My Little Scythe :: Quick Overview
Publisher : Stonemaier Games
Been meaning to talk about this game for a while now. If you have ever wished your kids would play Scythe with you, My Little Scythe is a pretty good start. First designed by a dad to create a Scythe experience for his kids with a My Little Pony theme, the development of this game plays out like an underdog movie as designer Jamey Stegmaier enjoyed the reimplementation so much he decided to publish it.
In My Little Scythe you are trying to be the first to claim 4 of 8 possible achievements. You have 3 action options (move, seek, or make) which can’t be chosen two turns in a row. Players have two characters to move about, collecting apples and gems. You can deliver a set of 4 to the central castle, or use the make action to get upgrades or bake pies. Explore tokens are scattered about the board that can give you 3 options to choose, gaining you benefits. Rolling the seek dice puts out more resources and you get friendship points if you place them in an oppponent spot.
Achievements include: delivering 4 apples or gems to the central castle, making 8 pies or 8 friendships, getting 2 upgrades, 3 spells, winning a pie fight or completing 2 quests. It doesn’t take long to complete tasks and for a game that seems to have a lot going on it plays pretty quickly. One suboptimal move can put you back quite a bit so strategy is key (the kids have never beat me at this game).
If you have played Scythe you can see all the similarities. It’s quite amazing how they can simplify a game so much and still have so much of it’s original DNA present. It is not an easy game, and for us 8 years old and up seems right, however they do a good job making it engaging with the art, components, and themes of friendship, magic spells and pie fighting. I don’t think it’s a game for kids who aren’t used to playing modern board games, unless at higher age ranges as it is more involved than most games. However if you play a lot of games with your 8 year old, you could give it a go.
