Tidal Blades Banner Festival review — ride the wave

A few years ago I got to experience the Tidal Blades universe via the game Tidal Blades: Heroes of The Reef. It was here where I got my first taste of the vast water type universe that I completely became enthralled with. That first experience left me wanting more, and hoping that more Tidal Blades games were on their way. I was rewarded with the announcement of Tidal Blades 2 and the subsequent crowdfunding that came with that. What I did not expect was the appearance and sudden announcement of Tidal Blades: Banner Festival being published by both Druid City Games and Lucky Duck Games.

Tidal Blades: Banner Festival, created by J.B. Howell and Michael Mihealsick with art by Lina Cossette, offers players an opportunity to experience Tidal Blades through the guise of a trick taking game. For 2-5 players and boasting around an hour of playtime on the far end, Banner Festival eases players into a game, yet provides a stunning aesthetic experience.

A game of Tidal Blades: Banner Festival is simple, players go through a total of eight turns in a single round, playing one card per turn. After a round is finished the cards are reshuffled and a new round starts until players have experienced three rounds of eight turns each. During rounds is where things get tricky as there is a bit of a board for everyone to manage, and a bit of their own hands to manage. How you interact with both of those determines how you wind up doing throughout the entire game.

First the board holds the banner tokens for each player, and shows each player’s watercraft and the position of the gate. The gate is what determines which cards have priority over other cards. For example, there are four colors and each quadrant of the board features a different color. So one quadrant might show purple, blue, yellow, and orange in that order. This is especially important because when you play cards you are vying for either lead player, one of two mid players, or last player. Each has its own unique action, and based on colors of the cards and numbers of the cards lead, mid and last are decided. So in our color example a purple one is considered a higher card than a yellow nine.

This provides some unique challenges while playing the game, making options for scoring points fluid and changing simply based on the simultaneous card play. For instance with our previous example you might want to be the first player because scoring via your watercraft’s progress might net you lots of points. However, the player to your left might have been thinking the same thing and they played the best card possible based on color and number making them the lead player. This often forces players into positions or areas they might not be planning for, but have to deal with. While that sounds less than ideal the game provides other opportunities for points, even if you did not wind up with the player position you imagined yourself being in. Another way players score points is via the feast. Players gain fruit throughout the game. Once all the fruit from the supply is taken, players then perform a feast and each place for the majority of fruit gains certain amounts of points.

One of the best parts of Tidal Blades: Banner Festival is that the point opportunities that are present are equally available to all players. Meaning every player has every opportunity to be in the last player position. This is an important position for the simple fact that the last player chooses where to move the gate at the end of the turn from one to four spaces. This is especially important because this affects how far watercraft can travel, and what colors are the lead colors for the quadrant the gate is in. That being said, ignoring the middle player positions would be a disservice as well for the simple fact that on the board there are also opportunities to place your banners. Banners represent your trading house and ultimately score you points throughout the game for having majorities of banners left out. Banners also gain you resources and other options as the game progresses. Placing a banner is simple, be one of the two (in a four player game) middle position players, and then based on the quadrant the gate is in, players will go via color and number priority and place their banners on the board in the appropriate available space.

Play continues with a grand total of three rounds of this taking place. Each round players slowly play all of their cards, and this is how tracking occurs of turns in a round. Once all cards are played, round cleanup begins and then a new round or at the end final scoring. Here players add up all their points and get to see which trade house was more successful at the titular Banner Festival.

Tidal Blades Banner Festival does a few things well and does other things that some players might not be a fan of. For one, the aesthetic is fun, beautiful, and vibrant, not to mention a welcoming atmosphere of an amphibian style world. The game also presents a level of simplicity that can make it easier for players of all calibers to enjoy, versus something potentially more intimidating, or something too casual. The box and components are of good quality and there are more than enough pieces in the box to sate anyone’s hunger from bits and pieces.

Some might find the game too random to enjoy and be put off by it. There might also be those hoping for another heavy game in the Tidal Blades universe, only to get the lighter version instead. Player counts affect whether players are playing cards to compete with you or whether you draw cards for lower player counts to fill out all the different player positions. For example a two player game would have you draw two cards while players are playing two of their cards from their hands. The only two gripes I have are, a game that can run a little long and the initial insert that comes with the game is very meh and had me finding my own storage solution.

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