Haven Review: Wake Up the Guardian!
Intent: Inspire you to try playing Haven!
The Haven Guardian is in deep slumber and can no longer protect the forest, it is up to you to either take it over as the City or protect it as the Forest itself. Haven is designed by Alf Seegert, illustrated by Ryan Laukat and published by Red Raven Games. In this 2 player game you will be either the City or the Forest competing for the land by sending Seekers to compete for Lore controlled by the Elementals. When the lore is depleted or an elemental has left the board, the game ends and the player with the higher score wins! This game takes 30-45 minutes to play. Let the battle for the forest BEGIN!
Overview
The forest is yours to claim and how you do that is by collecting Lore Tokens, building Shrines and securing the Elemental Spirits and the Haven Guardian by the end of the game. You’ll either play as the City using machine Seekers or the Forest using animal Seekers to battle for lore.
You’ll be making elemental offerings and sending seekers to the various Lore Tokens. Overall, this is essentially a bidding game that has two important elements. You’ll be bidding for Shrines using weapons, which in turn grant you Havens if you control the majority in the area or the Lore Tokens, which grant you victory points and the Elemental Spirit bonuses by the end of the game. Each turn you’ll be conducting various actions, drawing cards and tactfully battling your opponent for the three different Lore Tokens.
The balance in the game is what makes it unique. You’ll have the opportunity to play Seekers face down preventing your opponent from knowing your weapon and lore values, which makes the resolve action quite interesting as you never know if you’ll necessary win a space or not.
The game ends after an Elemental Spirit leaves the board as all the Shrine spaces have been occupied or one of the Lore Token decks run out. Points are awarded for Lore Tokens, Shrines and the Haven Guardian for most havens and Elemental Cards for most Lore in each element. Will you balance your strategy to victory?
First Game Impression
This was our first lighter game published by Red Raven Games. We have Above and Below, Near and Far, and Empires of the Void 2. We have always love the art and style of Ryan Laukat so this game was a must, especially it being a strictly two player game.
I was in awe of this game from the start. The elemental spirits, the unique take on the bidding mechanism and the dual scoring system of tug and pull between shrines and lore tokens is incredibly interesting. This game was easy to learn and engaged us throughout our whole playthrough, we never quite knew what was going to happen and it was so fun to get into each others heads and try to outsmart each other.
As soon as the game finished we had to play another one, and that feeling is always exciting for me as there was just so many more strategies to explore within the game.
Thoughts After Five Games
Well this definitely has become one of my favorite strictly two player games, the balance is so interesting, the art is beyond delightful and the player interaction is the right level of “take that” for me. You’re competing with enough open information that you have an idea of how to form the strategy but those hidden seekers are what make the game so brilliant.
This is a game we’ve played significantly more than five times and a game that I foresee us playing more and more, there’s a few advanced variants as well to make the game a bit more challenging, which I find always valuable in games like this. I’m not the biggest fan of bidding games but this one executes the mechanic fairly well that certainly keeps me coming back for me.
The only negative that stood out to me is the luck in the draw factor, as sometimes you just will not get the right seeker or offering and it can be rather frustrating.
MERIT Report Card
Overall Letter Grade: B+
Strengths: Balanced, engaging and exciting strictly two player game. The tug and pull is interesting and allows you to build strategies of how you want to balance the playing area. The artwork is by far one of the best parts as the cover and all the cards and components are incredibly inviting and exciting to look at.
Areas of Improvement: Cycling through cards would reduce that luck factor although a bit too many ties could occur if that was to happen. A little bit more world building would have made me so happy as I love games with worlds behind them.
Memorability: B+
Did this experience stick with me after playing this game? Yes absolutely, the illustrations on the seekers, the tense battle for various shrines to secure Havens and the weapons stand off, there’s many engaging moments in the game that are fairly memorable. After a while though, the novelty definitely wears off a little like in most games.
How does this game resonate with the folks we introduce it to?
I’ve had the opportunity to play this game with a few folk prior to the pandemic and it really stuck with everyone I’ve played with, it was a game individuals requested and wanted to play again and again as it’s fairly quick and quite engaging.
How many memories can be built from this game? Many! The reveal of the seekers cause you do react and adapt as one shrine or lore token can be the victory, the game is often so close so making sure you make the right decisions is key and when that does and doesn’t happen grand moments often occur, which leads to laughter or shameful defeat.
Education: B+
Beyond simple math, which is the obvious here there is an incredible amount of prioritization and adaptation that happens in this game. Now prioritization exists in many games but this one does a phenomenal job educating individuals on how to properly prioritize.
Your strategy will have to adapt throughout the game as shrines and Lore Tokens are awarded and as there are always three Lore Tokens in contention you’ll have to decide how you want to prioritize and which you want to win based on the Shrine positioning and the Lore Token value in itself. It’s interesting because at first you’ll definitely be swayed to do it all, but in order to play well you definitely will have to give up some battles in order to win the war that is the battle for the forest.
Why is this important? Prioritization exists in every element of life from getting up a little bit too late and deciding what to give up in order to be on time, or to critical life decisions on how you want to proceed in relationships, business or even casual settings. Oftentimes prioritization can create moments of paralysis for folks so playing games that create a safe space to practice that skill is always valuable in my eyes.
Now beyond that, adapting to various situation is another really important element that I’m sure you all understand and know about that is very apparent in this game as each decision can lead to a new strategy.
Replayability: B
We’ve played this game many times, the Seekers, Offerings and Lore Power along with the Advanced Variant certainly leave this game quite different each time to a point that I definitely wouldn’t turn a round of Haven down at this point.
However, at the end of the day it is the same mechanisms, the same motions with little adjustment to strategy as luck of the draw is the driving factor here. The game certainly does a great job at variability between each game but if I had to play this game with Tylor only I wouldn’t enjoy it as much anymore.
It’s replayable but it definitely loses the excitement and novelty after each playthrough. I’m thankful for the Lore Power cards as they certainly make the game exciting and engaging and are primarily there to keep the game replayable.
Imagination: A-
I love the theme of this game, it’s interesting to play both as an expanding city and the protector of the forest. The seeker stand offs are engaging and fun as boars face various humanoid machines. You can create dynamic experiences with each Lore Token being battled for.
There isn’t much I would change in this game, although I would love to know the backstory of the forest of Haven and why the Haven Guardian went into Slumber and who these Elemental Spirits are, part of the fun is potentially making up your own story but having that given would have pushed this game over the top for me as I love when games do a thorough job world building beyond their mechanics.
I also enjoy the conversation it starts around conservation and the environment as cities invade the forest on a regular basis, however, the forest doesn’t often fight back.
Target: A-
Well obviously this game is meant for two players, which certainly limits the target size quite a bit but with how engaging, easy to learn and hard to master this game is I can see a lot of individuals really falling in love with Haven.
The box cover in this game is absolutely beautiful and I can definitely see many non-hobby gamers trying this game out and absolutely falling in love with it and hey, if that’s their first introduction to this game even better because it does have a lot of mechanics that can be carried onto heavier games as well.
Overall this is a game I can see myself recommending to practically anybody whether its a parent/child, couple, my parents, or two strangers on their first date.
Tylor’s Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Two player games have definitely become more prevalent in our household and I like to consider Haven as a hidden gem. Red Raven Games essentially helped kickstart our collection. Ryan and his team do an incredible job at building a world and putting out amazing art.
This game is a lot of fun, its quick, short, and easy to learn. At first glance the card placement seems pretty straight forward but there are a multitude of things to consider since it is not just about having the greatest sum amongst your rival. There are a few ways to score so you have to be strategic in the placement and understand when you have the opportunity to claim some of the points rather than all the points. I also like the offerings piece to as it can come down to drawing the right offering to successful please the elementals and gain their trust or overpower them before your opponent does.
Overall, I quite enjoyed this game and I am looking forward to continuing our exploration of the two player game space!
Final Thoughts: If you’re looking for a strictly two player game, this one would be a fantastic add to your shelf. It’s engaging with many fun moments that definitely keep you involved in the game, the length of the game is ideal and will certainly encourage you to have many rematches hoping to secure the forest for yourself. Certainly check out this game and see if you can finally fight back against the city to protect the forest!
MERIT Report Card Letter Grade: B+