Reef

Reef (2018) is a sequencing game where you grow a coral reef piece by piece. You play by placing Coral pieces on a 4-by-4 grid, trying to match patterns on the cards that you choose. It is a game about planning for future growth so that when your plans blossom fully you score oceans of points.

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Each go you place Coral pieces onto your 4-by-4 Reef grid in accordance with the colours indicated on the Reef card you play. This card also indicates which patterns and stacks score points. But the trick to high scores is thinking ahead to the scoring patterns on your upcoming Reef cards and placing Coral not only to score on the current card but to set up patterns for one you could play next go.

The final twist is that you can only have four cards in your hand, so if you're not careful you have to play Reefs cards before you have the ideal scoring pattern setup. As you get close to the end your Reef grid maxes out at four-high stacks of Coral pieces, so placement becomes harder. Still, judge the end game well and these complex patterns can bring in big points. The winner is the player with the most points when the Coral pieces or the deck of cards run out.

The result is a novel combination of a geographic puzzle and a card sequencing challenge. You need to set up cunning patterns ready for your next Reef cards while also carefully managing your hand to play them at just the right time. It is an easy game to learn but has a real depth of strategy, so it may take you some time to become master of the oceans.

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Our examiner, Rob Prior, first checked Reef 19 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 9 months ago.