Game Review: Unearth!

Our game group is rolling again now that the holidays are finished, and we started off the year with a gem of a game from Brotherwise Games, Unearth  Its difficult to classify the type of game, because it contains a little bit of everything in it.  Working placement, dice rolling, set collection and hand building.  The theme of the game though is clear.  You're in charge of a team of delvers, as they excavate ruins to help build your civilization.

Game play is fairly straight forward.  Each turn, you will be able to play one of your special Delver cards (examined more a bit later) and then pick a Ruins to excavate and roll one die on it.  Each Ruins card has a score that needs to be matched or exceeded before the winner can claim the ruin, and the player with the highest die on the RUins gets to claim it.  Other players who have a die on the card when it gets scored get to draw a Delver card for each die they have on the card.

This might sound like having the high roll is all that matters, but its not.  Each Ruins also starts out with a number of stones tokens on them, which a player can claim if they a 1, 2, or a 3.  These stones can then be arranged to build monuments, which either offer some special ability (like being able to draw delver cards even if you don't have a die at a finished Ruins) or victory points. Players will need 6 stones to complete a monument, with some having specific requirements (like 4 Red stones).  You build off your hex of stones as well, so placement of stones together can help you finish more monuments,

The Delver cards give you extra abilities during your turn.  Some will let you re-roll die on a card, while others let you roll extra die or increase a die face.  These cards really do add variety to the game, and allow the players some real strategic spots to be able to possibly win a Ruins they were trailing on or steal some stones they need to finish a particular monument.

The game gets scored via set collection.  The more ruins of the same color you're able to collect, the better the pont value for that set.  There are some bonuses for getting one ruins of each color as well.

Ruins with dice and our monument choices

Overall this game was a huge hit with our group.  Its deep enough that you will be challenged to find optimal plays and to track whats going on, but not so complex as to cause a lot of analysis paralysis.  Our turns went quickly and noone felt like they had to sit and think too hard, since most of it came down to planning to finish a Ruins or shooting to roll low to get a key stone.  The different monuments and overall mechanics of the dice rolling also lend to each game being pretty fresh, since its unlikely you'll get certain combinations time and time again. The Delver cards really help to insure players can be on an even footing as well, so the game does not snowball as I've seen too many set collecting games do.  And the hex stones for the monuments add in a bit of spatial reasoning to the game, so there really is something for everyone.  A definite good purchase if you can find it.