Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Aspens is a two-player game of arboreal expansion and domination. Each player is given a bag of trees. On a player’s turn, they will roll the game’s two dice to determine the limitations of their actions. One die controls how many trees each of the players receive from their bags, and the other controls in which direction they are able to expand their holdings. On their turn, a player may expand outwards (filling in more spaces with their own trees), bolster their current holdings (increasing their odds of receiving new trees when the dice are rolled), or some mixture of both. Their goal is to get as many of those trees onto the playing field as they can so that when final calculations are performed at the end of the game, they’ll occupy more real estate than their opponent and thereby win the game.
This, of course, is an oversimplification of the game (although, as you’ll soon see, not much of one). If you’re just interested in what I think about the game, feel free to skip ahead to the Thoughts section. Otherwise, read on as we talk about how to play Aspens.
Setup
First, assemble the game board. The board is divided into seven segments. When fully assembled, you’ll be left with a vaguely cross-shaped playing area composed of hexagons with a compass in the center and the cardinal directions printed along the edges. Once this is done, the board is seeded with the Water tiles, of which there are four provided. There are variable setups for these, so choose whichever suits you.
Next, each player takes a bag of trees. One player will receive the Pine trees while the other will receive the Aspens. Then, a starting player is selected and the players take turns seeding the board with their starter trees. Once this is finished, each player will have exactly seven trees on the board divided among three locations, each location bordering a Water tile.
Finally, the starting player is given the two dice, and you’re ready to begin playing Aspens.
The Turn
On your turn as the active player, you’ll roll both the dice to determine how many trees you and your opponent will receive as well as in which cardinal directions you may expand. To determine how many trees each player receives, you’ll take note of the number on the numbered die. For each copse of trees the players own that are composed of at least that many trees, they’ll get to draw a tree from their bags. The active player will get to use their trees right away while the other player’s got to wait until their own turn to use them. As the active player, you will always receive at least one tree for free, so there will never be a turn in which you are unable to do anything.
Then, having received your trees, you will begin placing them onto the board. When placing a tree, you have one of two options to choose from: grow up or grow out. These decisions are on a per tree basis. So, if you’re holding seven trees in your hand, you’ve got seven choices to make. It’s also worth noting that you cannot build through spaces occupied by your opponent.
Growing up is the easiest option to explain. Just add your tree to an existing copse of trees. The total size of a copse may never exceed seven trees. The larger the size of the group of trees, the more likely you are to receive trees when the numbered die is rolled. There’s a handy chart included in the rulebook that breaks the ratios down for you.
Growing out requires a bit more explanation, but not much. Growing out is how you expand your reach across the board. New trees must be added adjacent to your existing trees. In Aspens there are a total of six cardinal directions: NE, NW, E, W, SE, and SW. On each face of the direction die is one of these cardinal directions. The result on this die dictates in which primary cardinal direction you may add additional trees to the board. You may also add trees in the directions to either side of it. So, let’s say the die rolls up SE. This means that, when adding trees, you may add them E, SE, or SW to any of your existing trees.
If you place a tree, or a series of trees, in such a way that they create a field of empty spaces that are completely surrounded by your own trees, then you immediately claim all those empty spaces, placing your own trees onto them. The rule book refers to this as ‘cascading’, and it is singlehandedly the most important aspect of the game. You want to cascade, and you want to prevent your opponent from doing the same.
Once every space on the board has been filled with trees, the game comes to an end. Then, the players count up how many spaces they’ve occupied, and the player with the highest total wins the game.
Thoughts
From setup, to play, to tear down, Aspens only takes up 15-20 minutes of your time. It’s the almost perfect game for lunchtime in the breakroom or as a filler in between larger games. The downside is Aspen’s size. For such a quick playing game, Aspens takes up a lot of room. That’s a shame because of its rapid-fire play time, it’s the type of game I would always keep in my backpack if it weren’t so large. I don’t typically clamor for luxurious upgrades such as cloth maps, but Aspens is a game that could benefit from one. I feel like that would make it significantly more portable. I understand, though, that my needs are very niche—most people don’t view potential game acquisitions through the lens of “How well can I cram this into my backpack?”—and that I might be the only one bothered by this. However, my next point of contention is one that is not so easily dismissed.
The moment I started talking about dice, you may have begun wondering what role luck plays in a game of Aspens, and the answer to that is: a significant amount. That may not sit well with some. It’s the type of luck where if you’ve got a plan in mind and the dice come up your way, you can execute that plan—a ‘helpful’ luck, if you will—and less that kind of luck that causes everything you’ve worked for to come crashing down. I have yet to play a game of Aspens where I felt like I was at the whims of chance, but there have been plenty where I wondered if I wouldn’t have won were it not for my good fortune. So, take from that what you will.
Aesthetically, Aspens is one of the most pleasing games I have ever played. The component quality is topnotch, and everything looks absolutely gorgeous once it’s laid out on the table. Especially so once the board starts becoming populated with trees. In a particular stroke of brilliance, the designers have elected to include different sizes and shades of colors within each set of trees, and that adds an interesting visual depth to the overall experience.
If I were giving Aspens a score based on appearance alone, I’d grant it a 5 out of 5 easily. However, I can’t deny the swinginess of the dice and I can’t ignore the way the overall size of the game bothers me, so that brings my overall score down a bit. But, on the whole, Aspens is a lovely little game and I look forward to spending more time with it.
