Arborea Second Opinion

Arborea is such a colourful game. It is one of those games where the experience of playing is enhanced by the components and that includes the gameboard. There is quite a lot to take it in when you first play, and it does seem rather chaotic with all those different coloured pathways for your workers to take. It certainly felt a little overwhelming for me the first time I played, yet as usual once you start playing, it gets easier as you see how the rules work.

In Arborea, players take turns placing workers on tracks and collecting resources among things to help regenerate the ecosystem that is the heart of the game. Players are also trying to attract creatures, giving gifts to sages and proving their worth as a patron of their village. Regeneration or Victory points are then scored based on how resources are used and other actions taken during the game.

Good mechanics

Arborea has some good mechanics. The resource levels move up and down their respective tracks based on what is collected. Players may use these resources to help increase their own ecosystem and the type of flora contained and this in turn helps determine the type and benefit gained from creatures invited to live there. Alternatively, victory points can be gain from resources unused and so each turn you have this consideration, use the resources to help grow your own ecosystem or hold back, collect victory points knowing that the resources can also be used by the next player. As another player, you wait to see if resources will be available to you so watching your opponents and judging what resources they might generate and not use is important, even if not easy.

Another nice mechanic are the tracks. There are four tracks, each with two sides of themed pathways. Each pathway theme, apart from being very colourful, has several routes to exit. These grant resources or other benefits and the longer you stay on the track the more benefits you gain when you decide to take a route off, but a nice element is that these tracks tend to move each turn as multiple players utilise them, so this may be to your liking being pushed along to greater gain, but equally may cause you to exit earlier than planned.

Confusion

I’ll be honest, despite a lot of love for the game, it can be confusing and a difficult one to teach. I would definitely recommend persevering though as you will be rewarded, but the rules are quite involved, scoring needs to be appreciated in advance of play so you can optimise your play to how you may score and the game board, despite looking wonderful, also gives you brain ache from all the variables.

Reward

Persevere though, treat your first game as a learning exercise and don’t take it too seriously, support each other in the learning process and then you’ll be ready for game two! It can seem daunting, but practice helps. The reward will be a lovely aesthetically pleasing game where there is a surprising amount of player interaction and replayability.

Final thoughts

I have to say overall, I have enjoyed each game I’ve played of Arborea. The colour coding helps acclimatise to the game and once to get the hang of the turn sequence and appreciate the timing of actions, the game becomes easier to play even if not necessarily easy to win. The game does seem chaotic at times, timing is important, but you can still a focus and play t o that to some degree. It can feel like the game is edging towards the game end points fairly quickly as creatures are picked up by players and you do have to try and score across the board in multiple scoring options to have a realistic chance of winning. Again though, play it, practice, get used to it and then subsequent games should be easier to enjoy and play. Whether this game turns out to be a regular repeat play will largely depend on how much we remember of the rules (we play a lot of different games and it can be a while before a game gets played again) and the extent to which we relish (or not) the idea of a heavy learning session.