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.
Kanare Kato is an independent abstract game designer from Japan who distributes his games through his own company, Kanare Abstracts. His small box abstract games are simple to learn, yet pack a big, thinky punch. As a one-man operation without an international distributor, both Kanare and his games may be unknown to you. However, if you love abstracts, do I have some games for you to check out.
Estate is a connection game played on a hexagonal grid. Players compete to be the first to connect opposite sides of the hex or, if that’s not possible, to be the first to connect three sides of the hex.
To do this, each side has a collection of house tokens. You have 5 connections points to spend per turn placing them on the board. Where you place them on the board is where things get interesting.
The hexagonal board consists of five concentric hexagonal rings. Placing a house on the outermost ring uses 1 placement point, the next ring towards the center uses 2 placement points, etc. Only one player can claim the center hex, a move that will cost all 5 placement points.
Deciding how to divide your 5 placement points is the crux of the game. Do you take that center hex as your only placement for a move? Or, do you place two of your houses, one each on the second and third rings? Or the fourth and first rings? Or, more than two—say, one on the third ring and two on the first? Maybe you want to place five house tokens around the first ring early in the game to maximize your connection possibilities?
The board looks deceptively large before the game starts. After the first two turns, though, the board fills with houses and that clear path you saw connecting opposite sides gets harder to accomplish than you first thought.
The additional winning condition of connecting three sides is bolstered by the extra scoring condition given to the six corners of the outer ring. Each corner is considered to be part of the two sides that connect to it. This means, on a move, you could choose to occupy five of the six corners, potentially giving you a serious advantage.
After several plays, I thought the center hex was too overpowered. I asked this question to the Board Game Geek Forum for Estate. Kanare answered by saying another person had thought the corners were too overpowered—an assessment I came to agree with. Regardless, I am impressed that the designer/publisher monitors the BGG forums for his games so closely and answered a question posted there so quickly.
Kanare also recommends players use the Pie rule: after the first player takes their first move, the second player can decide to either switch colors or keep the colored houses they started with. This helps to keep the first moves from being too unbalanced.
Estate takes about 10-15 minutes to play, leaving you plenty of time for a second (and third) game to try different strategies. People I’ve played it with have looked at the final board and nodded thoughtfully before always asking to play again. The connection concept is straightforward, but the placement rules and winning conditions make Estate anything but simple.
For people who enjoy small box abstracts, Estate is a keeper.
For more information about Kanare Kato’s games, check out his website: https://kanare-abstract.com/en.
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