1-5 Players
Designer: Connie Vogelman
Artist: Kwanchai Moriya
Publisher: Stonemaier Games
About the Game
When I was wondering about the next Stonemaier game, space faring bees was not in my guess list. But here we have a worker placement / tile layer with variable worker values. Is it worth the buzz?
Gameplay
On your turn, you either place one of your bee workers or recall all of your workers to your mat.
When placing, you chose a worker, all with values 1-4, and place them in any action on the board. No spaces are ever blocked, instead if it’s already occupied you bump the existing one. Spaces are not complex, are mostly about getting or trading resources and cards, or adding tiles to your base.
When workers go back to the active pool, either by being bumped or when you recall them, their value increases by one. Level 4 workers trigger special bonuses when played, but when their value would increase instead they hibernate. You lose that worker, but you get a bonus on tracks on the main board. Game ends when all the hibernate spots are taken or when a player uses all 7 of their hibernate tokens.
Solo Gameplay
Automa Factory is amazing, everyone knows that, but that might be the smoothest of them all. You setup with 3 grey and 2 yellow with values depending on the difficulty. On your turn, you flip over a card and do the first action you can, using the top of the deck to see what color will activate and other decisions.
Basically, every automa card will recall and get some points depending on how many of that color they have placed, or carve if they have a level 4 worker, or one of the other actions. When the Automa performers an action, they will mostly get points or some tiles or explanation tokens. Also, most of the actions are clearly are right there on the card, so they are super simple.
Components
That part is almost obvious, Stonemaier has always great components. But Apiary is an interesting case, specially after Expeditions. It’s minimalistic.
The tiles are small, have simple drawings in the middle, and there is a lot of blank space. However, it’s a game with a lot of simultaneous components in the table, so I think overall the approach works beautifully, specially from an usability stand point.
Conclusion
Reviewing Stonemaier games is always a tough deal. There is a ton of excitement and expectations. So I tried to go in as blind as possible, not seeing gameplay or reviews, or even following the design diary.
My initial feeling is that even though it seems overwhelming, about 3 turns in I understood the flow. Is a very intuitive game, and a bit on the light side for the most part.
However, it’s a rich game. Navigating the flow of the bees, yours and others, is the key here. Sometimes a less effective action can absolutely worth in the big picture.
The downside on this game is that the individual mats and factions are important, but not game changing. The flow feels mostly the same. Not a huge deal, but it’s something that I hope gets expanded.
In the end, I feel like this is one of the most approachable or their games. Specially with the great insert, the game can be setup very quickly, and it’s not a long game, but every minute feels interesting and rewarding.
Score : 9/10
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