Aspens: Review
Information:
Player Age: 10+
Player Count: 2 Players
Game Designer: Neil Edwards, Luke Roberts
BGG Weight: 1.75
Publisher: Ludivore Games
Time to Play: 20 - 45 Minutes
Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.
Introduction:
Aspens is a fast playing two player area control game. During the game players will roll the two dice determining what forests will grow trees and which direction trees can spread in. With successful plays players can close sections of the board to create a cascade and fill that entire section with trees. Once the board is full whichever player has the most hexes is the winner.
Game Anatomy:
The Board:
The board is made during setup and is filled with numerous hexes, direction on the borders of the board and water tiles that determine starting trees and can not contain trees.
Each hex space can contain numerous pieces of one tree type creating a forest, but each hex space can only contain pieces of one player.
Pine and Aspens:
Each player will have a bag filled with either the pine trees which are green/blue or the aspen trees which are yellow/orange. These trees will vary in size and colour this does not affect the gameplay and is purely for aesthetics. It does add a great table presence to the table.
Sun and Wind Die:
The sun die is the yellow die and will range from 2 - 7. This die will determine how many trees both players will gain based on the amount of forest the player has equal or exceeding the die value. For example if a player has four forest groups with three trees and two forests with four trees. If the die rolled is a three
that player will gain six trees if the die is a four that the player will gain two trees.
The wind die will determine in what direction the active player can grow out the forest into neighbouring hexes. The player may grow new trees onto empty hexes if the direction allows from an existing hex with their tree(s). This direction can be the direction on the die or the direction immidiately once to the left or right of the die.
Setup:
General Setup:
- As showim the board section of game Anatomy
- Place the three water tiles as shown, there are variable ways to set this up in subsequent games.
Seeding and Growing the Starting Forests:
Each player gains three trees from their bag. One at a time each player will place one tree adjacent to a water tile.
Each of these trees have to be in different spaces. Each player one at a time draws four trees and grows any of the three starting forests by placing more trees in the hexes .
How to Play:
The game will continue until each hex on the board is containing at least one tree, then scoring will commence. Scoring is achieved by removing all but one tree on each hex. Then points are equal to however many trees each player has.
At the start of every turn, the active player roll both the sun and wind die. Each player will gain one single tree for each forest of their colour that meets or exceeds the value on the sun die. The active player will gain one more tree. The active player is the only player that will now do the grow step.
Players when growing can either grow up or out. The player will place all their trees gained over the two turns and each tree is a separate instance for the player choosing to grow up or out. To grow up, a player can simply add any tree to an exisiting forest/tree hex of their colour. This is done to increase the chances of gaining more trees during the sun die roll. Growing out is a bit more tricky the player can grow out into any adjacent empty hex from an exisiting tree/forest. They can only pick an empty hex in either the direction rolled on the die or direct to the left or right of the die result. Each placement of growing out is a new instance of this decision. The directions around the board easily help to identify. If during the process of growing out the player has closed a section for the board from being accessible to the opposition.
They have created a cascade. All the hexes in that cascade will immediately be filled with one tree from the bag of the active player. This is the crucial but challenging way to gain majority control of the board.
Final Thoughts:
- Fast playing and beautiful looking.
- Plenty of decisions with the area control/ resource puzzle.
- Could get samey as a base game without the expansions that are released.
Aspens is a fast abstract game about gaining the most hexes on the board, this is done mostly through activating cascades where if a section is closed off from the other players access it will be filled by the player that closed it. When players play their pieces they constantly have to weigh either growing their hexes they already control so they gain more trees to place through the roll of the sun die or if they make a dash to place their trees to close off sections and spread through cascades. This is a great decision that makes the game fast and snappy. Some players may not like how luck dependent the game is through the dice rolls. Since the dice determine the size of the forest needed to gain more trees and the direction that trees can be placed on new hexes. This is where the decisions of the game stem from though as players build varying sizes of forests to hedge their bets, as well as grow in directions they wouldn't normally aim for immediately. This is a game for players that enjoy luck based abstracts, this is the kind of game that will shine more with repeated plays of the same player, since more strategy opens with familiarity, like deciding where to place and how to grow during setup, as well as a sharper focus on how the opponent is growing their control and how to respond to that growth. To note the expansions look to drastically shape the core strategy of the game. This is a fast playing abstract with a lovely aesthetic, this is an easy recommendation.
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