Revive Game

Basic Info: Player Count 1-4, Age: 14+, Complexity Rating 3.4 of 5, playing time 90-120 minutes

Premise of Game: Civilization on this planet ended 5000 years ago and everything its inhabitants created was destroyed, but the world was still there, ready to be explored and populated again. Driven into the depths of the ice-covered planet, survivors adapted but as the ice starts to melt, another generation begins to emerge to see if the time is right to try again. In this game, leaders with unique abilities organize survivors into tribes to help explore the still ice-covered but quickly warming world. There is a new land emerging beneath the ice waiting for them to explore and populate.  Which tribe will be the most successful in sustaining itself, finding the best areas to uncover and colonize, harnessing resources and relearning their ancestors’ technologies to help rebuild the once powerful factories that thrived here eons ago?

The Goal of Revive:  Each player leads a tribe with unique ideals, strengths and abilities. There are both major and minor artifacts they can earn during the game.  Major artifacts boost end of game points earned by collecting artifact cards and minor artifacts add defined points. While exploring, managing resources, populating the land and building factories, in-game points are collected from several actions and sources. Some of these actions are rewarded with the collection of a major artifact. When the last major artifact is collected, that player also collects an end-game minor artifact bonus token.  The remaining players take one more turn each and may earn additional minor artifacts. The game ends with a score tally from eight different sources and the player with the most points wins!

General Game Description: Revive contains asymmetric characters powers due to some variety in the tribe leader player boards. In general, however, each player has the same available resources and actions. There is no direct player conflict, but there is competition for the best areas to explore, cards to play, crystals and game board modules. Revive is very repayable due to the variety of possible land tile arrangements, different tribe abilities, cards and tokens.  An optional 5-part campaign unlocks additional contents and the game can be replayed indefinitely either with or without these contents.

Note: Revive is a complex, heavy strategy game that is immersive and contains multi-faceted ways to score and win. I highly recommend it for experienced gamers looking for a deep, strategic challenge.

 Published in 2022, it is one of my favorite complex strategy games of this year.  It has a wide variety of turn options and enough different tile placement, tokens and goals between games to keep each play challenging and interesting. The cards in this game are used in a unique way and provide enough random combinations to work with to keep card play challenging and fun! Because I am partial to games that use cards to build choices, this is a plus for me. The use of exploration, population and building with different rewards that tie into the central play and are unique from each other is also a factor in my excitement in playing Revive. If you enjoy strategy games and are ready for a new, complex strategy game, I hope that you will try this one. ~Marsha