Queenz, review
Honey at will!
In Queenz, players take on the role of beekeepers and must create the most profitable field of flowers in terms of victory points. To do this, they have orchid tiles of five different colors and field tiles of different shapes in tetris style, to be combined in order to maximize the points both during the game and in the counting at the end of the game. The goal is to produce honey and to do so it is necessary to create a group of adjacent flowers consisting of at least two flowers of the same color. This way you get victory points and the precious jars of colored honey. It is also absolutely essential to make the most of the precious orchid tiles with printed bees (from one to three).Queenz is a simple game to learn and of limited duration (half an hour or so), but not underestimate the strategic aspect of this fun and colorful title.
How to play Queenz
On their turn, the player can perform only one action of their choice: take orchid tiles from the board central or develop a field. The central board is made up of a large 6 × 6 square on which 36 orchid tiles are placed randomly. If the player chooses to take tiles during his turn, he must do so from the row or column on which the Gardener pawn is present, which moves as indicated below. When the gardener passes the red arrow, all empty spaces on the board are filled with new tiles. Now let's look at the specific actions.Choosing the tiles
The player can choose from one to three tiles under the following conditions:if you choose a tile with one or more bees, you can only take that one; if he chooses tiles without bees, he can take two of the same or different color OR three all of different colors. The player must be able to place the tiles taken on his personal board, on which it is possible to keep up to six flowers. The rules do not specify whether it is possible to discard an existing tile to make room for a new one, so it can be assumed that this is not possible.
After taking the desired tiles, the player advances the Gardener pawn by one number of spaces equal to the number of cards withdrawn, thus determining the row / column from which cards can be withdrawn later. If by doing so the Gardener arrives on a completely empty row / column, the player who moved it scores a victory point and the row / column is immediately filled with new orchids taken from the supply.
Develop a field
The other possible action is to develop a field. To do this, the player takes one of the fields currently available (starting with five). If a player takes the last available field, he scores a point and five new fields come into play from the reserve. The fields have different shapes but always consist of five spaces. After choosing it, the player places the field in front of him, adjacent to at least one other if he is not the first to develop (diagonal contact is not considered adjacency), then he must fill all five spaces of the field with flowers from his own reserve or by placing one or more of their hives (each player has three). Hives award points at the end of the game, later we will see how.After placing flowers and / or hives, the player checks the points he gets: each group of at least two flowers of the same color that is created or extended thanks to the newly placed field it produces honey and consequently victory points. For example, if you make a group of three red orchids, you get 3 points. If you expand a pre-existing blue group of four flowers by adding two more, you get 6 points. In this way, all the groups created or extended with the new developed field are counted. Also, the first time you create a group of at least two orchids of a certain color, you get the honey jar of the corresponding color. When a player has produced honey of all five colors, he gets the Diversified Production token (the first of those throws awards 10 points, which then drops to 6, 5 and 4).
Warning: to produce honey and getting points at this stage of the game no bees are required. These are used exclusively to get points at the end of the game!
The queen bee
Some tiles feature a single bee printed on the flower. This is the queen bee, which has a particular power: when you select this tile, optionally and only at this precise moment, you can decide to place it on an already developed field instead of any tile already present (regardless of color), which is placed on the player board. This action does not score points, but it can be useful for adding bees next to hives or for modifying existing flower groups. Don't underestimate its strategic strength!End of the game and final score
The game ends when a player develops the fifth field. All the other players can still perform an action. Only in this circumstance it is possible to develop a field without filling all the spaces. At this point the final scoring takes place: the points obtained during the game are added to those of the Diversified Production token (if you have obtained it) and the points for the hives. Each hive is worth as many points as there are bees in the eight boxes that surround it.Materials and graphics
Queenz is a game that is characterized by sturdy and pleasant to see materials. The tiles have an excellent thickness and it is practically impossible for them to get damaged, even when playing with children. The orchid tiles are colorful and help create a table with a remarkable glance. Even the fields and planks have a satisfactory thickness and the wooden components (gardener, hives, and honey jars) are also very beautiful to look at. The nit, if we really want to find it, is the scoreboard. Nice idea of making it in honeycomb style, however, the tiny player cards move easily if you don't pay enough attention.The game box is also very nice, with the title printed in gloss and that sturdiness boxes that keep well over the years.
Conclusions
Queenz is a very enjoyable game. Despite having an essentially abstract strategy, it is well themed and the work to make the setting tangible was accurate. Due to its short duration and age indication, it might seem like a simple game, but don't be fooled: even though it is easy to learn, it is not at all trivial to play. The indication from the age of 8 can fit me because of the few and simple rules but, in my opinion, only for children already a bit skilled in the field of board games. Queenz has a good level of replayability, given by the large number of Orchid tiles (125 equally distributed in 5 colors) and by the variety of field tiles (24 in 12 different shapes), which come out randomly, making you always have to invent yourself something new to develop the garden.The game has great scalability and is equally enjoyable with any number of players. Queenz also offers a small game variant with the inclusion of black orchids. When you take one of these tiles, you discard it and draw three covered orchids from the supply. 1 or 2 can be kept regardless of the number of bees present. You can decide whether or not to use this variant depending on how much you like the randomness factor associated with fishing for covered cards.
