Four Tribes Review

I've been enjoying a game I bought recently. It's from fellow indie designer Jason Glover at Grey Gnome Games over the last couple of days. It's called Four Tribes, and it's available from The Game Crafter here.

The game is a light two-player card game with some additional components. It's got a fun mechanic, plays quickly, and involves some nice strategy, along with some luck. The art is really great, as it is for all of Glover's games - he's a great artist in addition to doing the designing. I'm still figuring out the best strategy, and I'm not always seeing why some options are possible (e.g. why I would put any cards on the opponent's side of the river other than the special cards I have to place there). I like the winter village set because I think the higher number of buildings makes the strategy more interesting. Some games have been decided pretty much by luck, but most of them have involved some cool strategic decisions and management of cards. The design is elegant and uses its pieces well, and there's more than enough randomness and variety that the game feels different each time. It fits nicely in the new medium boxes from TGC, although I wish there were a slightly larger bag for fishing around in - it seems not quite big enough to randomize or to fit my giant meaty fist into. I've ended up using an alternative hidden building choosing technique that's working better. My daughter (pictured above) would prefer that the chiefs you're recruiting didn't use the same colors as the buildings, since they're not related to each other, but that's a minor quibble. I also find the special cards, which have interesting abilities, are often just used as wild cards for their numbers, but sometimes the special powers matter and are fun to use.

Cool, unique game, and well worth the purchase for me.