Hive Review

   As some of you may know, hubby and I enjoy making things out of Perler beads. We've made a Settlers of Catan game and had so much fun we decided to do another one. This time we did Hive. I've heard this game mentioned quite a bit from other gamers. It's a fun little two player strategy game where you are trying to protect the queen bee. Before we get into how to play, lets make it!

   First you need your supplies. The game pieces are done in a hexagon shape so you will need some of these plates (the stars have a hexagon in the middle). The more you have, the less you have to walk back and forth to the iron. You will also need some beads. you can use whatever colors you would like. The game has black and white pieces with different colored bugs on them. So that's what we went with. We decided to use glow in the dark beads for the bugs. You won't be able to play it in the dark since you can't really tell which color the background color is, but it looks pretty awesome.

   Start by laying out the shape of your game pieces

   Next you add the design of your bug. You don't have much room to get too elaborate, so think small.

   Fill in the rest of the shape

   I'm not sure what happened to my pictures of the ironing process. If you buy a kit, it comes with directions. Basically you take the paper that comes with the kit, or you can buy them separate, lay it over the top and take your iron and evenly iron it so that the beads melt slightly and stick together. Once the first side is done, you can take it off of the plate and flip it over and do the other side. If you only have one paper, wait for it to cool before you take it off of the paper. Be careful, they get hot!

   Once you have ironed both sides, wait for it to cool a bit and peel it off of the paper. You now have a game piece.

   You will need: 3 grasshoppers, 3 ants, 2 beetles, 2 spiders and a bee in each color.

   Now, how to play. You take turns laying out your pieces. You must play your bee by the 4th turn. You can add pieces on any of your turns. Except for the first turn, they can only be touching your pieces when they first go into play. After they have been played, you can move them around the hive according to what each bug's move is.

   When moving your bugs around the hive, they have to be able to slide into any space. If they can't slide in, they can't get in there unless it's a bug that can jump or go over the top.

   You are trying to keep your queen bee from getting surrounded without breaking the hive. That means that the whole hive has to be connected at some point. As soon as a bee is completely surrounded, the other player wins. Be careful, if it's surrounded with your pieces, you will still loose. In this picture, white wins!

   Now, what each bug does. There are 3 grasshoppers. These pieces can jump in a straight line over any number of pieces.

   There are 3 ants, these can move around the outside of the hive any number of spaces.

   There are 2 beetles. These ones can move one space at a time, but can go over the top of bugs which makes the bug under it stuck. If it's on a bug, that piece is now considered to be whatever color the beetle piece is. This is helpful when trying to add your pieces on the other person's side.

   There are 2 spiders. These move 3 spaces around the outside. No more, no less.

   There is 1 Queen Bee. This piece can move one space around the outside of the hive.

   This is a fun little game to play. It takes a lot of planning and strategy. Game play doesn't take very long, maybe half an hour or so. This is a great game if you like putting a little more thought into a game but don't want to pull out a huge game. This game is also a great one to take around with you. It's easy enough to carry around that you could even play it while waiting at a restaurant. This one might be a little harder for younger kids. We haven't tried teaching ours how to play yet, so I'm not sure how my oldest would do. If your kid is good at strategies and thinking things through, I don't see why they wouldn't be able to learn it. It's not a hard concept to understand, it just takes quite a bit of thought.