- Publisher : Lucky Duck Games
- Designer : Paul Salomon
- Artist(s) : Anne Heidsieck
- Players : 1-4
- Playing time : 45–90 Min
- Weight BGG : 2.74
What's this?
Bees have discovered economics. The queens believe that if they sell honey to bears, badgers and woodland creatures, they will find peace and prosperity. Spring has arrived and it’s time to build the hive, find nectar, make honey and, for the first time, open a shop.
Honey Buzz is a worker placement game where players expand a personal hive by choosing different comb tiles that grant actions triggered throughout the game. Each tile represents a different action.
When a tile is placed in such a way as to complete a certain pattern, a set of actions are triggered in the order chosen by the player. A tile selected in the first round can be triggered up to three times at any point in the game, depending on how the player places their “beeples” (bee + meeple) and builds their hive. After all, in the world of honey, efficiency is king.
How do you play?
On your turn, you can either place your worker bees on different locations on the board to collect the associated tile, or recall all your workers to place them back on your player board.
The locations on the main board will each time provide you with an action tile that you must place on your personal hive. You will build your own hive with the action tiles of your choice, according to your strategy.
These action tiles will only be activated when a cell is formed (several adjacent tiles forming a hole in the center) in your personal hive. This way, you will plan the right moment to close your cell, triggering all actions and creating pleasant combos.
The different actions include the birth of new bees, foraging with the recovery of a nectar tile to place in your cells, the production of honey on your nectars, the generation of money, and visiting the market to validate orders and sell the stored honey according to the market price.
The end of the game will mainly be triggered when two of the three command stacks have been executed, encouraging us to keep an eye on the actions of our opponents.
Is it good?
Honey Buzz is a good intermediate game mixing worker and tile placement. You will strive to expand your hive by judiciously activating all your actions to maximize combos.
The material and illustrations are magnificent, greatly facilitating immersion in the theme. The game turns into a frantic race against other players to accumulate the most money before the end of the game.
However, in my opinion, its main flaw lies in its pace, which can vary from fast to very long depending on the players’ turns.
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Review Honey Buzz
Positives
- Beautiful illustrations and a great theme
- Super quality material
- Lots of combos to plan
Negatives
- Lack of rhythm
Breakdown
- Components and illustrations 9.5
- Mechanics 7.5
- Thematic 7.5
- Replayability 8.0
- Handling 9.5
- Interaction 7.5
- Originality 8.0
