A Solo Experience with the Meadow: Adventure Book
Hike further into fields and even caves with the interesting components and puzzles within the Meadow: Adventure Book.
Onward with my exploration of the Meadow: Adventure Book! After the first couple of scenarios, I sort of already missed the standard Meadow experience. However, I still had more than half of the content to explore, and wanted to check out all of the possible fun before coming to a final conclusion. Time to take another look around nature!
Game Overview
Game Name: Meadow
Publication Year: 2021
Designer: Klemens Kalicki
Artists: Karolina Kijak & Katarzyna Fiebiger
Publisher: Rebel Studio
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
The usual experience is all about taking a slow walk along hiking paths and enjoying the small, simple memories. With the scenarios, rules change gameplay and provide very set parameters to score well and complete a hike. Definitely a plethora of unique sorts of situations to find!
First Play
March 12, 2022
Complexity
2
Latest Play
November 16, 2024
Expansions
2
Setup Time
10 Minutes
Lifetime Plays
14
Play Time
1 Hour
High Score
75
Game Area
46" x 22"
Low Score
40
Windmills and Rails
Up next on my list was a trip to a world of tulips and windmills. I was kind of enthralled by the magnetic board and the way the components snapped into place…
I have another game that uses far too many magnets, and something tells me that’s just going to be a problem over time. There is a jumbled mess of pieces stuck together!
This scenario rewarded me for visiting specific icons in order above new tiles. In theory, this seemed pretty neat.
In practice, I lost sight of the experience and couldn’t care less about the cards I saw… The charm melted away.
Hello, Moose Friend!
It wasn’t until I finished counting up my victory points that I realized I had an awesome moose in my tableau! A very nice surprise, but I was entirely focused on the icons.
Whereas the base game has a fairly open and forgiving decision space, I felt very constrained with my choices.
Optimizing victory points was important, and I didn’t earn the full 4 stars for a complete scenario victory.
For the first time, I didn’t label this as a relaxing sort of game. The puzzle felt solvable in a way that required me to take a lot more into consideration. Not a good feeling.
Component Issues
The magnetic windmills are pretty neat, but these puzzle pieces were far too tight. Each is supposed to be removed and flipped to be used once per game at certain points.
But my pieces fit way too tightly, and the cardboard started to mildly separate just from the first removal.
I simply kept these off to the side and flipped them over. Sadly, this meant I didn’t have the nice windmill visual in the adventure book… But I dislike causing damage.
The little number in the circle is extremely important, and I may have nudged this out of place a few times. Ugh!
Taking to the Skies
Hurray for hot air balloons! This next scenario was the one that excited me the most. It had to do with compass directions, and I thought of some neat possibilities.
Yet this was a lot more work than it was worth. This rotated around, so that the icon pairs changed each round. Look closely, and you’ll spot 6 different pairs to plan for.
The little diagram in the upper left was too small to help, but provided an overview of the placement of the icons.
And this was only part of the scenario. The numbers had to do with advancing along tracks with special timing…
Evaluating My Disconnect with the Scenarios
I think I didn’t understand what this expansion was about before I purchased it. I pictured delightful puzzles about tracking specific animals through the different decks, or documenting collected plants over a series of hikes. There is definitely an audience for these solvable puzzles, but I have a feeling this expansion may be a hit or miss for many.
It may very well work better multiplayer to try out different ways to play. The solo mode felt rather clunky to me with all of the extra elements I had to keep track of. Getting blocked and having some choices removed were great in theory, but I missed the simplicity of Meadow: Downstream… Which may sound odd, considering that adds on more choices!
Now, I’m excited to return to my usual play experience and come up with my own hikes. This is a wonderful game that I didn’t expect to ramp up in terms of complexity and planning. My core joy comes from slowly walking through nature, and not necessarily optimizing every single card. It’s the beautiful simplicity of a quiet view that makes it lovely.
Up, Up, and Too Far Away
Once again, the work of managing the solo opponent gave me more things to think about without much strategy.
These tracks involved moving up at the right time, but to move over to the right track, I had to perform a stopover once to have a chance to add my scoring tokens.
I didn’t enjoy this scenario. There was a lot to think about and I realized there was no connection to hot air balloons.
Maybe that’s another thing that’s been bothering me with these scenarios: They lack thematic charm. The ideas are lovely, but it all feels like a lot of mechanic rule changes.
A Better Tableau
I enjoyed the overall appearance of my cards this time! I still got a little lost in creating the icon pairs at the start, but found myself making up a few little stories again.
Maybe I’m not in the target audience for this expansion, which explains my disappointment. Yet… Who is it for?
The solo mode never felt like more than something to mildly block some of my moves, and relied on a lot of luck. Plus, I had a lot to keep track of with some scenarios.
At this point, it looked pretty clear that I wasn’t going to love this, but I had a couple of scenarios left to report on!
Misprinted Towers
Although it doesn’t impact gameplay, the token towers are misprinted. These have alternating fronts and backs.
Since all of the components are designed to be stored loosely in the expansion box, these were quite annoying to quickly collect. Not a big deal, but not a good experience.
This next scenario was about an observation tower, and the mechanics felt a bit strange. Columns of cards were used to correspond with the height on a tower…
But that’s not how I interpret the card stacks. I see them as places I explore deeper to create connected memories.
The Observation Tower
For such a relaxing sort of game, this scenario page made my head spin a little bit with so much going on. There were choices upon choices, and levels to aspire to.
Tower tokens were assigned at the start of each round to card stacks, thereby setting the highest level of actions.
Once again, there were more icon pairs and individual tiles to pick up to complete more goals. But these didn’t feel like they added any thematic significance to the game.
Maybe I sound like I was out to look for the negatives, yet I was still hoping to find the spark of joy in this scenario!
Stacked Up and Packed
I spent a lot of focus on trying to stack as many cards as possible. This led to a pretty impressive column that was worth a special star in the end! Nicely done on my part!
As I played, I thought about the idea of a game vs. a puzzle. These scenarios all feel like they have specific paths to victory and general solutions. Sort of on-the-rails.
Notice my empty surroundings? This scenario almost discourages doing anything with them. That path is gone.
Managed to find that moose again, though! Ha ha! Only the final scenario stood before me and the conclusion.
Into the Caves
Nope. This final scenario had collectible cave paintings with no real explanation, except to collect 5 types. Once again, there were tons of icon pairs to think about.
Thematically, it felt a little unusual to travel into caves. New cards were shuffled into the decks and they definitely didn’t give me cozy vibes. Lots and lots of spiders…
The solo opponent gained bonuses for collecting these cave cards, so it felt like a game of picking them all up.
Not an expansion for me! I’m glad I gave it a whirl and hope that some of my thoughts will be somewhat helpful.
Meadow: Adventure Book Scenario Guide
These are my overall opinions after playing through all of the scenarios, comparing them all to each other to pick my favorites. A lot more details are included above, but at a glance, this provides a rough idea of what each scenario experience is like.
Session Overview
Play Number: 11-14
Expansion: Meadow: Adventure Book
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
Play Details: Scenarios 3-6
Outcome: 61-46, 61-54, 58-53, 61-62 (3 Wins & 1 Loss)
Somehow, I actually lost during the final scenario! The cave paintings actually weren’t as valuable as I thought they might be. But I just didn’t click with these scenarios. Only the weather cards from the first scenario felt like a component I would want to use again. At least I found a few moments of fun… Back to the base game and river!
%
10 Plays
Affordability
Price & Value
10
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
9
Originality
Design & Theme
7
Quality
Components & Rules
8
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
8
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
7
+ Pros (Positives)
- With the adventure book as a replacement for the campfire board, the play area remains reasonably compact.
- There are some interesting situations to work through with the different scenarios and adjusted rules.
- A lot of artwork focuses on natural elements beyond animals that are still beautiful or pleasant to admire.
- Play time moves along fairly quickly with an emphasis on appreciating the quiet beauty of nature and scenery.
- Less than half of all of the cards are used during solo play, allowing for lots of visual variety in the final tableau.
- Icons are easy to find on the cards without taking anything away from the beautiful watercolor artwork.
– Cons (Negatives)
- Scenarios provide narrow paths to victory and often require more to keep track of, which can be overwhelming.
- There are some component quality issues that make it difficult to play some scenarios, especially with windmills.
- Each scenario is entirely on its own without any modularity, but with a generally solvable solution to figure out.
- New gameplay mechanics don’t translate well into the theme, which detracts from the usual charm and delight.
Victory Conditions
Score the Most Points
- Overall Goal Progress 100%
Goals and Milestones
Score at least 55 points.
Score at least 60 points.
Score at least 65 points.
Score at least 70 points.
Continue the Conversation
Do you have a favorite way to play Meadow? Have these scenarios been enjoyable for you? I can see an audience for the Meadow: Adventure Book, and hope it’s a lot of fun! Even though it fell short of what I hoped for, I still learned more about my preferences… And now have a better appreciation for the base game. I look forward to simpler nature walks!
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