The Odyssey Journal: March 2025
Robyn Jarvis
Welcome to the third issue of the Odyssey Journal. I honestly don't know where March went, but I can say I am grateful for the warmer weather now. I didn't get many opportunities to play games this month, however, the ones I did try out, were pretty great!
- Robyn, Director
Honey Buzz
7/10
Honey Buzz is a 2-4 player worker placement that sits comfortably between Wingspan and Everdell for interesting levels of complexity and juggling different resources.
The concept is simple, the bees have realised that selling honey at market is a lucrative business opportunity, with many woodland creatures demanding their favourite kinds.
Hatch baby bees, gather pollen, create honey, and sell at the market. Pretty straightforward right?
The twist in Honey Buzz, is that instead of getting to immediately play the action you place a worker on, you have to place your action into your honeycomb hive. Only when you create a complete hexagon in front of you, will you activate all the actions in that area. This can give you combo turns where you can create honey and sell lucratively at the market all in one go, and other turns, where... well... you do very little at all.
This is a game of small investments and big pay offs for those who can plan correctly. My brain just about coped with everything going on at once, but I was only playing the tutorial mode! Oh yes, it can ramp up in difficulty if you want it to!
I would say that the set up and rulebook read took us an hour and even then a full playthrough to fully grasp how the game works, but it is worth the time if you love woodland creatures and strategy games.
Sail
9/10
Full disclosure, I will always be a sucker for a co-op game, but this small box 2-player has captured my heart.
Sail is similar to The Crew and Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game, for using trick-taking as a mechanism for completing missions. In this game, you are winning or losing tricks to sail the ship through treacherous waters to safety. The game gets more difficult each time you play, making you survive longer and longer by avoiding the ever-looming Kraken.
Gameplay is neat and swift at around 20 minutes a mission and learning the game took around 5 minutes max. The production on this game is also excellent with a lovely wooden ship, great art, and a nautical map/game board that really brought the game to life. If you power through the missions and are left wanting more, there is also a cool expansion that adds 4 new scenarios as well as obstacles to overcome like whirlpools and rival pirate ships.