our review

Found sheep and fish

Memory Das Brettspiel

pLACED THEM ON MEADOW AND RIVER

Memory is THE classic and bestselling game in the Ravensburger program and a game mechanism that everybody is familiar with. Now there is a new and in my opinion wonderful idea based on this game mechanic – a memory in which put the pairs to use after you have found them.

First of all, we need memory tiles, there are 60 tiles fr 30 pairs, showing images on different background colors which are corresponding to a certain type of terrain – greyish for stone or mountain, blue for water/river, green for meadow and yellow for fields. The images are suited to the terrain, for water there is an anchor, a treasure chest, fish or a raft, for the fields terrain there is grain and a sickle and for the meadow there are flowers, animals and tools and the mountain tiles show an eagle, a crystal or a mining lamp. There are ten image pairs each for water and meadow, seven for the mountains and three for fields.

Each player receives a tree of two pieces, roots and treetop and there is a general stock of tree trunk tiles in four sizes, which are sorted by size and set out ready, each player puts his tree down, too.

The memory tiles are shuffled face down and randomly distributed on the squares on the board. Then the game begins; if you are the active player, you have two options – turn over tiles or place tiles on the board.

If you decide on turning over tiles, you reveal two tiles – if you did find a pair, you take it, set it down face-down and can then decide if you take another turn of revealing tiles or if you want to place tile. When the tiles you revealed show different images, your turn ends immediately and you put them back.

If you decide on placing tiles on the board, you choose one to four of your tiles and place them on the board, adhering to those rules:

Tiles are placed open-faced on squares of the same terrain and must be placed adjacently, edge to edge, regardless what shape results as long as the terrains are correct, and images are disregarded now; you need not place two identical tiles, but can do it if you want to cover two squares of the same terrain.

When you placed your tiles, you are rewarded with a tree trunk tile – a tile of size One for one tile placed, and so on to a tree trunk tile of size Four for four placed tiles.

When placing tiles you must remember that the number of tree trunk tiles is limited and also different in different sizes, there are rather few tiles of size Four and a lot of tiles of size One. The earlier you manage to place several tiles the greater is the chance to get a tree trunk tile of corresponding size. Later in the game it can happen that you place four tiles and must content yourself with a tree trunk tile of size Two because Four and Three are gone.

When all pairs have been taken from the board, all players can place tiles one more time and then you win if your tree is the highest.

Well, I like it, I like it very much. I love memory and I think the idea to put the pairs to further use is innovative and very good. Some of my fellow players were grumpy about the big box and about not being able to beat the memo wizards; well, that is not true – of course, you need to find the pairs first in order to then place them tactically and at the right time, but that is what the game is about – place tiles tactically and place several tiles at the right time to get the long tree trunk pieces. Because, if you place too late you might get a shorter piece than you should get. But that is not the only point where tactic enters the game – I can place according to the rules and yet severely restrict good opportunities for placement for my fellow players. Where, of course, memory is a good thing, if you can remember what the others picked up, yes, memory again. That’s the name of the game!

Dagmar de Cassan

Players: 2-4

Age: 7+

Time: 30+

Designer: Wolfgang Kramer, Michael Kiesling

Artist: Anne Wertheim, Andreas Adamek

Price: ca. 24 Euro

Publisher: Ravensburger 2016

Web: www.ravensburger.de

Genre: Memo, collect, place

Users: For families

Version: de

Rules: de

In-game text: no

Comments:

Simple rules

Memo feature is dominant

Tactic from location and timing of tile placement

Compares to:

All kinds of memory, placement games with terrain effects

Other editions:

Currently none

My rating: 6

Dagmar de Cassan:

All in all a cute idea which works well, of course the memory wizards have an advantage but a bit of clever tactic can counter them, especially when you place tiles at the right time.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 3

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0