Apiary Review: Honey Bunches of Points

Roy, Mike, Chris & Wendy take a look at Apiary!

0:00 Intro
0:50 Overview
4:19 Final Thoughts

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#dicetower #thedicetower #dicetowerreviews

[beautybyjessy]

I love it when Mike is able to “be there” too!! It’s so nice to see him.

[brianl]

This was a big surprise for me this year. Absolutely loved my play of it and there is tons of replayability imo. Love having Mike participate more with the gang. Good job all.

[HashStrid]

Thank you for the review and including Mike. I think it'll be great if you can have Mike on the screen at all times, similar to how MvM does their chit chat with Jeremy Howard.

[Schaeff]

I really had fun with this game. Not sure if it’s going to stay in my collection forever, but I’ve had fun so far exploring the different factions and the timing of when to use the “4” bees. I agree the theme/setting was interesting.

[nickadams]

I am a veteran gamer of 35 years and think this is pretty special. I certainly disagree that it is too long - it always seems aggressively short and highly driven to the end-game - which I particularly like about this one.

[bkwestman]

Nice review!! I really like the format of these reviews, and especially the great editing to make it feel like Mike is right there in the room with you guys! Nice job on that! We really this game! I don't feel it's too long - the ending always surprises me, at how quickly it comes!

[scottbrown]

Love seeing Mike in some of these group reviews even though he's at the DT Midwest Annex

[eduardocarvajal]

I was waiting for this review ! Thank you for always helping out deciding!

[BluephsBlog]

Love the bumping mechanism. It's one of my favourite parts of Charterstone.

[JasperHayward]

I think it would work better having Mike on screen in studio and live switching to him when needed ( like Kinda Funny does with remote guests)

[kevinwallace]

Happy to see Mike in this! I do disagree about the 5 player game though. I think it works really well at 5 players.

[c.w.]

Just to chime in regarding this format with Mike… First of all, I love Mike, and these suggestions are to make his incorporation more seamless for me and maybe others. Someone else mentioned the way MvM handles Jeremy Howard being remote in their Chit Chats with the little window in the screen, and I like that. As well, I listen more than I watch, and Mike has an echo or reverberation that I’ve noticed in his other videos too, and I think maybe he was a bit too loud in comparison here, which accentuated that sound difference.

[JonTimi]

'Stonemeier games like to make a bit of a splash'. Completely missed the opportunity to say 'Stonemaier games like to make a bit of a buzz'!

[andreaskohlbacher]

Mike: “This can be very AP-inducing”

In my mind, Chris bit his tongue at the pun “APiary.”

[spencerbeard]

Both Apiary and Honey Buzz box art have a warm welcome feeling and then I look them up on YouTube and go “HUH?!

[AzureRaiden]

My biggest hang up with the game currently is the recall workers action. At higher player counts, you hardly ever have to take a recall action. So if you're building farm tiles to gain a bunch of income from recalling, aside from the resource spaces you gain, they almost feel useless. It feels inefficient to recall your workers when you could place a worker instead. I struggle with that aspect of the game. Also, multiple times I've played this, our table has gotten 'stuck' with unwanted tiles in the display. Someone has to play a card to wipe them (if they're lucky enough to draw it), buy an unwanted tile, or use up the one precious hibernation space that wipes the row. It's very frustrating to get stuck wanting a certain type of tile, and the market sucks for it.

[pictureframe]

I've found this game is actually very short when playing with 5 players - I have about 6 plays at 5, and 2 at 4 players. More players means more opportunities to find ways to hibernate their 4's faster, and the more we play the better we get at it. Most our games are ending with 1 person completing their puzzle while everyone else is a few actions short.

[wmarclocher]

I first became interested in this game when I was looking for a honey beehive simulation, (i've been obsessed with colony insects my whole life) which this isn't, but I fell in love with the game none the less. As I understand from the Stonemaier website the space theme was added to make the game mechanics make more since to the bee theme.

[andrewimpellezzeri]

For me, in my opinion, this is a game that would have been better with a turn tracker instead of players triggering the endgame.

[matt-jp]

@wendy is spot-on again with her 8.5 for this game