Avenue

Draw roads on your own sheet to link farms to grapes, but score too greedily early and you pay for it later.

Designers: Eilif Svensson, Kristian Amundsen Østby
Published by: Aporta Games
Editions by: Matagot, PaperGames (III), NeoTroy Games, Granna, Morapiaf, Summon Games

Everyone gets the same sheet and the same road cards, and still everyone ends up with a different map. Each round a card shows which road piece you have to pencil in, and you link it into your growing network so it reaches farms, castles and, above all, grapes. Scoring cards are mixed into the deck, and when the fourth one shows up, a farm gets counted. Which farm comes next is only revealed step by step, so your plans keep getting rerouted. A farm scores for the grapes it touches, but if it reaches no more grapes than the one before, you lose points. Grab too much early and the late rounds punish you. Up to ten players, about fifteen minutes, one pencil each.

Simultaneous road drawing for up to tenFarms are scored in a hidden orderScoring a farm too high backfires later

Who it's for

You want a pencil game that scales from solo to a big table without anybody waiting, something in the spirit of a draw-your-own-map puzzle.

Not for you if…

You dislike writing in a game, or you want interaction beyond watching what the others scribble. Everyone plays their own sheet.

Vibe's take

Quiet scribbling with a sneaky edge. Everyone works on the same cards at the same time, and the rising fear of dead ends keeps the pencil hovering. Short rounds, no downtime.