Designed by: Jon-Paul Jacques
Land vs Sea is a two player (or two-team) game where one player represents the land and the other the wet stuff (with three players the rules are adapted to suit). Although the box comes with some additional rules wrinkles you can add in, we’ll describe the introductory game here, which consists of a number of hexagonal tiles that are placed one by one to the table, making a growing landscape. You have a hand of two (double-sided) tiles, and on your turn you must place one of them, making sure sides that join up to already-placed tiles match: land against land, sea beside sea.
The goal is to complete areas, which for the land player means an island surrounded by sea, and for the sea player a sea surrounded by land. The moment that happens – no matter who placed the tile who triggered it – these areas score 1point per tile that make up the area. If there are 5 tiles involved, then the relevant player scores five points: easy.
There are also some + symbols on tiles that are scored (1 point per + symbol) by the player who triggers the scoring, which means you might tactically choose to give your opponent points at the same time as depriving them of more – especially if gifting them 4 points now might stop them getting 8 points later: the larger a completed area, the more points it scores.
Some tiles have a special ability that activates when it’s placed: the compass symbol allows you to instantly place your second tile, and the warrior symbol lets you take a tile from your opponent, meaning they only have the two sides of a single tile to choose from at the start of their next turn. At the end of a turn only (meaning you can never play more than two tiles per turn), you draw up to 2 tiles, and this back-and-to continues until the tiles have run out – at which point the player with the most points is the winner.
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That’s the basic game, but you can mix in additional tactical chicanery in the Mountain & Coral, Caravan and Ship and Waypoint scoring scoring that spice things up a little with additional routes to point-scoring.
There's no moving or removing of tiles, but strategically players can and should try to hamper each other's efforts as much as furthering their own plans.
It is a game given to pauses especially in the later stages. Make your peace with that and you can use the time to think about what your own plan is...
It sounds simple: surround a sea or complete an island. The problem is someone is actively trying to prevent you, and the game is all about managing this tricky balance. As the rulebook points out, it may well be more advisable to go for lots of small areas than one huge one, which is easier to sabotage.
Multiple tiles means multiple opportunities, and the additional modules add further variation.
2-4
Players
8+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
Land vs Sea is a very simple premise, competently implemented and pleasantly presented. I haven't played the additional ways-to-score options, only the base game, so that might well change my initial impressions, but both myself and my opponent found it slightly protracted. You have only two tiles to choose from, but they are double-sided and the longer the game goes on the more placement options you have: which is great from a strategic point of view, but time-consuming going through them all. We found every turn consisted of trying tiles at different places in different orientations with different consequences and it just felt more like admin than fun. I think abstract fans may be more forgiving of this kind of cognitive load and staccato pace - certainly Land vs Sea has its champions - but we ended our games more respectful than enthused. It probably doesn't help that the game's appearance is very similar to that of bona fide classic, Carcassonne.