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Next Move | Reef: Second Edition | Board Game | 2 - 4 Players | Ages 8+ | 30 to 45 Minutes Playing Time

£9.995£19.99Clearance
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Timing is crucial. Sometimes, it might be worth delaying the scoring of a card to allow for more optimal placements. A second edition of Reef, which features more contrast on the player boards and pieces that are more colour blind friendly, was published in 2020. The rules and component quality are identical to the original printing that I’m reviewing here. It’s just the colours that have changed. When playing a card from your hand you will place it face up in front of you. Each card in Reef shows two pieces of coral at the top of the card. This pair of coral may be the same type and colour or they may be different. The bottom of each card shows a scoring pattern. When you choose to play a card you must use both parts of the card, top then bottom. Soon multi-turn plans form in your head, can you put together just enough cards before you opponents do to play a few pieces into you reef to build it up to a point where you can play one single card for mega points at the end? Maybe, or, maybe not. There’s a certain frustration baked into this game – players simply need to deny themselves something every turn, whether that’s the card with resources they need, or the chance to play our resources this turn. The game only ends when one of the colours has run out, so those who are ahead can attempt to race through pieces and trigger the end of the game. Or the Star Realms Starter Set Bundle with Star Realms, Colony Wars and Frontiers https://amzn.to/3uffjNa

Observe the growth of nature's most beautiful and exotic natural structure: the coral reef Found primarily in the Indo-Pacific region, it has taken reefs thousands of years to grow. Over that time, they have mesmerized marine life and created amazing aquatic ecosystems. Prepare yourselves to do the same... and open your eyes to the beauty of the oceans. The cleverness of the scoring makes the game a lot more brain burning than the pretty components seem, meaning this is a great game for new and experienced players alike. It's easier to explain than Azul, yet perhaps with a touch more depth. But the game itself? It’s classic Emerson Matsuuchi simplicity in an abstract strategy game. Reef is a pattern making, score card claiming game in 3D, using sweetie-like coral blobs in various colours to represent the growing life in the reef itself.

Setup

Reef was designed by Emerson Matsuuchi and features Art by Chris Quilliams. It was originally published in 2018 by a number of publishers. My copy happens to be from Next Move Games which is a department of Plan B Games. If the pattern appears multiple times throughout your reef, take the shown number of points as many times as the pattern appears. If patterns show wild pieces (a 4-colored shape) with printed numbers, only the height of those top pieces is relevant, not their color.

Reef is a really simple to learn game that is both easy to teach and play. There are only two actions you have to learn, draw a card or play a card. I am a big fan of the Azul games (my favourite of which you can read about in my Azul Summer Pavilion review) which are also from Plan B games. Compared to that series, Reef feels significantly lighter. However, one aspect where Reef could improve is its player aid. A simple reference card summarizing the possible actions during a turn and illustrating some of the common patterns could be helpful, especially for younger players or those less familiar with pattern-building games. To start a game of Reef you first find the player board with a starfish in the corner. You grab that and a number of other (identical) boards until you have a board for each player (up to four). You then shuffle these boards and give one to each player. Then the player may score for the pattern shown on the bottom of the card they played. If that pattern exists on their board (from a top-down view), they score the number of points shown in the bottom corner of the card as many times as the pattern appears.

Game Play

Reef is simple to learn and get to the table. On a players turn, they have two choices for an action. They can either draw a card from the center display or play a card from their hand. Sort the 112 coral pieces by color to form 4 separate supplies A. Depending on the number of players, each of these 4 supplies must comprise a certain number ofcoral pieces: Reef is an abstract strategy game for two to four players where players are collecting pieces of coral which they then use to build a three-dimensional reef on their own personal player board. While building, players will score points for having different patterns of coral on their growing reef. Once any one colour of coral runs out the player with the most points wins. When it comes to player scaling, I’m a bit torn as to which player count I like best. Since Reef is pretty much a multiplayer solitaire game, there isn’t much you can do to hinder your opponents. The best you can do is draft a card that would really help out an opponent so they don’t score off it, but that’s usually a suboptimal move. I’ve found at the two player count, the game is much more strategic, as the cards in the drafting row don’t move very often. While at 4 players, the cards churn much more rapidly, so the game becomes more tactical as what you have to choose from will change often. However, then you have to deal with the increased downtime between turns. There are many different ways to score in Reef. Final Thoughts: Take as many player boards E as there are players. Make sure the one with the starfish F is included. Shuffle them and place one at random in front of each player. The player with the starfish board will be the first player.

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