Review of Aquarena

Blurb from the publisher: 'The pond is a battleground in a daily struggle for survival, where it's 'eat or be eaten'! catch your prey by cleverly positioning your predators around this aquatic arena. But be careful that they don't end up as prey themselves.'

What you get: Your EUR 23 or equivalent will buy you Aquarena, a bluffing and deduction boardgame for two to six players that lasts just over half an hour.

In addition to the 6-page mid-sized English and French rulebooks which can be also downloaded from the publisher's website free of charge, the game includes one Score track, 60 Predator cards (10 per colour), 6 Frog meeples, one Heron standee, 7 Pond tiles, 21 Fly tokens, 4 Round tokens and 6 Value Twenty tokens.

Gameplay: Each player has a deck of ten predators like frogs, spiders, or salamanders. Six of them can fall prey to other predators depending on what kind of animals those predators eat (amphibians, fish, and insects). Predators have a resolution number from 1 to 10 (when they act), eating quantities, where they eat and under what circumstances. As an example, the heron eats up to two amphibians, yet several herons on the same location will all leave starving. At the beginning of the game the board is constructed depending on the number of players. Flies (eaten by insects only) are semi-randomly placed on the board. Each player starts with three random cards from his ten-card deck in his hand.

A game lasts four rounds. Each round consists of three phases.

In Planning, players take turns to do the following: place one card from their hand on the edge of a water tile of their choice, choose a card from their hand and discard it face down, and draw two new cards and add them to their hand. This process continues until each player has played four cards on the board. From these four cards, the first two are placed face up, while the last two are placed face down.

In Resolution the starting player reveals the face-down predator cards that were placed on a pile. The cards are then resolved in ascending order from 1 to 10. A predator will eat until he has reached his full capacity, including prey of its own colour, but only prey that is near him, i.e. on his own tile. Each predator that gets fed is placed in front of the player who owns it, along with the food it just ate. Once that tile is resolved, the next player resolves the tile of his choice and so on and so forth, until all the tiles are resolved.

Scoring is about points. You move up the scoring track depending on the number of flies, opposing insects, opposing amphibians, and opposing fish you ate. The higher in the food chain an animal is, the more points it grants you. You don't however receive points when you eat prey of your own colour.

At the end of the round the board and the decks reset, the starting player changes, and the game begins anew. At the end of the fourth round, the player with the most points wins.

The strong points: Do you remember Fantasy Flight Games' highly-sought-after and ridiculously expensive Starcraft: The Board Game, or its immediate descendent, the WH40K-themed Forbidden Stars? Aquarena takes their card placement and resolution for a more straightforward, simpler and shorter game, which however keeps all the fun and excitement. Players have the exact same cards, and each is going to use only four of them. You don't want to survive on a staple of flies; you want to eat the most nutritious foods possible, namely fish and amphibians. How easy is that though, when only 3 of your 10 cards allow you to do so? There lies the difficulty of the game: simultaneously managing the draw element and the play/discard process, while at the same time ensuring that you will eat something without getting eaten yourself. The pool in itself is not a feast; it only offers flies. Your predators will have thus to subsist on the predators of your opponents. Seeing how each of you hosts two fish, four amphibians and one insect in his deck, you want to eat more than the board's flies: each opposing predator that you eat nets you points while at the same time its owner does not win any since that animal didn't go home with a full belly. Brilliant!

As expected there are many ways to approach the game, and especially if you know the players you are playing against and the way they think. You can play it safe (and there are cards which allow you do to just that), be confrontational, or try a mix of tactics. I enjoyed how the first cards are placed face up, effectively acting as bait. It is very common for beginners to go all-in and create the mother of all feeding grounds, this however requires a good knowledge of the stats behind the few cards, their resolution and their exceptions. Your toad can eat two insects, not however if a pike eats it first, yet isn't it great if you catch that pike in advance, unless your opponent foils your move by sacrificing his fish hook to ruin yours? There's a lot of analysis, guessing and second-guessing, something quite spectacular for a game of such length and simplicity.

The artwork is addressed towards family gamers and children, make however no mistake. As much as it can be played by young(ish) children, the nature of its mechanics whimsically smile towards more engaging experiences. To put it bluntly, children can play this today and Starcraft: The Board Game or Forbidden Numbers in a few years without batting an eyelid. Casual gamers don't need to make this transition, of course. The adrenaline and the excitement are sublimely distilled.

The rules are easy to learn and teach. The pictographs are easy to understand, even though there is no player aid to help you in the first couple of games. The artwork is cute, even though it gives the impression that the game addresses itself to substantially younger ages than it really does. My conceptual ultralisk now looks like a fishing rod; I am still happy.

The game includes a zip-lock bag in order to keep its elements safe while you are not playing. Much appreciated, Geek Attiude Games.

The weak points: The game is about bluffing and counter-bluffing with strong take-that elements. If you don't like the confrontational aspect, Aquarena might come out as too devious.

The cards are thin. Seeing how heavily they are used in each game, I recommend sleeving them immediately, potentially with thicker, premium sleeves.

Conclusion: What a pleasant surprise! I don't know what I expected from Aquarena, what I found out however is that it delivers bluffing, take-that, and tactics in spades. There's a lot of game here for only half an hour of your time.

To find out more about Aquarena and Geek Attitude Games take a look at https://www.geekattitudegames.com.

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