curie, you manage resources to perform different actions. It’s a relatively quick game in which you have several options each turn, but your success depends heavily on the outcome of the cube tower. Will you get exactly what you need, or will you have to wait another round and adjust your tactics? If the game runs smoothly, you can try a different strategy each time you play.

The timeline plays a crucial role in the game and can give you extra resources or transformations – but beware, time moves faster than you think! Thanks to its relatively simple rules, Marie Curie is very accessible, yet offers a surprising amount of depth. Moreover, as you play you also learn more about Marie Curie, which adds an extra layer of interest.

The game is quick and easy to set up thanks to the well-designed insert that keeps everything organized. The game components are of excellent quality and look great.

We really like this game and are excited to try In the Footsteps of Darwin! It is said to be a completely different experience, but it looks just as fascinating.

Thanks to Sorry we are French for this review copy and the opportunity to write about it.