Game Preview: Key Harvest
By W. Eric Martin
June 4, 2007
Publisher: R&D Games
Designer: Richard Breese
Players: 2-4
Ages: 8+
Release Date: October 2007
For almost a decade, Richard Breese has been publishing new games every other year, but he’s breaking tradition in 2007 by bringing out a new title after releasing both a new game and an expansion for Reef Encounter in 2006. “Fowl Play was a smaller game of a different type to my other games, apart perhaps from Chamelequin, and did not take as long to develop,” says Breese. “I therefore tend to think of Fowl Play and RE2 as being the games that pushed my two year cycle of bigger games back a year!”
Breese’s new title is named Key Harvest, and in another break with tradition he’s not releasing the game in a limited edition at Essen through his R&D Games, but jointly with other companies. “The game is being produced by R&D, with Rio Grande doing English language distribution, Abacus the German distribution, and QWG the Dutch and French distribution,” he says. “I will be selling the game from the R&D booth at Essen.”
Why the change from his successful formula of years past? As Breese points out, the last two big box games from R&D—Keythedral and Reef Encounter—were re-issued by other companies within a year or two of their first appearance. “By linking up with other companies for the first edition, I can hopefully reduce the unit cost and increase the availability so that gamers not attending Essen can get the game quickly and at a reasonable price,” he says. “Something that can’t be achieved with a limited edition.”
One element that hasn’t changed is the artwork, which once again is being handled by Juliet Breese. Richard is handling the graphics for the edition of Key Harvest appearing from R&D, Rio Grande, and Abacusspiele, but in yet another twist QWG will publish the game as part of its Master Print Series, for which Mike Doyle handles the cover design and artwork and some interior design. Breese says that the QWG edition might be named “Demetra,” after the Greek goddess of agriculture, but the final name has yet to be determined.
As for how Key Harvest is played, here’s Richard’s explanation of the game, with one interruption by yours truly:
| The object of the game in Key Harvest is to score the most points. Players score points by placing tiles on their own country board. One point is scored for each field tile in the player’s largest group of connected field tiles and two points for each tile in their second largest connected group. |
I have to butt in to say that I love the sound of this scoring system. It calls to mind Tigris and Euphrates since players need to advance multiple groups equally, yet giving more points for the second-largest group puts even more pressure on players, both to build their own holdings and block opponents. Okay, back to the description—
| Points are also scored for the worker tiles a player places on their country board. The number of points scored for each worker is equal to the number on the worker tile. Worker tiles do not count as connecting tiles when calculating the largest group of tiles. When played, a worker enables a player to take a special action. Each player has their own team of six workers, known as farmhands. There are also six townsfolk who can be acquired by any player.
There are usually six field tiles available at any time from the registry. On their turn a player may bid for up to two tiles using crop counters. The field tile being bid for and the bid in crop counters are placed in the player’s store. On their turn the other players may match the store owner’s bid in both the number and type of crop counters. If they choose to do so, then they place the field tile on their country board and pay the crop counters to the store owner. If no other player has matched the store owner’s bid, then on their next turn the store owner may place the field tile(s) from their store onto their country board and pay their bid in crop counters to the general stock. When deciding how much to bid for a field tile, players will need to consider how important the field tile is to them and whether other players are likely to bid for the tile. It is usually beneficial for a player to place field tiles into their store as that player will either obtain the field tile or receive additional crop counters. When played, a worker tile must be adjacent to at least the number of field tiles as the number on the worker tile. A worker tile cannot be adjacent to another worker tile. If a player obtains a field tile for a space where they have already placed a worker tile, they must remove the worker tile. However, if the worker tile can be replaced immediately (next to the required number of field tiles), then the player can benefit from the worker’s ability again. Getting these extra benefits is one of the keys to doing well in the game. Players have two actions per turn. There are four possible actions. Each action can only be performed once per turn. As described above, the actions include placing field tiles from the stores onto their country board - action (c), placing field tiles from the registry into their store - action (d) and placing a worker tile onto their country board - action (b). Action (c) cannot be performed after action (d). A player may also harvest crops by turning over some unharvested field tiles on their country board - action (a). Field tiles taken from the registry are replaced immediately with field tiles from the bag. The bag also contains a number of event tiles. The event tiles when drawn affect all of the players, not just the player who drew the event tile. When the tenth event tile is drawn the game ends after two further rounds have been played. One point is also awarded to the players who have the most of each of the types of crop counters at the end of the game. No points are awarded for ties. Points are tallied using the scoring track on the town board. The player with the most points is the winner. |
Asked how this game fits into his Key series of games, Breese says, “All the Key games have similar characteristics and are of a similar level of complexity. That is I view them at the more challenging end of the family market. The scale is similar in that there are workers performing non-violent actions in a medieval environment. There is plenty of player interaction, scope for different strategies and tactics and a small amount of luck.”
Key Harvest will be published in a box size similar to Reef Encounter and produced by Ludo Fact in Germany.
| Pictures - Click the picture for a larger version | |
 | A draft for the cover of Key Harvest; this design might change before production |
Posted by W. Eric Martin on Jun 4, 2007 at 09:00 AM in Game Previews / 3569
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Breese’s new title is named Key Harvest, and in another break with tradition he’s not releasing the game in a limited edition at Essen through his R&D Games, but jointly with other companies. Sweet. Having just recently discovered the joy of Mr. Breese’s games (Keythedral, Reef Encounter, & Aladdin’s Dragons), I am thrilled to not have to wait to get the non-limited edition of the next game :). Posted by Ryan Olson on Jun 4, 2007 at 06:33 PM | #
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I played tested this at Essen. It is definitely worth a look. http://cheyne.net/blog/2006/10/essen-06-report/ Posted by Iain Cheyne on Jun 6, 2007 at 09:33 AM | #
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