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Board game review & gameplay of: Riverside

Game design: Eilif Svensson, Åsmund Svensson

Illustrations: Gjermund Bohne

  • 8.5/10
  • 10+
  • 1-6 players
  • 15-25 minutes

Gameplay

Riverside is a roll and write game in which you an your fellow players are going on a river cruise in a Northern country. It comes with a modular player board, making the game different eacht time you play it. On this cruise you´ll get the chance to visit several exotic tours, scoring you those sweet victory points.

Players play simultaneously, with one captain rolling the dice. A round consists of three phases:

1. The captain rolls the dice and..
- places the green die (representing the guiding northern light) above the heating area
- finds the median temperature amongst the other dice, moves the ship that many spaces forward and places every die higher than this above with the green die

2. Every player gets to fill seats of one coloured die on their sheet, crossing out seats left to right. The green die can be used optionally with any color to cross off extra spaces. This however costs you some fire symbols, ending the game for you if youve crossed off all of them. If you want to use the other dice placed above the captain it also costs you fire symbols!

3. Every player gets to go on an excursion if they choose, visiting one village within three spaces of the cruise ship. They earn points for each ticket they filled on their boat.

Play continues until the boat is at the end of the route. Then players count scores and the player with the highest score wins the game.

There are also some special powers to unlock and other ways to collect points, but I'll leave those to discover on your own!

Thoughts

When I first saw Riverside I thought it would be very difficult. But having played it a couple of times now, I find it not any harder than the regular Welcome to.. for instance. I really enjoy this game! I needed to work a bit to feel the theme in the game, but when playing, it feels refreshing and I really like that each time you play, theres a different route to follow because of the modular board. 

The components are nice. There are really lots of player sheets (even also printed on the backside!) and the dice are nice and chunky. 

It feels like a solid roll and write game, which I highly recommend to anyone!

8.5/10

A copy of this game was provided to me by Chilifox Games for the purpose of writing this review. My opinion however remains my own.

Boardgamegeek BGG

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