A 2018 Red Raven Game Review.
“The mystical forest has been home and haven to beasts, spirits, and forgotten gods for thousands of years. While the Haven Guardian slumbers, a nearby human village has grown into a city, hungry to control the powers of the forest. Can the forest creatures discover enough potent lore to defend their ancient home from the oppressive city — or will the city use this lore to power their machines and turn the forest against itself?”
Two player games are a unique genre of board game. There are numerous classics: checkers, chess, stratego, cribbage, but the recent surge in board games has been focused on larger play groups. Last fall Haven came out from Red Raven Games and has shot to the top of my list of two-player games. Haven is an asymmetric game themed on a city and a forest competing for control of locations across the board, as well as sets of “Lore” tokens. Haven is a game with eye-catching art, intuitive tug-of-war gameplay, and an excellent balance of depth and complexity.
The art of Haven, on the box, cards, and board is stunning. Ryan Laukat’s illustrations create a game that is a pleasure to look at and easy to visually understand. The design reflects the asymmetric nature of the game, the city player, ostensibly the “bad guy” has cards which depict order and progress, while the forest player has rich artwork depicting nature and freedom. Despite an abstract rules system, Haven has a deep thematic experience that creates a feeling of sharp conflict over this peaceful valley.
Gameplay revolves around players playing “Seekers” on different lore tokens in order to gain control of either a token or a shrine. Seekers have two numbers on each card, one for the lore tokens, the other for the shrine. Whenever Seekers clash, players reveal any face-down cards, compare both stats, and resolve the lore token and the shrine on the board. The different lore tokens, as well as the balance between Lore and Shrines creates a tug-of-war between the two players, each trying to win in one area of their focus while not entirely ceding other aspects to their opponent.
Many games struggle to create depth without adding to much complexity, Haven is not one of them. Players may play Seekers face-down from their hand, useful for masking your strength, or play them face-up from their deck, preservering resources but giving up information. This focus on simple, deep design is carried across to all aspects of the game. It is possible to predict and outplay your opponent at lore tokens, or carefully engineer an elemental to be at the right place at the right time to seize control of part of the board, or manipulate the other player into commiting to many resources into one area. Haven manages to accomplish this with a rulebook that can be taught in 15 minutes.Anyone looking for an excellent two player game should take a close look at Haven. The easy to learn, strategically deep mechanics combine with vivid artwork to create a game that is easy to play over and over again.
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