Mezen

• Designer: Hikita Sorokin
• Publisher: Arcane Wonders / Hobby World
• Players: 1-5
• Age: 12+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4iWcCVK
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In the far far north, in the land of dark days and white nights, flows the river Mezen. From meadows and forest edges, horses gallop towards it, birds flock to it, foxes run to it. Not even the man could resist this river. The man walked to it and stayed for centuries. The nature of Mezen amazed the man so much that he decided to commemorate it. He gathered soot, black as the night itself, and clay, red as the sun, picked up a brush and started creating. That is how the famous Mezen painting came about — the style upon which this game is based. 

In Mezen, you take on the role of a northern craftsman, creating intricate ornamental paintings to order. Combine symbols and flip tiles to accomplish goals and earn points. Each turn, players choose a group of adjacent identical symbols to remove from their “painting” and slide down the tiles above to fill the empty spots. After that, they flip the removed tiles to their opposite side — from white to black — and place them in the newly empty spots. By changing the placement of symbols this way, the players try to accomplish goals and score. Whoever has the most points after ten rounds wins.

Each player gets a set of tiles of a shape and arranges them into a random 5×5 grid.  Each player also gets 5 amulets. One of the six types of goals is chosen and then the 12 cards with the matching icon are taken, shuffled, and then 10 are dealt face down to the table.  The first two are flipped up (being the goals for rounds 1 and 2).

The game is played in 10 rounds, each following the same pattern.  The Active player chooses one of the five animal icons and announces it to the table. Then, all players must select a group of tiles on their board that have that animal on it. Players can use an Amulet as a bridge between two separate groups of the same icon OR they can use an Amulet to exclude a tile from a group, thus splitting it into two smaller groups (and either of those can be chosen).  Additionally, a player can give an Amulet to the active player and then select any other animal icon to make their set.  In all cases, if a dark Spruce tile is connected to a set, it must be chosen as part of the set it is connected to.

Each player now removes all the tiles of their chosen set from their area, leaving behind any tiles with Amulets on them.  The removed tiles are flipped to the other side and placed next to the player’s area for now.  Each player then discards any used Amulets and then slides all unsupported tiles down to the bottom of their 5×5 grid.  Now, the removed tiles are now placed into the empty spots in the grid in any order of the player’s choosing.

When all players have moved their tiles, each player then scores points based on the goal card of the round.  You will always know the goal card for the current round and the next round.  You can choose to refuse to score a Goal card to take 2 Amulets instead.  When everyone has scored, pass the start player marker and reveal the next Goal card in the line.  

At the end of the 5th scoring phase (essentially the half way point), all players score 1 point for each tile in their grid which has a dark background face up at that time.

At the end of the 10th scoring phase, there is a little bit of endgame scoring:

• +1 VP for each tile which is light side up
• +1 VP for each unused Amulet
• +1 VP for each tile in your largest group (including Spruce tiles)

The player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of the player with the most amulets left over.

My thoughts on the game

I’m a fan of puzzle games, and this one immediately appealed to me with the whole premise of moving tiles around to meet goal cards.  I saw it in a short demo at Gen Con 2024, and I have awaiting its arrival ever since.  There is an interesting combination of tile pattern formation with the drop down mechanism of Tetris.  It’s hard to succeed at each successive scoring criteria, and you’ll have to manage your board to set things up for big scores where possible.  As you always know the goal card for the current round and the next, if you cannot score well in the current round, you can at least do your best to set something up for the next goal.  If you do not score well in a round, you also get the bonus of being able to waive scoring for the round to pick up some versatile amulets.

The game definitely has the potential for analysis paralysis.  There are a lot of things to consider, and with the extra options provided by the amulets, it’s hard to exhaustively examine your options.  As with most games, my local group plays by feel, and we did not have issues with AP – but I can see where this could be an issue.   The analysis time can also increase when players try to take their opponent’s boards into account when making their choices.  

For us, the game easily finished in the half-hour time frame suggested by the box.  There is a lot of puzzle that happens in that short time frame.  While the art is meant to evoke traditional Northern Russian art, the game itself is fully abstract.  Mezen fits into a nice intersection for me: abstract, puzzly, interactive without using take-that, quick to play.   If that list of characteristics sounds good to you, give this one a try.

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4iWcCVK

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale 
• Neutral.
• Not for me…