The city of Atlantis is sinking! As the depths threaten to consume this great metropolis, you and your fellow Atlantians must hurry to save the wealth and history of your fair home from total destruction!

In Atlandice, players must rescue cultural resources from various 3-tiered shops in Atlantis. However, the doors to these shops only open at random, to allow players in, and so they must choose carefully what they want to save.

There are five resources to choose from - gems, books, provisions, tools, and weapons. Each resource is contained within a shop in Atlantis, however, the black market also contains some of these resources.

On their turn, the first player rolls dice based on the number of players (2 for each player plus one) and then places those dice beside their corresponding rooms on the Atlantis board. The first player may then chose to draft a dice to access a room and collect a resource from it.

Each room, when accessed by a player, also activates a special action which can allow the player access to further resources, or the ability to move the submarine which circles the city. This submarine allows a player to collect double the amount of resources from the room which it is beside.

Each player takes two turns, one at a time, progressing in a clockwise direction. When all players have taken their turn, one dice will remain. This dice, depending on its location, will determine how far forward the central clock moves forward. The further forward the central clock moves, the higher the water in Atlantis rises.

When one room empties of all resources, the tier of that room is scored. The player with the highest amount of resources earns 3VP, while the second highest scores 1VP. The tier of that room is removed, and all resources from that room are returned to the next tier, which now comes into play.

When all three tiers are removed, the resources from that room are considered depleted. All tokens are removed, and any dice rolls which would have previously corresponded to that room's activation are now allocated to the black market.

Since the black market has the end of round ability to move the clock hand 3 spaces forward, the more rooms are depleted, the faster the end game becomes.

This is an interesting dice-drafting resource-collection game. I particularly like the artistic design and the time mechanic. However, Atlandice does have the potential to be flawed in play - for example, if a player is forced to collect a resource they know cannot possibly win them points due to lack of alternatives.

Despite problems like this, which are a common occurrence in many resource collection games, I still think Atlandice is noteworthy ahead of its release at Essen this weekend for its interesting design and mechanic.

What are you most excited for at Essen? Tell us in the comments!