River Valley Glassworks: Review
Introduction:
River Valley Glassworks is a clever tile placement/drafting game where players collect glass pieces from the river to then build columns of unique colours across full rows. Players create drafting opportunities for other players as they place glass pieces into the river to collect all the pieces from an adjacent river tile. This is one of the games that is easy to understand but challenging to master. This review is based on the wonderfully produced deluxe components.
Game Anatomy:
Glass Pieces:
The glass pieces will be randomly drawn from the bag during the game. They come in nine colours of varying rarity, and will come as 22, 17, 12, or 9 pieces, where the black glass pieces are only used in a five-player game. Each colour of the glass piece will come in an assortment of six shapes. These shapes are important for placing both into the river and onto the player board.
The River:
The river mat/board contains the lake on the far right that holds five glass pieces at all times during the game. There will also be six river tiles for the six different glass piece shapes. Each of these river tiles has a shape shown on all corners. This is crucial for placement throughout the game. It will also show a symbol of either 1 or 2 stones, which is relevant to how many glass pieces are replenished during the game.
Player Pieces:
Each player will have a two-part player board. The left side tracks the overflow glass pieces that occur when a player takes too many for their pot (a maximum of five at a time). When a column of that colour is already full, or all columns have a colour associated with it and a new colour is drafted, this leftover piece will be kept on the overflow track. Each overflowed piece is worth negative three points. This side of the board is also used to keep track of how many glass pieces have been amassed on that player's board. In the deluxe edition, there is a wooden animal meeple that fits perfectly in the recessed board.
The middle section of the player board denotes the rarity of the glass pieces and the right side will contain the seven columns, which will be filled with glass pieces throughout the game. Each column must start at the bottom, and the columns must start from the left-most space. Each column must consist of only one coloured glass type. Each column also has the points for height shown, and the points for filled rows are displayed at the bottom of the board.
Setup:
- Setup the river mat/board with the six river tiles placed on top, and glass pieces pulled from the bag equal to the stone symbol for each tile. Place five glass pieces in the lake at the end of the mat.
- Each player assembles their player boards and places their animal meeple on the 0 spot. Each player will also draw three glass pieces from the bag and place it in their pan.
How to Play:
On a turn, a player will place one glass piece from their pot onto the river tile that matches that shape. The player will then take all of the glass pieces from an adjacent tile. If a player has two glass pieces of the same shape, they can place these on any tile, despite the shape, to collect from an adjacent tile.
When collecting the pieces, the player must place them all on their player board, adding to existing columns of the matching colour, or starting a new column if a new colour. If a glass piece cannot be placed because a column is full, or there is no space for a new column, the piece will be placed in the players overflow section instead.
The now empty river tile will go back to the start of the river and receive new glass pieces from the bag equal to the rock symbol shown on the tile.
If a player chooses to, instead of placing pieces on the river, they may take exactly four glass pieces from the lake to place in their pan. If this causes an overflow, the player will choose which pieces to move to overflow from the amount drawn.
Once a player has found 17 glass pieces for their board, the round will resolve for equal turns. Each player will now replenish their pot (from the bag) back to three glass pieces, and have one last turn. Whichever player has the most points is the winner.
Each player will score based on:
- Each overflowed piece will be a loss of 3 points.
- Each row will score based on filled spots from left to right. This scoring will stop when there is a gap in the row. The right-most piece before the gap will determine the number of points.
Final Thoughts:
- Players are building communal drafting opportunities when they place glass pieces to then draft others.
- Speaking for the deluxe edition, the production is amazing. Especially the meeple that fits into the recessed board and acts as the game timer.
River Valley Glassworks is the perfect example of the light-mid weight games that I enjoy. The rules are very easy to learn and the gameplay is intuitive. The challenge comes from how players prioritise their glass pieces. On a surface level, this would be easy; just build high columns towards the right of the player board where the columns core better. The strategy isn't that simple, however. Players must decide how they will value the rarity of the glass pieces. Trying to have the common pieces in the right-most column will mean that they have to try and maintain the height amongst the other rows to score optimal points. Having the rarer pieces in the early column may block them from scoring rows. Additionally, players are communally changing the drafting options as they take turns so this will impede future planning. Lastly, the player has only 17 pieces (give or take) to design and fulfil this optimisation puzzle so there is a time factor to consider too. This is a fun game with quality components that has earned a Go-To Golden Game Seal.
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