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Shogi, Stratego, Checkers, Go, Nine Men’s Morris, Xiangqi, and the big daddy of ‘em
all, Chess. Proving that a board game doesn’t need dice... and that, indeed, by taking luck
out of the situation, a better game experience is created. But y’know what all those games
have in common? BOARDS. Flat chunks of cardboard that dictate the space of the game. What if
we got rid of that, too? Well, in 2001, John Yianni did exactly that with Hive, a more
liberated form of chess-like strategy that builds its own playspace as the game progresses
- in three dimensions, no less! It was a hit, winning multitudes of honors like a 2003 International
Gamers award, a 2006 Mensa Selection, a 2007 Golden Geek nomination in the 2-player category...
and since it’s a boardgame and it’s sacrilege to talk about them without resorting to German,
der 2006 Spiel der Spiele Hit für Zwei. That’s a lot of love for some hexagonal bugs.
Rather than capturing your opponent’s pieces, Hive leaves everything on the table for the
entire game, starting with just one piece and growing to include as many as all 22.
All that matters is that the hive always remains intact - never leaving chunks out in open
space - and that incoming pieces never touch enemy pieces as they’re placed. With each
turn, each player can either add a new piece to the hive or move an existing piece based
on its identity: Spiders always move three spaces, Ants move any number of spaces, Grasshoppers
jump any number of spaces in a straight line to land on the other side, and beetles move
one space but can climb on top of other pieces. Finally, there’s the Queen Bee, which must
be placed by turn four and is the analog of the Chess King: Not only will she wear anything,
but if your queen is completely surrounded by six pieces (yours or your opponent’s),
you lose. Good day sir.
This wasn’t at all the kind of game I’d expect to see on the XBLA indie channel, especially
given the presence of Carcassonne and Catan and Ticket To Ride available on the main store.
Now I learn why I only paid three bucks for it: there’s no AI. Sure, you can play local
head-to-head with one or two controllers, and there’s online connectivity if you somehow
manage to find one other person with this game, but unless you feel like spending a
Saturday evening severing your corpus callosum, you’re going to be playing with yours...
no, let me reword that. You’ll be appreciating the effort that went into this interpretation
- and it does look quite nice, with adequate explanations and controls - alone. I’ve
been assured, though, that a computer opponent is in the works, and will likely be released
as a free update once they’ve figured out how to make it fast AND good at the same time.
Until then, though, you’d better find a friend. At least this digital version is less
susceptible to the whims of a bored housecat, who sees something that looks like a bug and
goes into attack mode.