Celebrations Overwhelming (Lanterns: The Harvest Festival)

The harvest has come in, the season is cooling, and it's time.  Looking over the crisp blue lake, a single light starts floating over it.  Then another, and another.  Soon, the Royal blue of the lake is interspersed with specks of colors, from ivory to emerald, amethyst to crimson.  The crowd gathers as the wind lifts high the symbol of the The Harvest Festival, the Lanterns.

BACKGROUND:  Lanterns: The Harvest Festival is a tile game for 2-4 players.  It was created in 2015 by Christopher Chung, and is published by Foxtrot Games.  Taking on the role of the artisans, each players is making a dedication at the palace lake to gain the most honor and become the most respected in the land.

GAMEPLAY:  Each turn, players will take the following 3 actions; they can exchange a Lantern card, make a Dedication, or place a Lake tile.  They must be taken in this order.  First, players may choose to spend two red Favor Tokens to trade a colored Lantern card for another available one.  Then, players may choose to return to the supply an appropriate number of Lantern cards to gain Dedication token.  Finally, the player must play a Lake tile from their hand so that one of its sides lines up with those on the board.

LAKE:  If the player places a Lake tile next to another so that the color of their tile matches an adjacent side of another Lake Tile, that player receives a matching Lantern card.  If there is a Platform, indicated by a symbol in the middle, that player gains a Favor token.  Finally, each player, starting with the player who is currently taking their turn, gains a Lantern card (if available) according to the side of the tile 'facing' that player.  If a player wants to gain a white Lantern, for example, they need to orient the card so that the white side would be aligned with their 'area' of the table.

WINNING:  The game ends when all Lake tiles are placed, and each player gets one last turn for Exchanging Lanterns and Dedications.  Each Dedication token has a number of 'Honor' on it.  Each player adds up all their Honor, and the player with the most Honor wins.

CONCLUSION:  Lanterns is a neat strategy game that can initially trip you up, but is actually easy once you get the hang of it.  It's biggest issue is that there are quite a few games where catching up with an opponent who plays perfectly optimal and draws even kind of well can be discouraging, but that's the risk you run when you can mitigate the luck as much as you can.  The favor tokens don't really feel great in gaining them, either, as I've seen too many games where players just can't get them, which can slow the game down a bit.  That being said, the game is fun, and the strategy is there.  It can be tempting to match two sides to get 2 Lanterns, but if they don't help your strategy, it might be better not to do that, and just get the Lantern color you do need.  If you like games of strategy and tile placement, this is one festival you shouldn't miss out on.