River Valley Glassworks review ⏤ A relaxing river of fun

River Valley Glassworks by Allplay is a lightweight game about collecting colorful glass from the river while trying to maximize your points by filling out your player board as you collect the glass. While not perfect, I have found River Valley Glassworks to be a refreshing bit of gameplay I’ve needed to start (or end) game days lately. So, let’s see what comes up in our basket as we take a look at River Valley Glassworks.

Overview

River Valley Glassworks' mainboard is the river filled with glass of various shapes and colors. On your turn, you choose a glass piece from your pan and place it on one of the five river spaces with a matching shape. You then choose an adjacent space and take all of the glass pieces. The river is reset with new glass pieces, and you will add the glass to your player board. Here is where the color of each piece comes into play. Your player board is made up of columns and rows worth points depending on their position. You’ll add new glass colors from left to right and add already existing glass colors from bottom to top. Getting a variety of colors is worth lots of points, or do you try to maximize only a few colors for those points instead? This puzzle is the heart of River Valley Glassworks.

You will eventually run out of glass in your pan to place into the river, and to prevent that, you can also take four glass pieces from the lake instead. You can only hold five glass pieces in your pan, so you have to be careful when you refill, as excess glass is negative points. The game ends when someone has picked up 17 glass pieces from the river, and play will continue for one more round.

Gameplay

River Valley Glassworks is a simple game to understand, yet it maintains a bit of strategic depth. The game is perfect for those wanting lighter fare or just needing to fill some time in between games. This is also a perfect family game where kids can understand the rules while adults can still find fun without the game being too simple. The core of the game is simply trying to collect the best pieces for your player board while staying away from negative points. This gets harder as the game progresses. The wrinkle that keeps the game from being too easy is that the various colors of glass have different rarities. Everyone has a general understanding of the chances of each color coming out, though it is random which ones do. If you’re able to place more rare pieces early on (more to the left), you’ll have a better chance of creating columns worth more points late in the game.

As it is random which glass is pulled from the bag, each game becomes a new puzzle to solve to best score your board. There isn’t much interaction between players other than your best-laid plans being soured as someone takes the glass pieces you were hoping for. Each game only takes about 30 minutes, so it’s hard to be too upset, and there are usually other strategies to pivot to for points.

River Valley Glassworks is a simple game at heart, and after a few plays, you’ll have seen everything the game has to offer. There is also a tiny box expansion (River Glass and Other Sundries) that adds some much-needed additions to the game. Inside are six modules that add asymmetric player powers or new scoring conditions. This expansion is what made me love River Valley Glassworks. You can mix and match these modules in each game, depending on how many complications you want to add. This additional customization has let River Valley Glassworks shine with different playgroups. These modules add the right level of complexity while keeping the game light and fun.

Components

There are two different versions of River Valley Glassworks available: a standard and deluxe edition. I have the deluxe edition, but I do not feel like you need to have the upgrades. The components for every version of this game ooze charm. The individual animals on each player board are pure charisma. The deluxe edition comes with a neoprene playmat to replace the cardboard main board, clear acrylic river tiles, a larger bag for the glass pieces, dual-layer player boards, and screen-printed meeples. Out of these upgrades, I only feel that the dual-layer boards add to the playability of the game. The neoprene playmat is nice, but it struggles to fit neatly inside the box and doesn’t sit quite flat when unrolled. I love the artwork on the screen-printed meeples, but they tend to fall over and lose their spot. (This can happen with the regular boards too.) Overall, the deluxe edition is nice but overkill.

Both versions of the game have the same acrylic glass piece tiles, and these are the highlight of the game from a component standpoint. These pieces just have a delightful tactile feel to them that goes along with their color and glitter. There’s even an upgrade available for the game to swap them out for actual glass, but I found them to be a downgrade. The colors on the glass upgrades weren’t as strong, and I had trouble distinguishing between some colors. I love deluxe components, but I don’t think you’re missing out on much if you have the standard edition.

The major complaint I have with the components is that the game is just not color blind friendly…I think? I’m not sure, as I’m not color blind. The game is based on shapes and colors, and as far as I can tell, there isn’t a way to mitigate the colors. I think the glitter inside the glass pieces is supposed to help differentiate them, but I do not know if it works.