YORKTON - There are always games which surprise, some falling well short of expectations and others that exceed what one anticipates.
Yes, this week's game; Waggle Dance by creator Mike Nudd falls on one side of that spectrum.
This one was interesting for The Meeple Guild.
Guilder Steven took the lead and after a few minutes had the gaming table covered with cards, and wooden pieces and stacks of dice, enough to make a gamer like myself who shudders when to many ‘bits and bobs’ are involved – well start to shudder.
Then he cracks the rules and starts to explain the various cards and actions – and frankly there was a fog of confusion rolling a across the table.
Now to be fair the cards had large iconography that we just did not yet understand, the wooden bits were coloured and all in unique shapes so easy to differentiate, and the dice would prove to be a player’s ‘workers’ for in-game placement, but at first blush it looked a bit much.
Finally it was suggested we just dive in and see how it would go. There was an expectation we might face delays referring to a rule book that seems a tad more complicated than needed, but we wanted to play.
This is a one-to-four player Euro-style worker-placement dice game where ultimately players must create five honey to win.
Each player controls worker bees (the dice) to build a beehive, collect nectar, and make honey etc. You start with six but can ‘hatch’ new workers via in-game mechanics to grow the worker bee force to accomplish more on future turns.
Now while many worker placement games falter because a key location or two must be gotten to first or you feel hamstrung, Waggle Dance let’s you chose your path more easily – a huge plus.
There are times the dice rolls limit placement, but you can use one worker die to adjust another to get a key number you might need – another nice touch.
Interestingly, once into the game it flows very smoothly. You catch on to the basics quickly, and some subtle ‘tricks’ become apparent by the mid point of a first game.
In fact, finding things we didn’t like was a tad difficult. The two we did find is that the honeycomb pieces where you store nectar (the wooden bits) once collected could be half a size larger, and the cards you can ‘gather’ that influence game play while having larger iconography would be better to have a written explanation of what they do right on the card.
Past the minor gripes this one was a rather stunning surprise – very much on the positive side of the ledger. In truth we are not a group that gravitates to worker placement games often but if they were all as fine as Waggle Dance that would change.
This one is definitely one to watch for. Find it via www.brighteyegames.com
