In this boardgame, three or more players vie for the title of ‘Best Bear Park’ by building enclosures, habitats and abilities as well as getting hold of public achievements chosen at random in each game to earn points and be ahead of each other
CHENNAI: In recent years, there have been a few games that were based on or incorporated a simple formula—players would be tasked with fitting various oddly-shaped polyomino pieces together on a board. Patchwork is probably one of the more notable games to use this mechanic, and it was followed up last year by Cottage Garden. Today, let’s take a look at a new release that seems, at first glance, to be ip off the old Tetris-esque block — Bärenpark.
In Bärenpark, you and up to three other players are competing for the title of ‘Best Bear Park’. This is not a theme you need to take seriously, because the designer and publishers certainly didn’t — koalas are one of the four bear types in the game, despite not actually being bears, because, as the rulebook puts it, ‘people like koalas’. Fair enough.
Anyway, on to the business of building a bear park. Each player starts off with a single board that they’ll be building enclosures, habitats, utilities and landscapes on, and you’ll get three more over the course of the game. Each board is covered with various icons that refer to the various types of tiles you can acquire in the game — cover up one or more icons, and you can take any tile of your choice from that section or sections; and then, on your next turn, you can place any one of the tiles you acquired in a previous turn, and so on and so forth.
It’s simple, it’s straightforward and it’s one of Bärenpark’s biggest strengths. You’ve got this constant cycle of utilising tiles and then acquiring new ones which you then place on your board which then get you new ones and so on. It’s an intuitive system, and it makes you feel like you’re always accomplishing something. However, grabbing tiles at random won’t win you the game because that’s where the achievements come in.
Every game, there will be three randomly-chosen public achievements — one might reward the first player to build three panda enclosures, for example, or who can first create a river flowing through their park. These achievements are open, anyone can get them, and there are points on offer even if you miss out on being first — and that creates a wonderful sense of competition.
Do you take that polar bear tile even though it doesn’t fit your board layout well, or do you give up on that achievement and get the tile that’ll complete your board next turn? Oh yes, there are points on offer for completing boards as well and they decrease as more players complete them — so that’s another race to worry about as well.
For my money, Bärenpark’s easily the best puzzle-piece tile-laying game around; and it’s all because of that constant sense of interaction and rivalry. There are so many races being run simultaneously, and you’ve got to keep an eye on all of them if you’re going to come out on top.