THE GUARDIANS OF HAVERSACK
Family friendly sack building
Designer: Frederic Guerard | Publisher: Catch Up Games
When an evil sorceress threatens the land you can’t just pull heroes from a bag…can you? The Guardians of Haversack insists you can. Multiple times in fact, as is befitting of a bagbuilding game.
The Guardians of Haversack’s tidy game length (thirty minutes is about right) stretches across five rounds of simultaneous play, whereby players
will be populating their lands with monsters, pulling guardians from their bags, gaining coins and points, and enlisting new guardians. The game’s six types of guardians are represented by tokens, with each activating their own movement values and unique abilities when drawn from the bag. The warrior, for example, can move two spaces orthogonally before defeating any enemy residing in that space, whilst the thief can move three spaces and unlock treasure chests. By travelling across the map defeating monsters, capturing fairies, rebuilding villages, and uncovering treasure, players will gain the glory needed to trade in for gold and points.
Whilst creating a cohesive band of specialised guardians makes up a fair bulk of the strategy here, there’s more to be found in the game’s rules concerning navigation of the map. At the start of the game, guardians begin their movement from the central castle space. From here, subsequent guardians can either start at the castle or spawn from the same space as another guardian. Furthermore, at the end of each round, any ‘guide’ guardians will erect a tent where they stand creating more spawning opportunities in the next round.
Due to the relatively large maps and the unpredictable spawning of monsters, careful consideration of these rules is important, as reaching the peripheral spaces is dependent on how well players can string together a network of guardians or tents. Furthermore, these maps are rife with obstacles: forests end movement immediately yet open up the other side to future guardians, only warriors can enter spaces with monsters, and lakes can only be crossed with the terrain-negating abilities of the ranger.
It’s worth noting that whilst the order in which guardians are drawn clearly influences how effectively plans and obstacles can be adhered to and combated, players are always safe in the knowledge that all of their tokens will make an appearance during a turn. This is a nice change from the typical ‘luck-of-the-draw’ mechanics of other bag-builders, and ensures that each investment in additional guardians feels worthwhile.
What this amounts to is a nicely thematic little puzzle, albeit one which never becomes too taxing, even for younger players. Indeed, turns zip along quite well thanks to the accessible rules and simultaneous play, but, on the other hand, it is this latter component that emphasises the solitary nature of Guardians. With its strong adventurous theme, bright, cartoonish aesthetic, and a design geared towards families, it was surprising to find Guardians lacking the level of interaction typically associated with family games. Simultaneous play may well negate downtime between turns, but the result is five rounds of people figuring out the same puzzle on identical maps. Perhaps it was a tad hasty to assume otherwise, but the presence of zero interaction aside from comparing final scores feels nonetheless slightly jarring.
For those not put off by notions of multiplayer-solitaire, Guardians should offer plenty of enjoyment for players both new and seasoned. There’s a simple satisfaction to pulling tokens from a bag, and when this results in a perfect turn of cascading luck and skill, it’s hard not to be impressed.
CHAD WILKINSON
WE SAY
A polished and well-paced bag-builder, perfect for a competitive yet nonconfrontational family games night.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
◗4 Adventure Boards
◗ Score Board
◗6 Guardian Tiles
◗4 Expedition Bags
◗88 Guardian Tokens
◗112 Creature Tokens
◗28 Scout Cards
◗40 Chest Tokens
◗40 Village Tokens
◗12 Tent Tokens
◗28 Gold Pieces
◗4 Score Markers
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED TINY TOWNS…
Both games share a fun, yet solitary, almost ‘roll & write’ like format – albeit one bursting from the two-dimensional static page and into to the third.