The game Glass Road commemorates the 700-year-old tradition of glassmaking in the Bavarian Forest. (Today, the "Glass Road" is a route through the Bavarian Forest that takes visitors to the many old glass houses in the region.) You must skillfully manage your glass and stone production to build the right structures to help keep your business running. Cut down the forest to keep the fires in the furnaces burning, and spread and remove ponds, pits and groves to provide you with the items you need. Fifteen specialists are at your side to carry out your assignments....
In more detail, the game consists of four construction periods. Each player has an identical set of fifteen specialist cards, and each specialist comes with two abilities. At the beginning of each build period, you choose a hand of five specialists. During this build period, if you play a specialist that no other player has in hand, you may use both of the abilities on that card; if two or more players play the same specialist, each may use only one of the two abilities. By exploiting the skills of these specialists, you can collect resources, create new landscape tiles (e.g. ponds and pits), and build all kinds of buildings, which come in three types:
- Processing buildings
- "Immediate" buildings with a one-time effect
- Buildings that earn bonus points at the end of the game for various achievements
Mastering the balance between knowing which specialty card is best to play and being flexible about when to play it - along with putting together a clever combination of buildings - is key to this game.
This 2021 edition of Glass Road includes previously released promotional materials: the Oktoberfest and Advent Calendar tiles and the Harlequin card for use in the solitaire version of the game.