KAREKARE
Designer: Muntsa Corbella & Gustavo Mariano | Publisher: Devir Games
Karekare is a deceptive game. Set in Aotearoa (New Zealand) we play as tribes exploring and working the land to build our civilisation and grow sweet potatoes, the art consists of nice tiles and amusingly anthropomorphised local wildlife. It’s got little boats and houses. And yet, when you get the game to the table, there’s quite a vicious back and forth happening underneath.
The game is played out by making three randomly chosen stacks of tiles, returning the rest to the box. A small market is drawn that you can take from, and you always have a hand of two tiles. When the tiles are played down, you trigger the effects of your tile in its new context. Place a forest next to a forest and get some charming wood tokens, a field next to a forest will yield some equally charming sweet potatoes. You can use these to build houses and canoes later, providing your tribe with honour (victory points). The scoring happens at the end of each pile of tiles, with the most points scored for canoes, fewer for houses.