Placing tiles on your board works differently to most polyomino puzzles in that they cannot touch each other. You will also need to avoid trees and maximise bonuses on your board.

Boards are double-sided, representing differing difficulty levels of your amusement park, and are filled with bonuses that can be earned by covering those spaces with your tiles. During the Actions Step players take turns placing their workers onto the main game board. By doing so players may remove trees, expand their property, gain money and build concessions and attractions. It is safe to say that this game is certainly a bit of eye candy. But it is also a fantastic family game in addition to that. Personally, it will be a game that I play with my family during a holiday. Or a game I will get out to introduce people to the hobby. OK, it won’t be a go-to for me, but overall, I love PARKS. I think it has achieved a quality balance between, looks and function. Something we don’t often see, or at least to the level that PARKS has achieved. A delightfully looking game, with wholesome gameplay and a game that won’t disappoint! My Comments: I think the theme is delightful. The rides are imaginative with neat card art. The colorful art also helps deliver the theme.Before we start, what’s the aim of Parks? It’s always wise to establish how to win a board game, when digesting the rules – or explaining them to others! Parks is a worker placement game for 1-5 players, with elements of set collection. The game lasts for four rounds –‘Seasons’– and during this time, you’ll aim to visit national parks. You’ll earn tokens, take photos, use hiking gear, and spend tokens to claim park cards. The player with the most points at the end of the fourth season wins the game. Sigh With Happiness During Set-Up

For guidance, let’s use the BGG “complexity” rating: the majority of my gaming friends like their games in the 3.5 range and above. Great Western Trail is an ideal starting point for these groups (a BGG average complexity rating of 3.71). It has lots of complex decisions, lots of rules, lots of processes, and requires multiple plays to get the overarching strategies honed correctly. After that players may advertise during the Advertising Step. Each build attraction comes with an Advertising option that lets you convert money into VP. Also stated on the Season card is an effect that comes into play for this first season alone. It could be something such as gaining extra resources in particular circumstances. Or, some Park cards could come with token discounts if claimed this Season. But more about that later! Relight My Fire; That Park Card Is My Only Desire At the end of each month, rewards are given to the player with the park that best exemplifies raw emotions (Thrill, Awe, and Joy). After five months, the player with the most VP tokens wins! Construct rides through the stone age, the American old west, the age of fantasy, the cosmos of space, and the depths of the sea!While a slight disparity is to be expected, there seemed to be a massive difference between our success and I felt the randomness removes a sense of enjoyment from the game, so much so that players may switch off, especially as the direction they are given simply cannot be achieved. Tenpenny Parks is much simpler than your typical euro game, and plays in roughly an hour. Also unlike many euro games, the rules are crystal clear and concise. In fact, this might be the simplest euro-style game I’ve played – more on that later. Tenpenny Parks breaks its five rounds into five steps: income, actions, bonuses, advertising, and cleanup. There is a lot to like about Tenpenny Parks. I love how streamlined the gameplay is, it offers up the same worker placement anxiety as something like Viticulture. You will weigh up and prioritise which of the few spaces you want, knowing the likelihood is, what you don’t choose could and probably will be taken away from you. If that sounds like it won’t frustrate you, Tenpenny Parks is an easy game to recommend. And if I play Tenpenny Parks with core gamers, they will still enjoy themselves. I’ll just expect them to label the game as too light. No problem. I’m going to put it on the table because lighter games like this balance a night with heavier content nicely. Give up any regular token and exchange it for a different regular token type of your choice. You can do this twice.

The stunning art direction comes from the Fifty-Nine Parks team. Your two hikers trek the span of the United States of America. You’ll marvel at the charming wooden components that sit inside the classy Gametrayz insert. You’ll bask in the phenomenal visuals on the 48 Park cards up for grabs. You’ll nod your head in satisfaction at the class that oozes out of this title from Keymaster Games. While you might not be in said breathtaking locations, you’ll make memories of your own when playing Parks. At some point, you’ll either run out of Trail, or you’ll opt to move one of your Hikers to the Trail End. When you move here, you’re presented with a few options, and you can perform any one of them. You could decide to Reserve a Park. To do this, you place your Hiker in the top space on the Trail End. If you’re the first player to place in this option this season, you also claim the First Hiker Token for next Season. Later players can also Reserve Park cards too, but not with an extra benefit. Her Comments: Mechanically this game does not break a lot of new ground. It feels familiar, but it does all work together. The artwork, design and theme of a game can play a massive part in its success. Yes, there are those classics that perhaps could have done more with those three things however now, more than ever; we have new releases that are pure works of art. PARKS is one such example. A labour of love Each player gets a Campfire and two Hiker meeples of their colour. Their Hikers start on the Trailhead tile. Assign a starting player and give them the triangular First Hiker Marker. The player to the right of the First Hiker starts with the Camera. That’s set-up complete: now it’s time to start trekking! Let’s learn how to play Parks. And Now For Something Completely British: What’s The Weather Like?PARKS, by Keymaster Games, is a beautiful, relaxing board game experience. In it you control two hikers, trekking across the National Parks of the US. What ‘memories’ will you make along the way? What photos will you snap? Visiting People, conveniently abbreviated to VP are the victory points in the game. The player with the most at the end of the game will be crowned victor. It is fair, then, to consider the comparison with A Feast for Odin when considering the types of players each game suits best. In Tenpenny Parks you have five rounds (months) to transform the humble town of Fairview into the home of the world’s greatest theme parks.

My Comments: Three actions a turn and five total rounds seems to be a good mix. It often feels like the most optimal thought is one too many actions away, and there is some pressure to get the goals completed in five turns. Making this activity more interesting: treeples! Yes, trees add not only a nice visual element to Tenpenny Parks, but also a hazard that must be accommodated to get those rides into your park. It’s certainly not a massive mental puzzle, but the different tile shapes add fun planning elements to each of your actions. Tenpenny Parks is a super tight board game. Lots of options that are limited by other player’s choices and the relatively constrictive gameplay. There are so many things you would like to do, but so few workers to do them with. Some may find this restrictive gameplay too much, especially at three or four players.Next up is advertising, where players use their built attractions to convert money into points. Each attraction has a defined amount marked on their card, and can only be used once per advertising step. In Tenpenny Parks players are competing to build the best amusement park that gives thrills, creates awe, and sparks joy. This is accomplished through the mechanisms of worker placement and tile placement. At the beginning of the game each player gets a player board, three workers, seven money, and three goal cards. Players will keep two of these goal cards which will score three points each at the end of the game. The game is played over five rounds. There is a slight question mark over the replayabilty of Tenpenny Parks, I could see it becoming a bit repetitive if it wasn’t mixed in with plays of other games, but as it doesn’t take too long, it will always be welcome at my table.