Applejack Tile-Placement Game Overview
It’s that time of year. Posts from friends about heading to the apple orchards are happening more frequently. I love fresh apples, but we haven’t been to a real orchard lately. But it shouldn’t surprise you to hear that we’ve played a game about apple orchards. In contrast to Apple Pop children’s dexterity game, Uwe Rosenberg’s Applejack game requires a bit of thinking.
Applejack is a tile-placement game released by Stronghold Games. Each player drafts tiles then assembles their own individual orchard board. Scoring throughout the game is based on the placement of apples in the orchard.
In addition to individual orchards, there’s a community harvest board. This is used to track player order. Each player is assigned a shape and when the die is on that space, it’s that player’s turn. Whenever a die crosses over an apple between turns, all players score that type of apple.
In addition, the harvest board indicates which row of tiles the active player may select from. On your turn, you’ll select from one of the two meadows next to the space the die occupies. If you don’t like any of those, you can blindly take a tile from the top of the supply. Picking tiles isn’t free. The number in the beehive on the tile is the cost. If you cannot afford a tile, place it sheep-side up and collect two honey. If at any point a player only has one tile to choose from, one new tree tile is added to each of the columns surrounding the harvest board.
Planting trees in the orchard is where this game gets interesting. You can place it on any open space then collect the honey reward based on the lower of two connecting hives. If you’re able to plan well and match up more than one, you collect the lower of each pairing. This is the most efficient way to earn the game’s currency: honey chips.
The other way to earn honey is during the harvest phase. As the die crosses an apple, all players score that type of apple receive honey based on their yield. Determine yield by adding up the apples of that type in connected tiles then subtracting the die’s pip value for each grouping. The more efficient you are, the better your yield.
Applejack is over when all players have filled their orchards with tiles. Final scoring is done with each variety harvested one last time, doubling the final yield. Earn bonuses for different varieties that had a positive yield in the final scoring. You’ll need to carefully manage how you place the tiles to continuously connect the different varieties. At the same time, you’re at the mercy of the tiles that are available to you on the harvest board. Like many other Rosenberg titles such as Cottage Garden and Second Chance flip and write, Applejack is a continuous puzzle. Ripe for picking, you can find Applejack on Amazon, but check with your local game store to see if they have some ready to harvest.
When was the last time you visited an apple orchard?
