Orchard Ocean

EvEvanstar8,5

Each round players draft one island tile, one turn order tile, and one direction tile. The first players to grab turn order and direction tiles get little bonuses which adds some interesting tension. Once everyone has all three things, you pay to walk your meeple around your board and then place the new island tile down in relationship to the meeples new position. Some tiles produce resources and then send them in directions matching their printed arrows, others score money or points when they get resources, others still have arrows on them that launch the goods to additional spaces. Each producing tile can supply any number of other tiles, so long as the arrows point to the right places, and tiles can be upgraded to activate additional arrows. The game has some tough tension points. If I grab the tile I want I might lose the direction tile I need in order to place that tile. If I don't grab early turn order, I might not get the tile I need from the next turn's lot of tiles. Play is smooth and the logistics puzzle is interesting and not perfectly solvable due to player interaction. ★ Art, Iconography and components functional ★ Clever or interesting mechanisms ★ Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players ★ Multiple plays stay interesting ★ Low or mitigatable luck elements ★★★★☆ Raw enjoyment