Puzzling Through the Keystone: North America Campaign
Complete assignments and build ecosystems with a variety of beautiful animals and plants in Keystone: North America.
With lots of beautiful nature games available, I somehow lost track of one that I was having a grand ol’ time with… Keystone: North America! The solo assignments offer envelopes to open and different sorts of puzzles to solve. I was greeted with the absolutely lovely components right away, and dove back in as I returned to this solo campaign!
Game Overview
Game Name: Keystone: North America
Publication Year: 2022
Designers: Jeffrey Joyce & Isaac Vega
Artists: Irem Erbilir, Alyssa Menold, & Yan Tamba
Publisher: Rose Gauntlet Entertainment
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
Over the course of 20 different assignments, ecosystems take shape within columns and rows. Animals take on a central element, yet there are also many plants to fill in the habitats. Keystone species offer the best way to succeed, yet there are many challenges to solve!
First Play
August 24, 2022
Complexity
2
Latest Play
December 13, 2023
Expansions
0
Setup Time
5 Minutes
Lifetime Plays
22
Play Time
20 Minutes
High Score
174
Game Area
26" x 26"
Low Score
50
A Most Pleasant Space
Laying out all of the components is simply wonderful! So many things to see and colors to admire. Absolutely nothing bland about nature across this entire play area.
Although playing solo is possible with a random setup, the real heart is in the set of 20 assignments and envelopes to open over the course of the campaign. New stuff!
One thing I swapped out pretty early were the synergy tokens for an abacus… Just too much of a headache.
I also decided to start back at the beginning, thanks to it being so long since I last played. Off to orientation day!
Important Choices
A turn involves using an action tile, or adding a new card to the board. With the right timing, these aren’t expensive, but skipping over cards costs synergy tokens.
The habitats and values are also important. Ecosystems take shape by matching flora and fauna with the same habitats in sequential order across columns and rows.
Wild habitat cards can be crucial to making these matches, often when the animals seem to be a little shy. Ha ha!
All of the artwork is simply excellent, though, and I always love seeing the bear cubs show up. Absolutely adorable!
Illustrated Playmats
This deluxe edition includes detailed illustrations on one side of each playmat. All different scenes can be found, and I often get lost in these looking for the animals!
Can you spot a moose, raccoon, and diving duck? Just so pretty to admire! However, I will say that this makes playing a little difficult in terms of seeing empty spaces.
Luckily, it’s easy to flip these over to play with a plainer side. I still love the inclusion of these pieces of art!
Quickly, I went through the rules again and was ready to start my adventure through all of these assignments.
Making Ecosystems
All done! I discovered that the keystone species were pretty overpowered, though. They created more scoring opportunities in their rows and columns.
Effectively, if I didn’t have a reason not to add a keystone species, it seemed silly to skip any of them.
Rolling through these assignments, I was also struck by how similar gameplay remained. There were some rule changes and challenges, but I breezed right through.
I also noticed that the same species showed up over and over again, as the middle-value animals were the best.
The Challenge of Presenting a Solo Campaign
When I first started playing through the assignments, I appreciated how each one introduced different concepts and some limitations. The first few felt like they were setting me up for ongoing campaign rules that would affect the future challenges. However, I think labeling this a solo campaign set up the wrong sorts of expectations right from the start.
This set of 20 assignments are definitely very unique in terms of the theme and rules around them. No issue there! Yet I thought that I would be unlocking specific elements based on my choices, or at least how well I did. Instead, it was more about playing through each assignment until the winning conditions were met… Then moving onto the next one.
I don’t have an issue with these sorts of puzzles, and this booklet is certainly the best way to enjoy the game solo! But I think if it had been presented as something other than a campaign, it would have made more sense to me. Not to spoil too much, but the sealed envelopes added very little to make it feel like I was moving through a connected campaign.
Too Much Nature?
Take a look at a lot of solo games that have come out in the last few years, and there isn’t a shortage. I own a lot of them, as the theme appeals to me in a lot of ways.
At this point, though, it’s getting harder to stand out in the crowd. I initially loved going through the first handful of assignments, thinking the campaign would advance.
Although there were some limitations and new cards to add into the mix, nothing fundamentally changed.
My first few plays allowed me to see the majority of the game, and then it came down to solving each puzzle.
Stumped by the Bees
Despite it feeling a bit repetitive, I was still determined to get through as many assignments as I could! As it happened, I completed 7 of 20 before hitting a wall.
The pollinators threw me off mostly because this is an assignment that requires the perfect choices with a very limited starting area. It’s a sudden leap in difficulty.
Also, in checking if I made a rules mistake, it became apparent that moving cards was a little illogical…
I figured that the pollinators should move, but it was about moving the flowers to them. Rather confusing!
Session Overview
Play Number: 13-22
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
Play Details: Assignments 1-8
Outcome: 7 Wins & 5 Losses
The bees and moths were just too much! I ended up reading the rest of the assignments to enjoy the charming stories, but nothing made me think I would want to keep trying in order to beat each puzzle. Somehow, I thought this would be more of an actual campaign, yet it was more like a set of standalone challenges. Absolutely beautiful! I’m glad I played, but this marks the end of this journey.
%
20 Plays
Affordability
Price & Value
8
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
8
Originality
Design & Theme
7
Quality
Components & Rules
8
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
8
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
4
+ Pros (Positives)
- All of the artwork is simply gorgeous with adorable animals illustrated in bright colors, often at their cutest.
- Icons and numbers are pretty easy to spot at a glance, which isn’t easy considering how colorful the cards are.
- Deciding to take an action or add a card creates interesting decisions, particularly around the timing and costs.
- The narrative portion of the assignments provides some educational materials and a very charming storyline.
- Everything is neatly contained in the play area, which is a beautiful and compact sort of space from start to end.
- Not every row and column will have the perfect ecosystem, yet there are often ways to connect a couple of cards.
– Cons (Negatives)
- The double-sided synergy tokens with different values are a bit frustrating, and easy to accidentally flip.
- Not a lot of variety exists in gameplay across the different assignments, aside from a few rule changes.
- Using the side of the playmats with the intricate artwork can make it unusually hard to spot empty card spaces.
- Although the assignments form a campaign, there isn’t a progression of unlocked content or persistent effects.
Victory Conditions
Complete the Assignment
- Overall Goal Progress 88%
Goals and Milestones
Complete Assignment 1.
Complete Assignment 2.
Complete Assignment 3.
Complete Assignment 4.
Complete Assignment 5.
Complete Assignment 6.
Complete Assignment 7.
Complete Assignment 8.
Continue the Conversation
What do you like about Keystone: North America? How far have you gotten with the solo campaign? I had a lot of fun with this one for a decent amount of plays, which I’ll look back on fondly! The artwork here is absolutely stunning, too, and I took my time putting everything away. Guess I should watch out for the bees to retaliate over my failure… Ha ha!
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