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.
From the rulesheet: “A curse has cast a shadow over the valley, causing the inhabitants to run from the villages and the animals to flee their nests. From the top of a ridge, a mysterious creature named Buh has noticed the desolation and decided to bring the light back. As they stroll through the valley, Buh uses their magic to seek out and restore the light. As darkness recedes, wildlife and the village’s inhabitants begin to return and revel in the sun’s life-giving warmth once again.”
Light Seeker is a two-player strategy game composed of 9 wooden cubes and a single meeple, called the ‘Buh meeple’ (which sort of resembles a cartoon badger). Each wooden cube has a number of dark sides, bright sides, and a couple of half-bright/half-dark sides. At the start of the game, the cubes are arranged into a 3×3 grid, dark sides up. The Buh meeple is placed atop the centermost cube.
On a player’s turn, they will be performing two actions from a list of two possible action types. The same action can be repeated if the player wishes. The two possible actions are ‘slide cube’ or ‘tilt cube’. Sliding involves moving a cube from its current spot to an orthogonally adjacent location without changing its face. Tilting involves rolling the cube over into an orthogonally adjacent location, revealing a new face. Players may not move the cube the Buh meeple (a.k.a. the blocker) is sitting on top of.
The bright side of a die provides a Light Level value of 2 while a half-bright/half-dark side provides a Light Level value of 1. Once a player has performed their chosen actions, two things must be true: each cube must be orthogonally or diagonally adjacent to at least one other cube, and the total Light Level value across all cubes must have increased by at least one.
The end goal is to be the first player to end your turn with a ‘light area’ consisting of a Light Level value of at least 7. A light area is any orthogonally connected set of dice that are displaying a bright side, or a half-bright side, and the brightness is touching the brightness of another die. If your turn ends and this condition is true, then you have won the game.
Light Seeker is a very simple game, taught in seconds, with rapid fire gameplay. But, what’s even more notable than the game’s small footprint and rapid playtime, is the way that it’s packaged. Part of Thundergyph Games’s ‘Soda Pop Collection’, Light Seeker comes in a metal container with the look, feel, and dimensions of a soda pop can. The illusion is so convincing, as a matter of fact, that at a recent game night, the host actually threw the game into the recycling bin by mistake.
While I am appreciative of clever packaging, I also find it somewhat irksome, and particularly so in this instance. Light Seeker is the type of small box game that’s perfect for keeping tucked away in your backpack or glove compartment, ready to whip out at a moment’s notice when you find yourself with a few minutes of downtime and not a lot of gaming space. However, because of the weird packaging, this game rarely sees the light of day. It’s awkward to carry around in my backpack and my glove compartment refuses to close with a large, bulging soda pop can shoved into it.
The packaging isn’t the only reason this game rarely hits the table. The gameplay itself leaves a lot to be desired. It’s just not very interesting. When I play Light Seeker, I feel like there’s some deeper level of strategy that I’m just missing. But despite my efforts to eke it out, I just can’t see it. Thinking the issue was just an issue of skill, I handed the game off for a couple of weeks to some friends to see what they thought, and they felt largely the same way. Light Seekers definitely fulfills the need for a game in a pinch, and it definitely passes the time, but it’s not a very compelling way to do either.
