Hiving off work

Try and imagine this review being read in a David Attenborough voice or if you’re too lazy to do that I’ll imagine you are imagining it being read in a David Attenborough voice, either will work fine.  It’s about a game called Hive and it’s got bugs in.

If you want to be doubly lazy just skip the next bit and go buy Hive it’s really good, it’s 1v1 btw

Hive has been described as being a bit like chess. I think it’s more a bit like jiu jitsu to be honest (but with way less punches to the head). It’s a Perfect holiday game. Quick. Simple. Cheap  Portable and it won’t set off the security scanners leading to uncomfortable squatting and coughing.  I’ve brought this with me on holidays for a number of years and it always gets taken out at some stage.

Unlike a lot of other games the theme does match the game. You can picture a big tangle of bugs battling it out complete with cartoon smoke and whiz-lines. Tasmanian devil style. If you’re having difficulty imaging it email me and I’ll image you imaging it and it will all be hunky dory.

The objective of the game is to capture the enemies slow moving Queen by boxing her in on six sides or her hexagonalilty (C)  with any combination of friendly and enemy insects. (Yes it’s possible to finish the enemy off evil tyrant style with your queen or draw the game by killing both at once)

Your army of bugs consist of a motley crew ranging from handy (ants) to awkward (spiders) and just like any decent God they can all move in mysterious ways (and by sheer coincidence walk on water).

Each player starts the game with a dozen or so (count them in the picture) insects of various types and takes it in turn adding new insects to the tangle (called a swarm) or moving existing ones around to try and lock down the aforementioned queen.  You have a limited amount of bugs on your side so tying up Two or more enemy bugs with One of yours is a good way to get ahead and give you more guys to surround the queen.

The game is VERY easy to learn, the rules could be written on an A6 and one game in you know what’s what. Strategy is another thing, you really need to think ahead and lead your opponent into a trap.  It’s a very satisfying game I find as well to win.  Most games are very close at the end and it can change quite quickly mid game.  It’s also a little bit different, there’s no board, the pieces touch up against each other domino style (the game not the pizza) and there’s a lovely feel to the pieces.  It’s available in a number of different materials, wooden, plastic, graphite and sapient pearwood. It’s also available virtually on a variety of platforms and if you keep your eye out it sometimes appears free on steam or the app store

This really is a game worth having, especially good if you have two too many at a games night and don’t want to kick them out.

Try it.  Better still come to Knavecon at the end of August and I’ll play a quick game against you and you can see what you think.

Now hopefully Constonopolis this thur, but then again..

Huzzah!

Vic