Tatsu and Hive are both two-player strategy games from Gen 42 Games. In Hive, you play as insects using tiles to surround the other players Queen Bee. In Tatsu, you control a team of dragons who battle in a circular arena and attempt to the destroy the other player’s team.
A game of Tatsu begins by placing three of your green vine dragons on the three starter spaces that match your tile color, the remaining dragons are placed on the triangular tray on your left. The other player places their dragons in an identical formation on the other side of the board.
There are three different kinds of dragons in Tatsu and players receive a different number of each kind. Each dragon type has its own attack that comes into play when they land on a space already occupied by another dragon.
The game contains:
There are no expansions, but an online game is available on Steam.
At the beginning of their turn, the player rolls two six-sided dice. The numbers on the dice can then be used to perform various actions. Players can:
Players may also choose to discard one or both dice rolls if they cannot, or prefer not to move.
Players start each game with only three vine dragons in the arena. New dragons are moved from the player’s tray to their holding mat by landing on a green, blue, or orange space in the arena. Once on the holding mat, the dragons wait until the player chooses to release them into the arena by rolling a one, two or three and moving them onto the matching starter space. Only dragons in the arena can be attacked by the opposing player’s team, meaning any dragons in the tray or waiting on the holding mat are safe, however, these dragons are also incapable of helping their player’s team.
Tatsu is won when one player destroys all the dragons of one color in the opponent’s team, either all four vine dragons, all three water dragons, or both fire dragons.
In Hive, each player controls a set of 11 hexagonal insect playing tokens. The aim of the game is to surround the other player’s queen bee before yours is surrounded. Queens can be surrounded by tokens of either color, so you must watch out that you are not inadvertently trapping your own queen while trying to surround that of your opponent.
Your insect team is made up of:
Each of the different insects can move in a different way, similarly to the pieces in chess, and there is a similar type of strategy involved.
A number of expansions are available that add in new bugs to the game, including ladybugs, mosquitoes, and pillbugs. There is also an online version available through Steam and on XBox.
The hive, or playing area, is defined by the tokens in play. The game begins with each player placing one of their tokens so that the two touch, players can then either move one of their existing tokens or add in another to extend the hive assuming they have one left to add. One of the first four moves by each player must be to place their queen bee into the hive. After the first turn, new tokens cannot be placed in the hive touching an opponent’s token. Only existing tokens can be moved into positions where they touch the other player’s tokens.
In addition, two key rules exist in Hive. Firstly, the hive must remain as a single entity. This means that if moving a token would result in the hive becoming split into two separate groups of tokens, even if only for the duration of the move, that token cannot be touched. Secondly, tokens can only move in a sliding motion (except for the grasshopper and beetle) which means that tokens may not move into or out of a space that they cannot slide into. The grasshopper and beetle can bypass this rule by jumping over other tokens, or by climbing down from above.
Myself, my husband, and our seven-year-old son all came to the same conclusion when choosing between Hive and Tatsu. All of of us preferred the latter.
Hive is a very clever game with the possibility of an almost infinite number of hive layouts being created thanks to its freestyle playing area. However, all of us felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of options available at any given turn – it’s probably one of the reasons none of us are keen chess or RPG players. This wealth of choice also resulted in very slow gameplay as each player analyzed the hive on their turn, something we personally found off putting – especially when playing with a child. For fans of chess and other slow-paced, deeply strategic games this is a must have, the storage bag making it an excellent choice for taking away whilst traveling, however, it simply wasn’t for us.
Tatsu, on the other hand, was also strategic but with fewer options available it didn’t feel nearly so overwhelming on each turn and kept the game flowing at a far more comfortable pace. If Hive can be likened to Chess, then Tatsu is more like Backgammon. The mixture of luck through dice rolling, and strategy through choosing how to use those rolls and when to release new dragons, meant that the game felt balanced between players of different ages and abilities which made it an excellent family game, even if only two players could play at once – a multiplayer version would be very well received here. Our entire family enjoyed Tatsu, and that’s honestly the best thing I can ask for in a game.
GeekMom received these items for review purposes.
This post was last modified on December 12, 2017 8:11 pm
It doesn't have to cost a ton to look like you've had a sweater for…
Welcome to this year’s Mother’s Day Gift Guide where we celebrate all things mothers. This…
Louder than Huner by John Schu is an internal dialogue of a teenage boy as…
In recent years, I have enjoyed reviewing several books from Britannica publisher, What on Earth…
April is International Guitar Month! Let's send off the month with some amazing feats (and…
GeekMom Elizabeth explores if Woobles kits really can teach you to crochet.