Gazebo
Transcript
Hello. So, today I want to tell you about the game Gazebo. And this is an updated Riner Canitzia game that Bitewing Games crowdfunded I think last year and it is now available in retail. I met Kyle from Bitewe Games at Dice Tower West and he was kind enough to give me this copy so that I can tell all of you about it. It's Rainer Canitzia, it's tile laying, it's abstract, it's area majority and it has gorgeous art. I was excited and I was sold from the beginning and wow, this game is good. So, let me show you how it plays. So, the game comes with this double-sided board. So, you can see here that there are some starting tiles on the board and they are the colored spots and then there are these spots which are patios. And right here there's these little zen spaces and they're going to give you a bonus tile of the really easy tiles to place. So, in this game, you are trying to get all of your gazeos placed first. Obviously, I'm green. So, place two to four players.
And depending on player count, that will determine how many gazeos you need to get placed. The more players, the fewer gazeos that you have to place. And once someone places their final gazebo, that's it. No more like everyone takes one turn. All of that. Nope. That's the winner. So, you have these great cardboard tiles included. And there are double-sided tiles with a light back. And then there are or double colored tiles. Then there are single colored tiles with a darker colored back. And these are the easier ones to place because anytime you have two of the same color placed, that's when you get to place one of your gazeos. So that's why these are special. So, at the beginning of the game, you are going to get five of these face down. And the only way to get more of them is by covering one of these spaces. So, they will be face down and not actually in your hand. You will have three of the double colored tiles that will make up your starting hand.
And at the end of your turn, when you are drawing up back to three tiles, you can choose to take one of those face down double-sided ones from your private supply or you can take one of the two colored tiles. Now, like I said, these were great cardboard tiles, and that's wonderful. However, you know, I love deluxe bits. So, that satisfying clink, I would so much rather have these. So, these are great. And they are for both the light and the dark tiles. So, I would get my five. I wouldn't look at them. I would have them off to the side. That those are my five that are going to be the single-sided tiles that I can draw. And then my hand would consist of three randomly drawn double-sided tiles. And I won't show those to anyone else. That's my starting hand. And you can keep them face down in front of you. Everyone has their own. So on your turn, you simply have to place a tile. There's very few rules about how you do that, which is what I love the simplicity of these games that there's not a heavy rules overhead, but there's a lot of choices and strategy. So, if I'm the starting player, I simply need to place one of my tiles next to one of the starting positions. So, if I go here, I have created an area of two of the same. So, I get to put one of my gazeos on. It seems really easy, right?
There is a little more to it than that. So, if I do that and then another player placed here, they could place one of their gazeos and then we're now tied at two and two. But if we get to a point where I have, say, let's say I have three blues, this isn't a valid placement, but we're just going to pretend that it is. I have three blues touching something, and they have two blues touching something. And there's now a space in the middle. Well, I could come. So, they've claimed this. I could come in on my turn with another blue because three and two. And now, because I had a clear majority, they lose their tile, their gazebo, which is not good because we're trying to get rid of gazeos. And anytime you have five or more of the same color, you get a second gazebo. So, that is wonderful because I now have more gazeos on the board. and they lost one. Also, anytime you place next to one of these patio tiles, you get to put a gazebo on it. This is just a regular old patio that's a one spacer, but if you place next to the one that has two, that's a fancy patio and you get to put two gazeos on it. And you maintain control of that as long as you have the most gazeos of your own surrounding it. So, we'll just push those over. If somebody else came in and then had more gazebo surrounding it, I would lose mine and
they would take control. So there is this tugof-war, this push and pull that you want to have the majority at all times. And when you're placing your tile, the only rule is it must be placed next to another tile horizontally or vertically. Either way, the colors don't have to match. In fact, sometimes maybe you're trying to block someone from expanding too much because like I said, anytime you get those five or more tiles of the same color, you're going to get to place a second gazebo. So, sometimes you may be playing more of a defense rather than an offense. And so, you keep going until someone has placed all of their tiles. And like I said, at the end of your turn, you can draw from the common area that it will all have the two-tone tiles. Or you can draw one of yours that you know, you don't know what color it's going to be, but you know that it is a double tile that will let you place a gazebo immediately. And when you place on top of these, you get more of those. So, that is the game in a nutshell. And it is a ton of fun because there is really good replayability with that. There's so much going on. But you can flip this board over and now there's more going on. So we still have our patios that we're claiming. You see our three start positions are in new places, but we now have these butterflies and these or not the butterflies, we now have these vases. And the vases are going to work differently. When you place a gazebo next to a vase, you immediately get to place another tile and then draw two new tiles to your hand. So it's a way to potentially place more gazeos more quickly. So, there are
the upgraded tiles, which I highly recommend. There is also an expansion board, which you can get, which will have two sides to it as well. And this has double layered um patios, so you have to have two gazeos next to them, but then you get to place two gazeos on them. So, there's that going on. And there's just it's more you got vases here. Again, different starting areas, lots of replayability. So, you can get this as well to add on to your game so that you then have four total maps you can play. So, like I said, I highly recommend these tiles to upgrade. This is a lot of fun because now you have four maps. And there's even this really fun hardsided zipper case with a carabiner you can get. So, it makes your game a little more portable. It will all fit in here. Or if you were me and my backpack was so full at Dice Tower West, this clipped onto my backpack and I just stored a bunch of stuff in it because where it's got that hard side, you can use it for a bunch of different things.
So that is Gazebo from Bitewing Games. Let me know if you have played it and what you think of it. And if you haven't, what is your favorite game from Bitewing Games? Give me a like and a follow and I'll keep bringing you more board game content. Thanks. Bye.