YORKTON - If cuteness a great game made, then the recent release Alpina would score very well out of the box.
The art, depicting frogs, birds and deer against backdrops of forest, mountain and lakes, if not purely cute, are quite nice.
From the nice art everything with this one falls neatly into place.
Designer Luc Rémond has created a quick and easy-to-play, tile-laying game for two to four players.
Each player is dealt a hand of tiles, and has a number of player pieces they can employ to the board -- five each for a four player game and eight each in two-player for example.
On a turn you place a tile into what will become a 5X5 grid (25 cards). After placement you can place a piece which claims that tile for game end scoring. Each card has its score conditions explained via very easy to follow iconography – a huge plus.
In a four-player game 20 of the 25 cards will be claimed. A high scoring tile is roughly 10, and it would be really rare to place a piece on a tile that fails to generate game-end points.
This is a filler game – the box suggests 20-minutes – five of that is scoring each taken tile – but in the crowded realm of fillers this is a cut above most. You will want to put Alpina in an easy access spot on your gaming shelves because you will want to grab it for a quick game often.
This one ends up being a very easy recommendation to add to your collection.
