ST followers know I'm the resident Stonemaier Games fan here and damn proud of it. 🤗 But this one even surprised me that I jumped on it so quickly and with such little information. Here's what my thought process was when I first learned about Apiary coming out...
I love Stonemaier games in general and trust them to produce fun and beautiful games. Though I don't want every game in Stonemaier's library, I do love/want MOST.
I love space and space themes so this game intrigued me.
Although "Space Bees" seems very random and odd, I love nature and nature themes. So why not?
I also looked at this similar to Wingspan where designer Elizabeth Hargreaves designed a game based on her love for birds and birding. In this case, Connie Vogelmann is a bee keeper and lover of bees so it holds some similarity with Wingspan to me in that regard. And since I love Wingspan, I felt like I should take a shot.
I love worker placement games.
I know Stonemaier always produces quality in their games / products.
From quickly looking over the mechanics and watching the odd review video, it had elements of Euphoria in the gameplay mechanics (which I enjoy)
So I took a chance on the Space Bees.... And I 100% do NOT regret it already!
*Disclaimer - As my usual approach I learned the game two-handed yesterday
and plan to learn the Automa today. I just had to share my initial thoughts though!*
As always, the quality is excellent. There's plenty of components with this game as well. Check out the stack of punch boards! Woo!!!! I love lots of components!
As with Expeditions, Stonemaier Games are coming with inserts now which I absolutely LOVE!!! I'm not 100% if this is the new norm for all Stonemaier releases, but I'd gladly pay a little more to have an insert with a game every time. 🙂 Here it is with the components punched out and ready to setup. 😎 Awesome!
One thing I DO know for sure that Stonemaier is doing from now on is providing rulebooks in a manageable size. Jamey Stegmaier spoke on how cumbersome the larger rulebooks can be and how Stonemaier games rulebooks will be created in a more manageable format so that having the rulebook out on the table as you learn is much easier to manage. Such a simple and smart move. Apiary has not only the rulebook itself, but also an appendix book, teaching guide and Automa rulebook - all the same size. 🙂
Apiary comes with 5-Hives and 20-Factions. The Factions are essentially starting tiles as well as each having an on-going effect or end game scoring effect that differs from other factions. The picture above is the "The Langstroth" hive I used with blue last night, and I used "The Log" hive with the yellow bees.
The main board is double sided (1-3 player side and 4-5 player side). Each player has their hives and docking mat as well as starting workers and resources.
The theme in Apiary is that humans are long gone and bees being so smart, have evolved over generations and are able to explore space, gather resources and expand their species. I know it's so oddly random, yet SO CLEVER how it's done and what's involved!!! I love it.
Notice on the hives there are basic resources (fiber, pollen and water). You can also gain wax and honey. Your resources are kept in your hive and based on what you can store with your starting faction and what you build in your hive will dictate how many of which resource you can store (very cool mechanic).
Building onto hives can be done spending resources to build farms (which provide benefits AND increase storage), recruits (which provide benefits and abilities) or developments (which provide one time benefits). You can also add frames to your hive. These frames allow you more space to expand your hive / build, AND allow you to unlock up to two additional 'Seed Card' spaces to plant seeds.
Sorry I forgot to take a pic of the seed cards themselves - But these are very cool addition as well. With seed cards (before or after you place or retrieve workers) you can use them to:
a) Gain any basic resource
b) Use their ability / bonus on the seed card itself
After either of these, you discard the seed card.
The other use of seed cards is to PLANT the seed card (at the bottom of your hive mat). This provides an end-game scoring condition to help add more VPs to your final score.
The board has various actions that can be taken by placing your workers. One of them is here at the 'Explore action'. The Mellifera (this society of bees) share a Queen Ship that explores space and planets. Once discovering new planets, the Queen Ship and the Mellifera factions have resources to utilize as they expand their species.
The tokens you see in the pic above are the explore tokens. When the Queen Ship moves to a different area of space, the explore token provides that faction with the bonus printed on it. Then you draw a 'Planet Tile' to place on that section. The planet tiles provide resources to the factions when they revisit the planet. Some planets have resources printed on them, but also have empty squares. Each time a planet is visited and explored a new basic resource can be added (until no more squares are empty) to provide more resources for the factions to collect.
Here's a shot of the Cypri faction's hive later in my game. This pic shows the resources I could store in my hive with this faction (the circled resources).
The GREEN tiles are my farms - The bottom of the tile was their cost to build, the circles are the resource that farm can store, the left side shows VPs for end game scoring and the top of the tile shows the benefit that can be gained during the income phase.
The BLUE tiles are my recruits - These bees have the ability to provide benefits throughout the rest of the game for me. My Patron bee for example allows me to gain a wax whenever I hibernate. The Diplomat bee allows me to pay one less pollen whenever I recruit a new bee to my hive.
The RED tiles are my developments - These provide ONE TIME, immediate benefits as they're added to my hive. For example, the 'Exchange' development cost me 1-wax resource to build, but then allowed me to recruit any 2-available recruits at no cost (which is why I was able to bring the Patron and Diplomat to my hive).
The YELLOW tiles are the Carve tiles - These tiles are set out during setup and are the only Carve tiles available throughout the game (they are not replaced like the other tiles when they're purchased). Carve tiles generally take a bit longer to purchase (they require honey) and they provide end-game scoring bonuses.
Here (above) is a slightly earlier shot of the Langstroth hive that shows the bonuses on the hive itself (see top corner tile slots for example). When adding to your hive, you must build adjacent to an already built portion of hive. When you place a tile on a space with a bonus, you immediately receive that bonus. For example, at the top right of my hive, if I place a recruit tile there, that recruit costs me 2 less pollen. Pretty sweet deal!
If you're still with me and I haven't confused the heck out of you yet (it's not that confusing I promise), check out the workers in this game! Very unique. Very cool.
Each worker bee has a number which represents it's strength. More strength allows you to do more in the game. There are ways to upgrade a worker bee's strength as you go along as well (I'll save that for another post).
Notice the flat bee-like tokens to the left of my docking mat that are stacked up? These are the hibernation tokens. When a 4-strength worker bee is retrieved (max strength) that bee immediately hibernates. The worker bee is placed back in the supply and a hibernation token is placed in the 'Hibernation Comb'. When a token is placed there it remains there the rest of the game and you receive the immediate bonus of that space where you chose to place it. This actually how the game ends; Once a player places all 7 hibernation tokens in the Hibernation Comb OR when there are no more remaining spaces in the Comb, each player takes one final turn before end game scoring.
Thoughts after my first two-handed play through
In true Stonemaier fashion - I'm hooked! I'm so impressed with this game already. The idea of bees exploring space and expanding in space is simply something I NEVER thought I'd ever see... because NO ONE would ever think of it! 🤣 The creativity and uniqueness of it is absolutely fantastic, and the mechanics are excellent.
The game sits in Stonemaier's wheelhouse of moderate-heavy(ish) complexity. The mechanics are straight forward overall, but the options and decisions are a plenty - which I love! 😀 As I mentioned, there is a feel of Euphoria with certain mechanics. I also (personally) feel some Caverna type feel when building up my hive.
Apiary is a wonderful harmony of nature, space and fantasy! I can't wait to dive into the Automa today for some full out solo play!!! 😁