- Publisher : Pixie Games
- Designer(s) : Dani Garcia
- Artist(s) : Javier González Cava, Nicolas Gendron
- Players : 1–5
- Playing time : 90–120 Min
- Weight BGG : 3.67
What's this?
Arborea is a villager placement game that uses time as its central element. You play as a Guardian Spirit who guides villagers through pilgrimages to rebuild a devastated ecosystem.
How do you play?
In the game Arborea, player actions take place in several phases:
➡️1. Place a villager or advance a pilgrimage trail. Villagers are placed on pilgrimage trails. As they advance, they can access more distant paths, offering better rewards.
You can choose to advance a pilgrimage trail. As the trail advances, all villagers on it advance with it, and those who arrive at a trail can choose to be placed there and be activated later.
➡️ 2. Activate villagers on a trail. When you activate a villager, you trigger all the effects of the icons along the trail they travel.
➡️ 3. Complete an ecosystem card. If you have accumulated enough biomes, you can complete an ecosystem card by spending those biomes. Biomes are shared, so any biomes you don’t spend on your turn can be used by other players. Once completed, the card is placed in your ecosystem.
➡️ 4. Update biome pool and advance pilgrimage tracks. If you haven’t used some biomes, the tiles in those biomes are moved up to gain VP. Then, you must advance the pilgrimage tracks where your villagers are.
➡️ 5. Add creatures to the ecosystem. At the end of your turn, if you invited creatures during your turn, you must place them in your ecosystem.
These phases structure each turn, and the game continues until the Sun Tracker reaches the last square, triggering the end of the game.
Is it good?
Arborea innovates with a mechanism of moving tracks where workers are placed, subtly reminiscent of the Tzolkin system. The longer you wait before bringing down your worker, the more enticing the rewards are, creating an interesting strategic dilemma.
This mechanic encourages positive interaction between players, each seeking to optimize their placements. The joint resource management aspect adds a layer of subtle interaction: should you exploit the resources immediately or leave them to score victory points?
While the Ecosystem card mechanics are more classic and do not revolutionize the genre, they fit well with the theme of the game.
The material is of high quality, with magnificent meeples. The colorful board, although visually appealing, requires some time to adapt due to the multitude of icons.
In summary, Arborea is an excellent management game, both deep and original. The moving track mechanism brings a welcome freshness, while the other elements of the game fit together harmoniously. If you’re looking for a worker placement game that’s rich in strategy and offers good replay value, Arborea will appeal to you.
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Review Arborea
Positives
- Moving Tracks Mechanics
- Positive Interaction
- A Great Replay Value
- Quite Deep and Strategic
- A Great Material
Negatives
- Lots of icons and lack of visibility
- A theme that is forgotten
Breakdown
- Components and illustrations 9.0
- Mechanics 8.0
- Thematic 7.0
- Replayability 8.0
- Handling 8.5
- Interaction 8.5
- Originality 8.5
