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Gather your friends, prepare for the festivities, there’s a party happening in Maple Valley. Winter has passed and the Spring Festival is upon the critters of the Valley. Whilst the adults prepare, the young ones are sent to gather the final bits and pieces to make the party a huge success. You’ve only got a few hours to do it though, can you succeed and bring in the most party favours to make the Festival a huge success?
The Art and Content
Maple Valley might just be one of the most visually stunning board games I have ever seen. It is absolutely stunning and the artwork, for me, is awesome. The colours are so vibrant. It is the first thing that jumps out from this game when you pick the box up and open it up. The meeples, the playing counters, the cards, the board, all absolutely spectacular to look at.
KTBG have done another amazing job here in the presentation of the board game. It looks so appealing to play, without doubt one of the most vibrant games in my collection. It really does stand out beyond the majority of my other games. The meeples in particular, wooden meeples with the critters printed on, I genuinely fell in love with these playing pieces.
This game was long overdue hitting my table top though. You can easily be forgiven for being put off by the game when you move beyond the art. Given the box is the same size as a Carcassonne box, there is an immense amount of content within it. So many playing pieces, 4 different decks of cards as well as supporting boards to the main board within it. I found it a little too much and it turned me off, it shouldn’t have. Moving past that I actually found a little gem inside the box.
The Game.
The rule book, due to the content, does have a reasonable amount within it. The game initially took a little while to set up, surprisingly. Close to half an hour, which felt like a long time to set a board game. There is clear direction within the book for this. You just have to spend the time getting it organised. What is evident though, more practice at the game, like everything, does speed this up.
The game also suggests about an hour of play time. We played it with 2 people and were going for over an hour. So with the full 5 players you are not likely achieving that recommended time. Maybe we were overthinking the strategy though? We have a habit of doing that. It’s a game for 1-5 people and has a good solo play option as well as competitive play against others.
The game play itself was cool in moving around the board to gather your curiosities, to craft favours and gain those valuable points for the end of the game was a lot of fun. There is plenty to think about in play. On your turn you utilise one of your friends to help navigate you around the board. It is at this point you need to determine a strategy to achieve your goals of crafting the favours for the festival. Once you complete your movement you get to complete the action required at the location, either forage for curiosities, recruit more friends, pick up more favours for crafting as well as other options. Once that second step is complete you get to craft your favours if you have the curiosities available. I should note here that curiosities are essentially resources. Then play passes on and you keep rotating until all players have utilised all their friends.
Maple Valley is set over five rounds. That is all. These rounds represent an hour of the day and once the last hour's play is complete. The final count up begins and you can see which player has been most successful in crafting for the party. There’s plenty to consider though, it’s not just favours that bring points, patches, more friends gain additional points as well as possible bonuses from the favours carved. There’s a lot to think about with plenty of depth and strategy here. If it wasn’t obvious, the most points at the end takes the win.
The Good and the not so.
As already noted I cannot praise the art enough in this game, it’s awesome. There is an immense amount of depth to the game as well. With 4 decks of cards in the game which include the friends, the favours, the patches and the festival cards. The random chance element to this game is really quite exceptional with the differentiation available on luck of the drawn card. It will influence how you play and approach your strategy in the game and I very much appreciate that.
A major dislike I have in the game though is that whatever I do in the game does not have any impact on my opponents in the game. This is unfortunate for me but then it is not that sort of game. It is a race for sure trying to quickly carve as many favours within the 5 turns of play and gain the highest score. I can only influence my own actions though and not influence my opposition in any significant way.
However, that said, it makes for an ideal family friendly game in introducing your children to games with a deeper strategy, but not upset them by doing an action that massively impacts their game. There is plenty to think about for all players, and it is quite nice to not worry about who may be coming for you, arguably quite refreshing. Equally if you have friends that don’t appreciate a game that stitches up then this game is ideal. Plenty of content within it for adults to get stuck into.
Maple Valley has been rated 8+ and that is probably in the right place. There is a lot of reading to do on all the cards though so please consider this if you are introducing children to the game. They would have to manage this when thinking about their strategy.
The definite end point is always a nice factor in a game, It is not open ended and the 5 turns is useful knowledge as you have a limit and have to maximise your play when it is there.
Final Thoughts
Once you move past all the content contained within Maple Valley, you have a remarkably simple game with plenty of depth and strategy to keep it very exciting each and every time you play. I’m very impressed with it and will look forward to putting it back out on the table again.
