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Yet that’s not the only reason we enjoy playing Reef. The biggest reason is because it’s a colorful and fun game to play.
It’s inevitable that players will take cards that you hope to get. So you’ll have to be able to adjust on the fly. Moreover, the player interaction, while subtle, also contributes to the game’s replayability. The shared card draft allows for indirect competition as players vie for the same resources. There’s a satisfying tension in trying to anticipate your opponents’ moves while also focusing on your own strategy. One of the great things about Reef, which I think can be considered an improvement over Chess and many other abstract strategy games, is that having your plans disrupted doesn’t ruin the game for you. While you may not be able to do exactly what you wanted there are always more cards and other potential combos. In this way Reef can be rather tactical. Similar to Azul this is a very pretty abstract game, but I’d argue that Reef attempts to embrace its admittedly light theme a touch more than Azul does. They both look great though, and help the promote abstract games as more than dry, boring, head to heads that last hours. The player boards and cards, too, do not disappoint. They’re sturdy and robust, ready to withstand many game nights. The artwork on the cards is clear and straightforward, with symbols that represent the coral pieces you collect and the patterns you need to arrange them in for scoring. There’s a certain minimalistic charm to the design that belies the game’s complex strategies.Once the game ends, you get one last chance to score any cards that you still have in your hand. This works like scoring during the game except that you can only count each pattern once no matter how many times it may show up in your reef. The first thing players notice about Reef is the fantastic coral pieces. The chunky and colorful pieces are the centerpiece of the game. Not only do they present a great tactile experience with the game, but they’re also very functional. While each color is uniquely shaped, they all nest on top of each other very well. We love seeing our colorful coral reefs grow. Every time you play a card you always start by taking and placing the coral shown on the top part of the card. This isn’t optional. You always have to take and place both pieces of coral and this has to be done before you score the card. When learning Reef it is very easy to forget the timing on this and play a card only to realize that what you planned to score is going to be ruined by the coral you are about to place. More commonly, even once you know the game well, is messing up any long term plans you have due to forgetting that you will be adding to your reef with every card before scoring. For me, I would generally prefer to sit down and play Reef two-player, but if it were a casual game night with some adult beverages around I might prefer to have four people at the table.
To start a game of Reef you first find the player board with a starfish in the corner. You grab that and a number of other (identical) boards until you have a board for each player (up to four). You then shuffle these boards and give one to each player. More and more I’m becoming a fan of the abstract strategy game genre and Reef is a great addition to that lineup. It does well to scratch that itch of a game that we can jump right into and start playing, and also can be as thinky as we want to make it. You have a hand limit of four cards, but a smart player will draft cards that will work in tandem. So I want to play card A, which gives me two yellow pieces, that I can use next turn to play card B to score points, and the pieces from card B help me score points for card C and so on. Rarely do you want to waste a turn just gaining pieces from a card unless it sets you up for a big score later.
Final Score: 3.5 Stars – A solid abstract strategy game that makes a great choice for families and those looking for something on the lighter side of the spectrum. When it comes to player scaling, I’m a bit torn as to which player count I like best. Since Reef is pretty much a multiplayer solitaire game, there isn’t much you can do to hinder your opponents. The best you can do is draft a card that would really help out an opponent so they don’t score off it, but that’s usually a suboptimal move. I’ve found at the two player count, the game is much more strategic, as the cards in the drafting row don’t move very often. While at 4 players, the cards churn much more rapidly, so the game becomes more tactical as what you have to choose from will change often. However, then you have to deal with the increased downtime between turns. There are many different ways to score in Reef. Final Thoughts: The game ends when one colour of coral runs out and the layer with the most accumulated points wins.
But the game itself? It’s classic Emerson Matsuuchi simplicity in an abstract strategy game. Reef is a pattern making, score card claiming game in 3D, using sweetie-like coral blobs in various colours to represent the growing life in the reef itself. Equally, the puzzle of the game comes out in the layering. Only the top view of your own personal reef is used for scoring, so adjacent doesn’t care for what height the other colours around them are. Other cards offer players a score based on height, meaning you will eventually start working upwards, placing your nicely moulded tokens on top of one another This also means that if a pattern on a card shows pieces with no printed numbers within them, your top pieces' heights do not matter when completing that pattern. Reef is an abstract strategy game for two to four players where players are collecting pieces of coral which they then use to build a three-dimensional reef on their own personal player board. While building, players will score points for having different patterns of coral on their growing reef. Once any one colour of coral runs out the player with the most points wins. Sort the 112 coral pieces by color to form 4 separate supplies A. Depending on the number of players, each of these 4 supplies must comprise a certain number ofcoral pieces:While Reef isn’t a game of dramatic player conflict or cooperation, it does foster a subtle, under-the-surface tension that keeps everyone engaged throughout. Its interaction is like the gentle ebb and flow of the ocean—constant, but not overwhelmingly so. Take as many player boards E as there are players. Make sure the one with the starfish F is included. Shuffle them and place one at random in front of each player. The player with the starfish board will be the first player. Reef is a simple game to learn and play. Players try to score the most points by adding colorful coral pieces to their growing reef and scoring patterns. Personally, I thinkReefmight have the edge for me. It's slightly less cut-throat thanAzul, especially at the two-player count we frequently play at. It also scratches a bit of an engine-building itch, although it's not strictly in that style of game.Reeflooks great and plays really smoothly, and is really rewarding when you execute a brilliant sequence of turns.It’s certainly a game that I highly recommend.
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