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Keyper
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Description
Keyper is a game with high player interaction for two to four players played over four rounds. Each round represents a season: spring, summer, autumn and finally winter.
Each player starts the game with their own village board, a mini keyp board, 12 village tiles, a keyper (waving meeple) in their player color, and a team of eight multi-colored keyples, including two white keyples. Each differently colored keyple is a specialist in one activity: the brown keyper is a woodsman, the black keyple is a miner, the orange keyple a clay worker, etc. The white keyples are generalists who can represent any other color.
Keyper is a worker placement game. (Keyper is the eighth new title in the medieval Key series of games, with Keydom, the second in the series being widely recognized as the first of the worker placement genre of games.) What makes Keyper special is that when one player places a keyple on a country board, another player can join them with a matching colored keyple on the first player's turn to the benefit of both players. In this way some players are likely to have played all their keyples before others. All keyples have the potential to work twice. If a player has played all of their keyples, but another player still has some, then on their turn the player with no remaining keyples can lay down one or more keyples on the country board they have claimed or in their village board to secure additional resources or actions. It can therefore be doubly beneficial to co-operate with your fellow players, although Keyper is not a co-operative game in the usual sense of the term.
The country boards are also noteworthy in that they can be manipulated and folded at the beginning of summer, autumn and winter to show one of four different permutations of fields for that season. A player will chose the one to suit their strategy, often hoping that another player will complement their choice. Certain fields on the country boards are available only in certain seasons, e.g., raw materials can be upgraded to finished goods only in spring and summer after which you can only convert using tiles in your own village. Gem mining occurs only in autumn and winter.
A player's strategy is likely to be influenced by which (seeded) spring country tiles they acquire and by the particular colored keyples they have available in the later seasons. Different combinations will encourage a player to develop their farm or village, help with their shipping or mining activities, and prepare for the seasonal fairs. Players constantly need to evaluate whether or not to join other players, when to claim a country board, whether to play on their own or another player's country board, when to use their own village, and whether to create a large or small team of keyples for the following season. The winner is the player to gain the most points, usually through pursuing at least a couple of the different strategies.
In addition to the theme and mechanisms, Keyper has similar traits to the earlier Key games: Game actions are positive and constructive, not destructive; player interaction is through the game mechanisms not direct, and like Keyflower, the previous game in the series, there is a lot of player interaction.
Keyper is a worker placement, resource gathering, village building game for two to four players from the designer (Richard Breese) of Keyflower, Key Market, Keydom and a couple of other games known collectively as the Key series.
So, what distinguishes this worker placement, resource gathering, village building game from others you will doubtless have played? Four things:
- Worker Specialisation – Workers may be used for any action but are best suited to placement spots that match their colour. Each player starts with a selection of coloured meeples, including a couple of white “wildcard” meeples. You almost certainly start subsequent seasons with different workers because….
- … The board is segmented, and each player claims one segment during each season and will start the next season with whichever workers are assigned to that segment. So, workers change hands, and this is an important part of your decision-making.
- The board segments are reconfigured at the beginning of each season. Players reconfigure the segment they claimed, so have some control over what actions are available each season.
- The worker placement mechanic has a “follow-me” variation that, in combination with the worker specialisation, gives the game its strategic depth.
Keyper Review – Game Components (Credit: Huch!)
The Follow-Me Mechanic
Whenever the active player places a worker on a spot, they must invite their rivals to “follow” by assigning a worker of the same colour (or a wildcard worker). The invitation passes clockwise round the table. For example, if the active player places a brown worker, you may follow with a brown or white worker. If a worker is “followed” then the action is more productive – and both players get the benefit, so it is mutually beneficial. When deciding which workers to place where, you must consider the likelihood of rivals being tempted to follow.
Judging whether to follow, and how to encourage or discourage others from following you, provides the strategic depth of the game. Following not only yields extra resources, but also enables players to play out of turn. This means that players will run out of meeples at different times, which has its advantages and disadvantages. In most games, when you run out of meeples, you are forced to pass and wait for everyone else to run out. In Keyper, you continue to play, but instead of placing a meeple, you re-activate a previously placed meeple. This means that you could reap the benefits of a particular meeple and its follower more than once.
This option to follow is a very neat innovation of the familiar worker placement mechanic. It fixes the frustration of many games where players can simply block each other out of spots. In Keyper, you are incentivised to share the benefits of an action. Likewise, the ability to keep playing even after you have played all your meeples is a neat innovation that incentivises you to follow rivals and also eliminates the downtime of many worker placement games. The player with most meeples does not necessarily have the most productive turns.
Segmented Board
The next innovation is reconfigurable boards. Rather than provide a fixed palette of worker placement options, Keyper enables each player to claim a segment of board and reconfigure it for the next season. Each season offers a few configurations, and each player selects the configuration that suits their game plan best. The other effect of claiming a board segment is that you will get the workers assigned to that segment as your workers for the next season. This provides more strategic options as you might start the following season with a smaller or larger crew, and with a different combination of specialists. You might claim a board segment specifically because you want to claim the mix of meeples on that segment.
There is much more I could say about the mechanics, but these are the essentials – specialised workers, the option to follow, the ability to reconfigure the board to suit your strategy, and the ability to claim a board segment to determine which workers you get in the next season. In combination, these create a lot of strategic options.
Keyper Board Game – Box (Credit: Huch!)
Final Thoughts on Keyper
When I first played Keyper, I was not immediately grabbed. For me, the graphics are functional but uninspiring and the prospect of yet another worker placement, resource gathering, village-building game had me worried. However, by chance, the game was selected as a tournament game for the Europe Masters competition at Essen, so I had to play it A LOT.
Happily, the more I played it, the more I realised its depths. The tactical choices provided by these mechanisms, and the lack of downtime because you continue to play even after you run out of meeples, provide for thoughtful game play. If you like a bit of worker placement, resource gathering, and village building, then you should check it out.
Finally, there is a Keyper expansion in the works which should offer even more strategic variety.
Zatu Score
You might like
- Innovative spin on worker placement.
- Origami-style re-configurable board.
- Engine-building.
Might not like
- Low-key, functional graphics.
- Functional resources cubes, cubes, cubes.