R&D Games Keyflower

Fun game. Not clear who published or distributed this but Huch is top notch. They sent a hand personalized letter with a missing piece all the way from Germany. Now back to the game. This one is unique and easy to setup and get moving. Don't be deceived by the cute artwork and accessibility, its a heavy game with about a 2 hour play time our first run for 2. A lot of player interaction with chances to sabotage your opponents but a nice balance of depth, complexity, and elegance. This one seems to test analysis paralysis and end game scoring can be a little math heavy. Something this game does that I like is not revealing your performance through scores until the end of the game and assigning resources in bulk deliveries with variable abilities so it's kind of like having a variable action point allowance system which you have to track throughout instead of just saying you get 4 action points on every turn. This game puts many mechanisms together keeping them cohesive and balanced but sometimes I wish there was a little more focus on the villages than the auctions. Overall very happy with this game it just plays longer than I thought it would so despite the short 5 minute setup time it doesn't seem to make it to the table as often but it's worth keeping around for when it does.

Wonderful game. Probably my favorite of all time. Beautiful components. Combines many different game mechanics (such as auction, worker placement, engine building, etc.) into a coherent whole. Plays equally well with 2-4. (It can play more, but I don't recommend it--the game tends to drag then.) It's very tense, strategic, and cutthroat, though there isn't any direct fighting.All that said, it's a fairly complex game to learn at first. I wouldn't recommend jumping from Monopoly, or even Settlers of Catan, to this. But for those who've played a few games medium weight games, this is highly recommended.

Do you enjoy detailed games with a lot of parts? If so, then Keyflower would be a good game for you to buy and play. It takes a bit of time to learn all the different mechanics of the game, but once you do the game flows pretty well.Whenever I teach a new person the game I let them know that they will probably lose the first game and they will lose by a fair amount of points because they are learning all of the intricacies of the game. After they understand how the game works, they definitely have a chance to not only compete, but also to win. When I taught my brother-in-law Keyflower he won the second game (with 4 players) that we played and by a good margin - so the learning curve is not that steep. Yet at the same time, I'm still learning new strategies as I play the game so the experienced gamer won't get bored playing it either.I've played with people who love board games, and those who do not care for them and they all wanted to play Keyflower again. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys serious boardgames and the time they take. When just my wife and I play, the game will last only 45 minutes, sometimes less. When I play with 4-6 people, the game takes 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours.

This is one of those games that combines systems/elements from a number of other hugely popular games - common in board gaming. It does it very well. One of the best scaling games around (we play it primarily as a two-player game and love it). Worker placement, Carcassonne-style hex tile city-building, countless opportunities to screw the people you're playing against together... a really really good game in a series I understand is pretty excellent.As a side note, if you really want to fluster someone, place three workers on their transport/upgrade locations to begin a later season. You may catch a black eye but it's totally worth it.

Keyflower is a great game with a lot of unique mechanics. It mixes elements of bidding, worker placement, town building or tile laying and resource management. One of my favorite features of this game is that your workers or meeples are used for both bidding and taking actions. During the bidding phase you and your opponents will take turns bidding on tiles that you would like to place in your colony. Each tile has it's own unique benefit so a tile with an appealing ability or end of game bonus might initiate a bidding war between players.When players bid, they place their meeples by the tile that they wish to purchase. The player who bids the most meeples gets to take that tile and then they place it in their colony. Also, the player who wins the tile must discard the workers they used to bid and the loser gets to keep their workers. Since the winning bidder must discard their meeples, it's important that you don't overbid on tiles otherwise you will have less meeples to utilize when you reach the worker placement phase of the round.After bidding, you then take actions with your remaining meeples by placing them on the tiles in your colony or in your opponent's colony. It's important to note that meeples placed in your opponent's colony DO NOT return to you at the end of the round. Instead your opponent claims them and may use them in subsequent turns. Because of this, it can be advantageous to acquire a tile that is highly sought after by other players as they will be more willing to place meeples in your colony.These mechanisms really magnify the amount of player interaction that occurs in this game. It's perfect for players who enjoy Euro-style board games but can sometimes be turned off by how a lot of games isolate you from other players. You never feel like you're playing just against the game, rather you have a strong sense of direct conflict with your opponents.However, I do have a couple of negatives that have caused me to reduce my score by one star. My first issue has to do with how the game ends. All resources may be allocated to the tile of your choice at game end, whereas during the game you must take an action to move resources. This might be hard to understand if you've never played the game, but I feel like this rule makes the game a little too lenient for players. My second complaint is that the instructions weren't very easy to grasp. I actually had to watch several videos to get a good idea of how to play this game. I would consider these minor issues though in the broad scheme of things.I really enjoy this game and I encourage avid gamers looking for a medium weight Euro to try this game out. You definitely won't be disappointed.