I was contacted by Andrew Chia of Red Tin Bot back in December of 2013. Red Tin Bot is a game company that's just starting up in Singapore and Otontin is their first board game. Andrew offered up a review copy of the game for me to bring out to Windsor Gaming Resource events.
Otontin: Warriors of the Lost Empire is a slightly confused game. On their boardgamegeek page you see:
"Otontin is a volatile card game for 3-8 players, aged 10 and up."
Yet over on the Red Tin Bot website you see:
"Otontin: Warriors of the Lost Empire is dice game for 3-8 players that plays in 30 minutes."
So which is it? I would say it's mainly a push your luck dice game. Added to that is a bunch of diplomacy leading to a war phase in which actions are chosen by playing cards. Since everyone has the same cards though I wouldn't really call this a card game. Those cards could be replaced by tokens, chits or pretty much anything else.
The theme of Otontin is that of ancient Aztec cities battling over control of cocoa beans. Each player builds up their forces and uses these forces to attack the other cities or defend their own. Diplomacy is a big part of the game as players can set up alliances as well as make deals with their cocoa beans. The game is played to a set number of beans with a quick game being 10 and a long game being 20. The player with the most cocoa beans in their city the turn after someone hits one of these milestones is the winner.
