“Ugh, I have too much stone and not enough fish! What am I going to do, just magically convert this stone into fish?” In Harbour, the answer is YES. Harbour is a light economic, worker placement, set collection game with fantasy elements to spice up the theming. Your goal is to amass the most victory points at the end of the game and become the greatest Harbourmaster ever!
| Harbour (2015) | Tasty Minstrel Games |
| 1-4 Players | 30-60 minutes |
| Ages 10+ | BGG Weight – 2.07 / 5 |
In Harbour, you control a gobleeple (I am really horrible at this, but it’s a meeple in the shape of a goblin) who travels around town visiting buildings to enact their special abilities. Using these abilities will help you amass goods whose value is ever-changing on a uniquely-designed market board. Knowing when to sell your wood and livestock to purchase buildings is the key factor to creating a strategic path to income and winning the game of Harbour.
DISCLAIMER: I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rule book, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy from the publisher directly or from your FLGS. Furthermore, there is an expansion to this game, but we are not reviewing it at this time. Should we review it in the future we will either update this review or post a link to the new material here. -T
To setup give each player a gobleeple of their color choice (I choose you, purple!), a player board of their choice – or randomly dealt, and one token of each good to later be placed on their warehouse spaces. Place the main market board in the middle of the table with one goods token per space on the market to indicate starting prices for each good. Have each player now assign goods to warehouse spaces not to exceed three total goods stored. Shuffle the main building cards and place out in a grid a number of cards equal to three plus the number of players (seven total in a four-player game). Determine the starting player and you are ready to begin!
On your turn you must move your gobleeple to another vacant building, even the starting one on your player mat, or another player’s built building (but you must pay them a good to do so). From there you may take advantage of any special abilities that building offers. It could be adjusting the prices of goods, trading one type of good for another, or allowing you to purchase buildings from the grid. Purchasing buildings brings the game closer to its end, as the end is triggered by a player purchasing their fourth building. The round continues until everyone has had equal amount of turns and the player with the highest VP in buildings wins! I will have you play the game to see the various abilities that each player mat and each building offer.
Components. This is a small game in a small box (ironically it’s a Scott Almes design – you know, of Tiny Epic fame). You are given lots of player mats that feature different characters and abilities that you can choose to emulate. These mats are great, laid out well, and have funny flavor text on them. Also included are the aforementioned painted wooden gobleeples in fun colors and with an even funner shrugging pose. To keep track of your goods and market values you use blocks with stickers applied. In addition to this is a giant stack of cards to represent the buildings you will be visiting and purchasing. I have sleeved mine and they all fit back in the box (even with a few promos included). Everything is of great quality. No problems at all for me, as per usual with Tasty Minstrel Games fare.
I do not own many market and economic games because usually they do not really interest me at all. I do have many worker placement games because I really enjoy the mechanic. This one, though, is special to me. It is one of the games I have Kickstarted that I feel really delivered and fires on all cylinders for me. Your opinions may vary if you have played it, but this game is an absolute gem. It is light, fast, and incredibly fun. There is a slight learning curve if you are not used to either economic or worker placement games, but after a few rounds it will all fall into place. If you are looking for a euro game in fun clothing, I highly recommend Harbour (and it’s a steal right now in stores). Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a rousing 10 / 12.
