WBG Score: 7.5/10
Player Count: 2-4
You’ll like this if you like: Quick filler games with clever scoring options.
Published by: Helvetiq
Designed by: Luc Rémond
This is a free review copy. See our review policy here.
Alpina is a very simple little puzzle where players make two choices: Where shall I play my card this turn? And, which cards do I want to score from? Games last 10-20 minutes, but each game will feel quite different. Why? Because there are so many different ways to score, you will display 25 of them in each game, and you can only ever pick four to eight of them (depending on player count). It is a very simple, but clever system. Let's get it to the table to see how this plays.
How To Set Up Alpina
Pick one of the goats from the deck of cards and place it face up in the middle of the table. Then shuffle the rest of the deck and deal six cards to each player, placing the remaining cards into a face down draw pile. Then, each player takes four Hikers in their chosen colour for a four-player game, five Hikers in a three-player game, and eight in a two-player game. Be sure to also take your scoring marker in your colour too. Now, pick a first player at random and you are now ready to begin the game!
How To Play Alpina
Players will now take turns to play a card from their hand and then draw a card from the draw pile. You must always have six cards. When you play a card, you have an optional choice to place one of your Hikers down, either on the card you just placed or onto any card orthogonal to this card. This card will then score you points at the end of the game, based on that specific card's scoring function. Players will be collectively forming a five-by-five grid as they do this, so you can never place a card so that it forms a sixth card in a row or column.
When the 25th card is placed and the five-by-five grid is complete, the game ends and players will then score their Hikers. Start on the top left of the grid and work your way along the rows, top to bottom - scoring each hiker one at a time. The box has a handy scoring device on the top edges of the bottom part of the box, so you can move your coloured counter along as you score each Hiker. Most points wins!
But how do the cards score you points? Well, in many different ways. But they are largely themed around the cards in their near vicinity, row or column - based on what the card is. The Nutcracker bird cards will score you points based on other animals in the grid. The Chamois Goat will score you points based on other Hiker pawns in the grid. Whereas the Grass Frog will score you points based on the different types of landscapes on the cards in the grid.
Each card will have one of these three animals on, as well as one of the three landscapes. Either the Mountain, Lake, or Forest. These are the animals and landscapes typically found in the Parc Naziunal Swizzer. The oldest national parc in the Alps. Where this game is themed. At the bottom of each card will be the way each card scores. For example, this card below has a Chamois Goat in a mountain. It will score you one point for each Hiker on any card surrounding this card at the end of the game. Whereas this Nutcracker in a Lake will score you one point for every Goat on the same row or column as this card, as well as one point irrespective of other cards. And this Frog will score you two points for each card that is orthogonally next to it that has any animal in a mountain. Make sense?
Is It Fun? Alpina Card Game Review
The game plays incredibly fast and does not offer anything that is new or, in truth, that original. But what it does offer is VERY interesting scoring. And if you like tile/card laying games where you need to maximize your scoring potential through clever placement of your cards/tiles, then this could well be a game that sits very nicely in your filler game pile. Within 10-20 minutes you will feel like you have made a few clever decisions, scored well from a few smartly placed cards, and experienced something that I would wager the majority of players would really quite enjoy.
The game all looks gorgeous too. The art style is right up my street, and the setting is obviously a very picturesque and calming one. I would have liked a little more individuality in the art, but then again, the consistent styling between the three animals and three locations does make scoring a lot easier. You can find things quickly, and when you are constantly scanning up to 25 cards, looking to see where to place your card and hikers, this consistency in art does help. Come the end of the game, as you can see below, it is quite simple to quickly see where all the Frogs are, for example. And the changing landscapes and colors do then cause for a visually pleasing tableau, despite the minimal variation.
But it is the scoring that sets this game apart the most. There are 11 different main ways cards can function, and lots of variations on that. Choosing which of the cards you want to place your Hiker on is always interesting. And the fact that you can place your Hikers on cards next to the card you place, not just the card you place, makes this decision even more interesting. A card someone else placed that does not work for them could work for you, and you have a chance to use it if you place a card next to it. But you will be thinking as you do this, does the card you place next to it help this initial card's scoring opportunities? This back-and-forth will be running through your mind more and more as the game continues. And this becomes more consuming as you have more Hikers on the board, scoring points for you in different ways. The knock-on effects of each card's potential use become exponentially more interesting the more Hikers you have on the board. Equally, are you helping another player more than you are helping yourself? There is a lot to think about in this little game.
But nothing that will consume you. It's still quick, and light, and games will be fast and friendly. Sure, you can deliberately place a goat down next to a frog that really doesn't want to be next to that specific goat, and you did it for that very specific reason. But players know in this game you cannot control every card, 50% of them at best in a two-player game, 25% in a four-player. It's about controlling the controllables in this game. It is rare a card will max out its scoring unless players start grouping similar scoring cards together, but even then, they still won't ever work in complete harmony as each card and card placement is slightly different.
As such, if you like card/tile placement games where you are making a collective tableau and exploring interesting scoring options, and are looking for a quick game in this field, I could not think of anything to recommend more than this game right now. It does what it set out to do perfectly. That may not be overly original, but not everything has to be. Sometimes you just want a game to do what it is trying to do well, and this does just that. And it sure does help when it looks pretty too!
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