While we're waiting: Seasons review

We've been busy lately, in a bit of a behind-the-scenes way - contacting lots of suppliers, drawing up a budget, and all sorts of other things that are really fun for me as an accountant and Excel enthusiast, but are probably not that interesting for someone who just wants to enjoy a board game!

We've also been on holiday, enjoying the occasional sunshine of the Peak District. And then a thought occurred to us: rather than penning a fascinating study on the determining the breakeven point of a small production run for a first board game sourced from multinational suppliers, why not play a game or two and write something about that instead?

Seasons

(designed by Régis Bonnessée, with artwork also by Xavier Gueniffey Durin and Stéphane Gantiez)

Preamble:

I (Ben) don't want to spend lots of time going through the mechanics of the game, but want instead to give a quick overview of how the game works, and then to give it a score in each of five categories - aesthetic, competition, strategy, fun and (crucially) suitability and entertainment value for a young child - and just share a couple of quick thoughts on whether or not you should go and buy this game!

(Spoiler - you should)

For reference, I've played this game some ten times now - so, while not exactly an expert, I reckon I've played enough to be entitled to some opinions!

What's it about?

Seasons is a deck-building resource management game. You accumulate energy in order to play cards, which (you hope) will sooner or later turn into "crystals" or points.

The game revolves around twelve successive "seasons" (i.e. three years of four). Each change of season brings about different possibilities for the types of energy you can draw, and each change of year unlocks new cards for you to play.

It's a fairly slow-paced game, requiring you to plan your turn before you play. For four players who know the game, you could probably fit it into 2 hours - I would allow probably an extra 30 mins if it's your first try.

Aesthetic

A solid 9/10 for me. The artwork throughout has just the right amount of eccentricity. The only reason I'm not giving it a 10/10 is because I'm mean. 

On a more technical point: every graphical detail is clear and consistent - very satisfying, and makes the game easy to learn.

Competition

5/10

To be honest, even after multiple playthroughs, I still struggle to have any sense of who is going to win at the end of the game. The game is thoroughly engrossing for those who (like me) love to collect cards and deploy elaborate strategies. But it's pretty hard to escape from your own bubble. It's quite possible (I've found) that someone will win at the final points count, without ever having given an indication that they were going to do so.

Strategy

9/10

Plenty of it. Strategies tend to emerge, rather than be formed early on - it all depends on what cards you draft at the start, and (later) what cards you pick up. 

Fun

8/10

As I said, the aesthetic is brilliant, and it's just the sort of game I like! The only downside is that, after having played it a few times, it starts to feel like there isn't much more room for innovation. Once you've learnt how the various cards fit together, you can start to see earlier on in the game how well you're going to end up doing. This is fine if you're playing well and consider yourself in with a chance of winning, but can be pretty demotivating if things are going badly and you can't see a way to catch up!

Child's Review

6/10

First inspection: "Baby I." loved this game.

He joined us about 3/4 of the way through, and hastily snatched the discard pile off the table to rummage through our wasted efforts. He was a little disappointed with the taste of the cards (understandable) but was very pleased with how bendy they were (I was less pleased with this).

Next to be examined/stolen was the rulebook. "Baby I." wasted little time in flicking through the pages. There were plenty of pictures, but none were really to his taste.

There then ensued some fighting over whether or not he'd be able to get hold of my summoning gauge. I relented in my final turn, seeing as I was clearly destined for last place anyway. He gave this little more than a cursory glance before throwing it across the floor and looking for more interesting toys elsewhere.

Summary

Would definitely recommend! A particular highlight is that it works pretty well for two players - this came in particularly helpful during the last year of lockdown.