Life in Reterra Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Life in Reterra, a cozy tile laying game published by Hasbro Gaming. Life in Reterra is a (re)building game, and it's up to each player to build a community of their own.

Best known for his mini-laden combat games, the versatile Eric Lang teamed up with Ken Gruhl, creator of Happy Salmon, to give us some lighter fare with Life in Reterra, a game with no monsters and nothing more villainous than a few pesky neighbors.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world, the lively game art by Hugo Cuellar suggests a comic, junk-strewn future. Your task is to rebuild civilization in this tile-laying game from Hasbro Gaming, designed for 2-4 players. It takes about 30 minutes to play.

To begin, you will choose five building types, placing their cards and a limited number of buildings for each type on the main board. There are several recommended starter sets, but you also may choose your own. The cards describe the building type, including end-game point values, and any special properties the building may have. The buildings themselves take up different amounts of space in your community.

You will design Reterra with land tiles representing varied terrain types, which may have relics or gears on them. You place buildings when you have created a layout with suitable terrain and gear icons matching a building shape.

When it’s your turn to lay a tile, you choose from a market of five random land tiles. You begin with a starter tile on your layout and three secret tiles in hand, any of which you may hold or play during your tile-laying phase.

Each player lays a tile and then replenishes the market, if necessary, before the next player’s turn. Adding a building is done at the moment you’ve created a valid space, which usually requires multiple tiles.

While you build Reterra into its final 4×4 grid, you will try to maximize contiguous terrain types, arrange gear icons to match the size and shape of the available buildings, and make use of any scoring boosts associated with buildings