Published by eggertspiele in 2017, Heaven & Ale is a tile placing game with some engine building elements designed by Michael kiesling e Andreas Schmidt.
The title met with considerable success, gaining international recognition (including the nomination for magnificent goblin in 2018) and becoming a new German classic.
Setting and materials
In an ancient monastery, each player has a small amount of capital to invest in beer production. It will be necessary to carefully manage raw materials and workers, in order to have the necessary resources at the end of the game, together with an experienced and competent master brewer who can work them in the best way.
Although genuine and fascinating, the setting of Heaven & Ale it is rather labile: the simulation aspect has been totally sacrificed in function of the (solid) game mechanics.
The game materials are discreet (high quality cardboard, apart from the rather thin one of the personal boards), the illustrations are mediocre, but the symbology shown on the barrel-tiles and on the cards supplied to the players leaves much to be desired. Although we have clarified their effects one by one, in all our games the players at the first experience could not remember the symbols shown.
Mechanics of Heaven & Ale
Dusting off the old stock-selection mechanics seen in Glen More (then later re-proposed in Francis drake e Tokaido), the monk at the disposal of each player will be able to move along a ring divided into squares, moving any number of spaces but in a single direction (without therefore being able to retrieve the skipped tiles) and performing the action of the square in which stops.
The actions involve the purchase and placement of a tile (monk or resource), the obtaining of activation discs and the claiming of the objectives for which we have already reached the requirement. The tiles are placed in the cloister hexagons (choosing between the sunny side and the shaded one), possibly trying to surround the huts to get extra activations and advancements on the brewmaster's track. The resource cards can also be activated via the special discs and offer coins (for shaded spaces) or an increase on the respective track (for sunny spaces).
The game ends after a predefined number of rounds (variable depending on the number of players) and the winner will be calculated based on the objectives achieved as well as the level of resources and the master brewer on the track.
Although it is often cited as an example of elegance, we have instead found the regulation of Heaven & Ale anything but smooth. In particular, the difference between "activating" and "triggering" a monk (always a difficult point to explain to those who play his first game) and a series of operations preliminary to the final count are rather convoluted.
Considerations
The title of Michael kiesling e Andreas Schmidt has many arrows in his bow: the explanation and the game take place with a limited duration for a game of this depth, the indirect interaction on the main board manages to generate tension and interest among the players, the scarcity of coins makes every choice a painful decision.
Timing is the key to victory: the choice of when to take an activation disc is critical (since each scoring space can only be activated once per game) but above all, timing is essential to win the most attractive tiles on the board central, before the opponents arrive.
Heaven & Ale it certainly amused us, but it must be said that its depth disappears after a few games: the personal boards have a fixed configuration and you soon learn to understand which are the best dispositions for your cards. Unfortunately, the objectives are also always the same: we would have preferred a setup with variable objectives, in order to have something different in each game to focus on.
The expansion (which we tried in a single game, it must be pointed out) increases the depth and the decisions to be made but introduces only one additional objective. The base game is currently sold out in the major stores, it is still possible to find it at human prices in the secondary market but Eggertspiele he anticipated that it will be reprinted in a not too long time.
