Caverna: Cave vs Cave

Caverna: Cave vs Cave is a neat little companion: compact, approachable, and just the sort of thing that can earn its place in a holiday game bag. The rules go down easily, and the game ambles along without anyone having to live inside the rulebook. We do like an Uwe game around here.

This is worker placement in concentrated form. You put workers onto the available options, collect what you need, and gradually build out your small cave; the pleasure is in seeing the system's modest little tricks start to join up.

Player interaction is mostly the familiar, gentle pressure of occupied spaces. The thing you wanted may already be gone, so you change course and carry on. There are no grand betrayals here, no nastiness for its own sake; it is a lesson in reading the board, spotting the pattern, and making clean decisions.

That also made it an easy one to put in front of a younger player who already had a few games of the mini Agricola under their belt. Watching him pick up Uwe's worker-placement habits and begin to read his options was properly satisfying. It is a pleasant, relaxed experience, but the game itself remains very basic. For this length and this kind of game, I would rather play the excellent Foothills. Cave vs Cave is nice while it is on the table, then slips from the memory almost as easily as it arrived.

Updated session

Later plays confirmed the original impression rather than changing it. It remains a useful and enjoyable soft introduction to worker placement, especially when you can watch a newer player grasp its logic, but repeated sessions did not give it any more lasting weight.