Family Focus Game Reviews: Stone Age
Hello all. The purpose of this series will be to provide a review of varying games from a family gaming perspective. No…this series will NOT examine the intricacies of Monopoly or Risk, Scrabble or Yahtzee. Instead we will look at popular BGG games, and how these games work in the context of a typical family (2 parents, a child, perhaps additional relatives).
Second on my review list is the worker placement game, Stone Age:
Stone age is a beautifully designed worker placement mechanic game produced by Rio Grande Games. In this game players decide how best to utilize their “workers” to collect resources, food, tools, cards and more workers. Achieving resources is important for building/buying huts in order to score victory points. Maintaining a balance of collecting resources, earning food, and scoring victory points is the main challenge of the game. Each turn is divided in to 3 stages:
I. Worker Placement – each player takes a turn placing meeples on to any of the available action spots (mating, tool building, hunting, resource harvesting, farming, card buying or hut buying). This phase continues until all meeples from all players have been placed.
II. Actions – each player performs the actions dictated by where they have placed their meeples. Actions may be taken in any order (resource collection before buying a hut or hut before resources?), and the order of events can affect game play.
III. Feeding – each player must now pay 1 food for each meeple/worker they have. Failure to feed your workers results in a loss of victory points or the necessity to pay resources.
These phases are carried out each turn. Game play ends when one one pile of huts (used for scoring victory points) have been depleted. At this point players score points based on remaining resources, cards collected (too detailed to explain in a short review), and varying other factors determined by collected cards. The player who has the most victory points at the end of the game wins!
As far as family game play goes, I will break this review down in to several categories:
1) Ease of Play: The game play here could be a bit complex for a family starting out in gaming. I noticed that my family tended to get stuck on collecting resources, forgetting all-together the existence of cards at the beginning. That said, I find new players quickly adapt to the rules, and in the second or third game pick up on the importance of other game factors. The three stages are well defined, and easy to follow. Layout of the board, and icons used to define game play are simple to understand and easy to follow.
2) Clarity of Rules: The clarity of the rule set is very important to family game play. Older parents, or younger children, often have a hard time following the ambiguous rules that come with many of the more “gamer style” games. Stone age, however, comes with a relatively concise and easy to follow rule book, and even puts certain rule abbreviations on the individual player boards. Additionally, a small reference guide is included for quick rule checks and point references. My mother, who is notoriously bad with rules, had absolutely no questions after her first game through.
3) Visual Appeal: This is one are where this game truly shines. The board included with stone age is an example of true beauty in a board design. Colorful illustrations on both the main game board and the individual player boards. The art is well drawn in all examples.
4) Quality of production: I have mixed opinions on this. In terms of the game board, game pieces, dice, etc. I think the production quality of Stone Age is on par with any game out there. That being said, the insert included with the box leaves something to be desired. This game comes with some the most elaborate art you could hope for, with a design printed even on the BACK of the game board. On the other hand….flimsy cardboard insert with no real organizational pattern. I just don’t get it.
5) Fun Factor: Excellent! I always enjoy this game, and it has quickly worked its way in to the family top 3 (following Carcassone and Ticket to Ride). There can be minimal, or more extensive, player interaction. Everyone gets a turn at first choice of play, and this provides great balance to the game. Additonally, play time is not too long which saves from the boredom factor often common in family game play.
6) Strategy: I think perhaps the game may lack a little here. Granted, there are multiple ways to go about managing both the feeding of your workers and the scoring of VP, but in the most part it comes down to “get just enough food, just enough resources, buy a hut or some cards to score VP”. This isn’t meant to be taken the wrong way, and I do believe a fair amount of planning can be undertaken to ensure a victory. However, with some luck in the roll of the dice, and a fairly predictable game pattern, it isn’t the MOST strategic game out there.
Summary:
As everyone can probably tell, Stone Age is a game which I myself, as well as my family, greatly enjoy. It is a quick worker placement style game which has simple, easy to follow game play. With beautiful art, well written rules, and a competitive but non-threatening style, Stone Age provides a good introduction to the worker-placement mechanic while maintaining a light gaming environment. I recommend this game for anyone looking to introduce their family to a light-medium gaming experience.
Thank you much for reading my review. Stay tuned to my blog for more Family Focus Game Reviews, or check out my geeklist on Boardgamegeek for more reviews oriented at gaming within a family environment. The geeklist can be found at:
http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/46140
