Sets up in 4m28s (I was bored). Plays solo in around 30mins. Straightforward to learn. Don’t be fooled though, Honey Buzz has some tasty decision space underneath it’s deceivingly cute surface bringing it up to a medium weight worth of gooey worker and tile placing honey loveliness.
Honey Buzz
Designer: Paul Salomon
Publisher: Elf Creek Games
Released: 2020
Usually my mid-heavy solo gaming life looks something like:
• Find a big, daunting, sprawling mid-heavy Euro. If it happens to have a darker theme (Golem), Mesoamerican theme (Teotihuacan) or quirky theme (Bitoku) then all the better
• Lay it out on the table and stare at it for a few days as I wade through its complex rule book
• Spend another day or two playing some very wobbly two handed plays.
• Get that sinking feeling when I realise I usually now have to learn an additional complex set of solo rules.
• Leave the game on the table for a couple of weeks as I plumb its depths.
• Write about it here.
• Repeat.
And then sometimes I just try and find a game that I think is going to bring me some respite and a little less brain burn. Something a little lighter. Something quicker but still feeling like I have had a good game. Something that I can play solo but also something that I could grab off the shelf with friends and family who may not be ‘gamers’ from time to time. Something just a little more accessible.
Which brought me to Honey Buzz, a game that had been in my peripheral vision for a while, spotted at a nice price point and I jumped. My initial (very lazy and very wrong) ‘if it’s not heavy then it’s not as good’ reaction was ‘meh, looks nice, I might get around to playing it at some point’.
I got around to playing it. And woah, it’s really good. And so much chewier than you might think.
How to play:
You begin with a solitary ‘Beeple’ along with a small selection of starting tiles making up your personal tile laying area. You use your Bee, worker placement style, to go and grab one of six possible action tiles and add it to the ones already in front of you in an attempt to make honeycomb hex shapes. Unlike some other Worker Placement games where a location would be blocked out now for the rest of the round, you or other players can go back to the same spot as often as you like but each time it will cost you one more bee than is already at that space - so two bees, then three, then….well, you know how to count.
You don’t by default take the action of your tile as you place it. Instead, only if the tile you place fits alongside a grouping of other tiles to make a closed off empty hex shape then you get to take the action printed on the tile you just took as well as all of the other actions that are displayed adjacent to that empty hex shape that you just created.
The actions that you will get to take depending on what tile you took and where you placed it will include combinations of:
• Get another worker bee to add to the one you started with. Keep unlocking more bees with this action as you go through the game until you have reached the maximum 10 that are available.
• Get 5 coins - which can be spent in the game but also worth points at the end.
• Forage: on the main board you have lots of smaller hex tiles that represent Nectar. Move through that ‘field’ of nectar up to one space for free (or further if you can or want to pay to do so). If you land on a nectar tile hex that matches with one of the empty hex spaces that you have created in your play area then you can take the nectar and place it that space.
• Produce: you can make honey on the tiles where you have taken a nectar tile using that previous Forage action
• Sell: Any single type of honey that you have Produced can be sold for coins / points or used to fulfil ‘orders’ eg if you have honey of two or three different types you can use them and end game points and a bonus for completing the order.
• A ‘wild’ action that lets you take any of those previously mentioned actions.
The final action that you can take if you don’t have any bees remaining is to bring all your bees back from the hive to your play area ready to be worked again.
So as an example: I use a worker to take a Produce tile and I place it in front of me. Where I place it creates an empty hex that also has the Forage and the Sell actions surrounding it. I can take those three actions in any order so firstly I decide to Forage to get a nectar tile to fill the gap that I have created. I then Produce which creates honey on that nectar tile that I have just foraged for. And finally I then sell that honey along with another one that I had produced in an earlier turn and gain 12 coins.
Along the way there are some variable ‘Queens Contest’ cards at the top of the board - challenges open to all players where more points might be gained but also something to hone your focus and bring some variability game to game – for example ‘have the most types of honey’, or ‘have the most nectar’, or ‘have the most empty hexes in a straight line’. Some are races, others scored at the end of the game. Talking of end game…
As you sell any of your various types of honey (and you can also sell pollen which is gained when foraging) then their value decreases by one each time. When four out of the five available resources reach the bottom of their value track (or when a certain number of Orders are completed) then the game ends. So no rounds here – just keep playing back and forth until one of those two end game conditions are met.
Usually in my reviews I now say something like “and that is just a brief overview but there is of course a lot more going on rules wise”. Here there isn’t that much more going on – the game isn’t weighed down by a complex ruleset, and that’s a lovely thing to behold. Don’t get too comfortable however as any time saved on rules is going to be spent mulling over some absolutely juicy decisions throughout the game…
General Headlines:
I don’t want to be painting the game as being heavy. It’s really, really not. A quick read of the rulebook and then one or two turns in and I was flying. It’s a simple game to learn and teach - and it plays pretty quickly solo (30mins – more on the excellent solo mode coming up) and probably 45- 60 mins two player. That said the placement of your tiles can make some tasty combos erupt (take note combo fans) so you’re spending a good while each turn contemplating your optimum moves. You’re also likely to be chasing some variable Queens Contests or Orders which require you to think carefully about your overall strategy (do I want a particular type of honey, will I need all my honey to be clustered together or in a straight line, do I really want to put that there). Also, if you place all of your tiles in exactly the same arrangement every turn then you are just not going to be efficient or maximise your actions (i.e. you’ll lose).
The main chews for me in this game are:
1. “I want to get that tile but I don’t have enough Bees to get it so I am going to have to get another one now and pivot the whole plan for my move”
2. “I need a particular type of honey so I am going to have lay my tiles in a very particular way so that I can go forage for the right type of nectar tile to fit there so that it can start producing the right honey”
….and they are deliciously, deceptively head squeezing. I have played this with two others - the long suffering Mrs Headlines from a Solo Player and the little version of Mrs Headlines – and they both had exactly the same reaction as I had precisely three moves in: “ohhhhhh ok now I get it, wow, there is a lot to think about here". And it’s a lovely moment when it happens – the moment that you realise that you aren’t just playing a nice looking game, you are playing a really well designed game and I do need to spend a moment on that point to say that what absolutely comes through in addition to the great art and the excellent component quality (insert is very welcomed) is that this game has clearly been very lovingly designed. Not just produced - designed. I wasn’t just playing a game. I was playing someone’s game. You can tell in the gameplay that it’s been a personal labour of love and I appreciated that a lot as I played. I can’t quantify that statement in anyway at all. Its just a feeling. You’ll just get what I mean.
The game that most came to mind as I was playing it was Meadow – another beautiful, nature themed game. The two games share little DNA with Meadow being more of a card drafting tableaux builder. But both games have that really adorable table presence, are very easy to learn but most importantly both then reveal themselves to have so much more depth to the decision spaces and both have those head squeezing ‘which one shall I take and where I will put it’ moments. If you liked Meadow then you’ll like this a lot – and vice versa.
On the downside, I worry (slightly) at 2p that the Queens Contest cards, whilst offering some additional points to chase along with some focus to how to play the game, might be a little bit overpowered - the player fulfilling the most contests destined to run away with the points. I think this would be my only main gripe with the game – the 2p scoring. In one game I was beaten quite early to two of the three Queens Contests and I immediately knew that it meant that I would lose the game so I was sat for another half hour playing a game knowing I had zero chance of winning. Which wasn’t fun. There are some suggestions in the BGG Forums on slightly tweaking the value of the Queens Contests in the 2p game and while I cant say that I have played enough to have an expert opinion on the matter, I do think I would follow the suggestion of lowering their value when playing again at 2p. It’s a minor grumble, and an easily house ruleable one. And this isn’t a multiplayer review so I shall stop picking at that. I mention the Queens Contest cards more because for me they absolutely lift this game up a notch when played solo…
Solo Headlines:
…you see, in the multiplayer game those Queens Contest cards are just additional missions and points that you might be wise to chase – see if you can be first to get nectar of a certain type for example and bag yourself 20 points. Nice enough. But in the solo game these Queens Contest cards are solo specific challenges that are win conditions and they make the solo game shine. Yes, my solo game is still scored by points at the end and the more that I have the better it is - Beat Your Own Score stylee. But if I haven’t fulfilled the (variable) conditions shown on the Queens Contest cards by the end of the game then I lose no matter how many points I have in the bag.
These Solo Queens Contests change game to game but an example could be that I need to use only a certain number of bees rather than the ten available, end the game with a certain number of types of honey and have my tiles in a certain configuration. So now not only am I chasing maximum points as ever but also I have more than one eye on this unique combo of win conditions.
They feel tense, can be adjusted to provide varying degrees of difficulty and just lift the puzzle nature of the game up a notch. They also make me play the game differently each time rather than just resting on any tried and tested pathways to victory that I might use each time in the multiplayer game. The variability of these win conditions in the solo mode is a real treat and the shift from just chasing points to a heavier focus on optimisation is excellent.
In practical terms the solo mode is a small deck of cards - flip one over and it blocks you from spaces / takes some resources / brings the end game countdown a little closer. The game plays a in a quick 30 minutes but you feel like there has been enough of a puzzle to give your brain some good hurts.
So for me, I actually prefer this game solo to multiplayer, but I really like it multiplayer too. I’m glad its on my shelf to give me some solo time that demands a little less from me but also gives me a sufficiently challenging experience - as well as having something on the shelf that is fun to play multiplayer and a good one to entice new people into the hobby with.
At a glance:
+ Excellent quality of components and superb artwork
+ A very easy learn and teach
+ A depth of decision making that I was not anticipating
+ Solo mode is easy to manage, plays in about 30 minutes which some might feel is a little on the short side but the added optimisation puzzle of the solo mode makes up for any perceived shortness.
+ Combo fans are going to be happy
- A small worry about big gaps in scoring when playing 2p due to the value of Queens Contests. A quick, easy, house rule fix though can solve this if you feel the same as me.
Final Score:
8 out of 10. (It’s lighter than my usual tastes but I refuse to mark it down for not being ‘heavy’. A good game is a good game, and this is a cracking good game)
Reviewed after 8 plays. Read more about this game on BoardGameGeek
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