More about those bees

Let’s talk a bit about Apiary 🐝!
We enjoyed our first foray into this euro about evolved sci-fi-bees travelling in space, pollinating planets and building out their hives. However as we played more, our excitement started degrading. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves - let’s break it down. 🕵️

The worker placement is very smooth. 👌 You either place a worker or retrieve every worker on your turn, so there are no end of round phases. Another good thing is how your workers are 4-sided dice 🎲 that show their power level. The higher the number, the stronger the action will be, and power 4 bees can even activate the special powers of action spots. Power 4 bees also have to hibernate afterwards, meaning you lose them but also claim a one-time bonus. This way you keep having to get new workers.

These are all fun mechanics, but there are 2 main problems that break things for us. 🫥 Firstly, the worker placement is very loose. If there is a worker on a spot, you can bump them off, and that goes even for your own workers! So you can really do anything you want and without real compromise. (To be fair, bumping bees make them stronger) ☝️Secondly, the other bigger problem are the 6 actions you can take, because while most of them are useful and important, there are some that you will only do rarely. So out of the 6 actions, you most often go exploring for resources, or buying hex tiles for your hive. And those 2 actions aren’t exciting enough to carry the game. 🙁

Hexes are actually the most fun part of the game as I love building stuff. I just wish there was more nuance to this, as there are only a few tiles that have adjacency rules, otherwise you can just place them wherever you want.

Art is subjective, but I have to mention the game board. It has texts with different font styles and lines dividing the actions - it’s just not aesthetically pleasing. It’s a pity, because otherwise the resources and bees are lovely, and the box art is amazing.

💬 All in all, there are good ideas and mechanics in the game, but nothing really stands out, and games can feel quite samey after a few plays.