In Applejack players are… actually, don’t worry about the theme. The goal of the game is to earn the most honey by growing cultivating collections of apples in your orchard, and arranging beehives to produce the most honey.
I think it’s safe to say we’re firmly in the era of “Cozy Games”. Games featuring zombies, war, and general turmoil, while not absent, are popping up less frequently. Meanwhile, farming, animals, and nature themes are becoming much more prevalent. Now, designer Uwe Rosenberg is no stranger to comfy cozy themes, with his biggest hits being Patchwork, Agricola, and A Feast for Odin, but something in Applejack hits differently. It starts with the delightful cover by Lukas Siegmon of a man admiring an apple, sitting on his bounty of fruity, taking a rest after a long day, with a flock of sheep grazing on the grass in the background. This single piece of art sets the tone for Applejack.
A game of Applejack starts with a fallow field, devoid of fruit, but full of promise. Turn by turn, the die will travel around the central board, and players take turns pulling tiles and placing them into their field. Each tile depicts one of the 6 apple varieties, and include some beehives, that indicate how much that tile costs, and how much it might get you later on in the game. At certain points during the game, the round tracker die will pass over various apple varieties, triggering income for anyone who has collected apples of that type.
I have nothing but respect for Uwe Rosenberg’s past tile laying masterpieces, and I feel Applejack is among his best work. Choosing and laying a tile is tough when you start, or, you may just pick the biggest numbers and hope for the best. But as you play Applejack more and more, the intricacies of the design begin to reveal themselves. Is it better to diversify and collect tiny bits of income frequently, or do you go all in on a single apple variety and reap a major bonus. Maybe placing a tile of the wrong variety would net you a huge honey bonus, but segment your red apple variety into two halves, cutting your potential income for the rest of the game. Honey is generated when two beehives meet, but only the lower number is what you’re scoring. It’s painful to pay 10 honey for a tile because it has the right apple, but you’re forced to place it against a measly 3 beehive, losing 7 honey overall. Foreseeing and managing these tradeoffs are what gives Applejack it’s delicious texture!
Perhaps a downside of the cozy setting is that the barbs of Applejack can catch players unaware. Much like Agricola (AKA Misery Farm), the start of the game sees players barely scraping by. The honey income is slow and more often than not you’ll have to pass up the more expensive tiles, simply because you don’t have the honey to afford them. Go big early, and you’ll starve for a couple rounds and fill your board with useless sheep.
Another complaint I have has to do with the chosen apple varieties, and the fact that they made two of them slightly different shades of green. More than once I’ve taken a tile, only to realize during the next scoring that one of my tiles was the wrong green, not only accidentally cleaving my biggest orchard in two, but also incorrectly influencing my decisions for several rounds until my mistake was discovered.
Overall, those are some pretty minor gripes about. Full disclosure, I’ve only played Applejack on Board Game Arena, which may sand off some other complaints, like, refilling the market with tiles and the fiddly activity of constantly trading in bits of honey tokens after doing the same basic math over and over again.
After my first play, I was lukewarm on Applejack, it felt shallow and devoid of interesting decisions. But the more games I played, the more layers were peeled back. I started to realize how you can plan ahead, and how some of the tradeoffs and timings really work. There’s depth and crunch to this game, from the spatial puzzle of apple placement to the timing of the economic decisions. Playing Applejack well requires some interesting decisions, and it’s turned out to be much more fun than I initially thought.
I’m thrilled that I gave Applejack more than a single play, as I am truly relishing in its charm with each subsequent game. The very first modern board game I experienced with my mother was Patchwork, a game she adored, and I believe she would also love Applejack, despite her unfortunate apple allergy. As it stands, I would happily use Applejack as a means to introduce novice gamers to my hobby. Uwe Rosenberg, once again, has fashioned a remarkable creation, a true gem of a game that has the potential to expand and share the joy of board games far beyond its current horizons.
