Keyper

Keyper feels like a collection of ideas that deserved a kinder introduction. Its rulebook is among the more tiring ones I have opened in a while, scattering small references with large consequences and offering neither summaries nor a clean place to look back to. Rulebook grade: a weary C-, which is a shame, because there is a game underneath.

The table is the familiar Key-series sprawl: large land tiles that become fields, coloured workers, a personal board for buildings and Uwe-ish stables. The main boards are near-cubic bits of paper engineering, and learning how they fold and unfold feels like a separate little ceremony. It is a table hog. It knows it.

On your turn, you place a worker on a space on the map, with its colour determining how many actions you receive. The point is not merely finding a useful space; it is judging how efficient that space becomes once other people are involved. That is where your brain starts turning over.

A second player can follow the same choice, giving both players more actions. If they decline, they may later take the extra benefit alone. So you are not simply tending your own field: you are watching who will follow you, who will leave you exposed, and when somebody will snatch your bonus. A small move. A proper sting.

After one play, the central mechanism opens up nicely and the game moves along with real pleasure. The scoring, though, brings all that cleverness down to a very ordinary ending. Keyper has enough brains to be worth the trouble, but not a clean enough finish to become more than a good, messy game.