Donkeys For the Win (A Caverna: The Cave Farmers Review)

This is a BIG game.

 So if you are a board gamer in general, you're probably familiar with The Geek; and if you're familiar with The Geek, you're probably already familiar with Caverna: The Cave Farmers from Uwe Rosenberg because it's been on everyone's Most Anticipated and Hottest of 2013 and Coolest Donkey List for the past 6 or 7 months.  And I have caught Donkey fever.  Wait...maybe not.  Donkey fever sounds terrible.

If you're familiar with Agricola you already understand about 80% of this game.  It plays very much like a classic Uwe do-stuff-to-make-food-to-feed-your-workers-to-do-more-stuff-to-make-you-points game.  Yes.  That's an official board game mechanism.  Look it up.  You start out with a modest pair of workers who represent dwarves excavating a mountain and plowing fields and raising livestock and ignoring leash laws to fill their homes with dogs.  You gotta make food and you want to earn points and when these things come together, it is a beautiful thing (link is PG-13 for one bleep).

You have options, amigo.  You have 'em.

The major difference between Agricola and Caverna is that Caverna is chock full of a ridiculous amount of options on just how to feed and expand.  It's truthfully unbelievable how many options you have in this game.  Do you want to mine rubies and ore and trade them for money and food to support your dwarven family?  Great!  You can.  Do you want to build a sheep-ton of pastures and fill them with barnyard animals?  Do it.  No one can stop you.  Wanna acquire as many of board gaming's most fun loving animals and build a burro empire?  GET.  THOSE.  DONKS.  There are so many ways to earn points and so many paths to victory that it's overwhelming - even for an experienced gamer.

And that's the real genius of this game.  So far, in the handful of plays I've gotten in, there aren't any "dominant" strategies.
Like any game there are certainly stronger or weaker elements, but I've watched my fellow players use equally different and valid strategies to score big time points.  It's really a thing of beauty.  To see this baby operate full tilt and to enjoy the sheer variety and range of options is very satisfying.

So I guess if I'm closing up this review I would say this: play Caverna: The Cave Famers as soon as you can and as often as you can.  I think this game has high potential for long term replay ability.  Not only that, but when you get done with a game, you'll have fun just looking back at your board and exclaiming to your friends, "Look what I can do!"

WyoGamer Rating: 5/5 Stars

WyoGamer's BGG Rating: 9.5

Caverna...finally!

Well, I finally got to put my Christmas Amazon gift card to use and grabbed up a copy of Caverna from Mayfair Games.  I've been drooling over this beauty for several months when I learned about it, and I declared that I would be "gul derned" if I wasn't going to get my hands on it.

I paid a little more on Amazon than I wanted, but the extra $15 ish doesn't bother me since I'll be playing it next week!  I wasted a chance to preorder right at Christmas time from one of my preferred online retailers CoolStuffInc so whaddya gonna do.

I bought this game based on four main reasons.  First, it's by my favorite board game designer Uwe Rosenberg.  As long as you ignore this oddball little game, he's the man behind several of the most competitive and fun euros I have ever played.  Second, Agricola is easily in my top 5 games of all time.  Caverna is supposed to be Agricola improved (from what I've read and heard), so consider my interest peaked.  Third, you take on the role of dwarves.  That farm.  In caves.  Men and women dwarves.  C'mon - that sounds AMAZING.  Lastly, the sheer amount and quality of the components of this game look phenomenal.  Don't believe me?  Check out Tam Vasel when he dumps out the contents of the box at 1:35.  That's a lotta beef.

You can be sure that a review is coming your in the next week or two when I can finally get my hands on the game.  Until then...

Chris

What's a Wyogamer?

Howdy.  Glad you came by.  I'm Wyogamer, which is my super clever blog title.  It's fairly self-explanatory: I live in Wyoming (Wyo) and I'm a gamer (gamer).  That's...it.

This blog is dedicated to some inner need I have to talk about my favorite hobby: gaming.  I know gaming is an ambiguous term but I'm keeping it.  I'm not particularly ambiguous in general, but I like all kinds of gaming.  I like board games, role-playing games, playing card games, video games, party games, reindeer games, and pretty much anything related to gaming.

I'm also an aspiring (when I have time) game designer who has designed two games now.  Both are scrapped and living in various stages of disarrayed in my storage closet.  Maybe someday they will make it to the table for further play-testing and development.  Maybe not - I'm always full of ideas and thinking about my next game design.

Lastly, while I love gaming, it's not the most important thing in my life.  I am a father, husband, minister, gamer, dog owner and amateur cook.  Those are listed in order of importance.  I love Jesus Christ deeply and have a strong faith.  I'm not going to dwell on that part of my life in my blog posts here, but you should know who I am so you can gather a general context from my ramblings about games.

Cool.

Chris