Farm, Irrigate, Harvest, and Sell in Alpujarras

Dive into the strategic world of Alpujarras, where players must carefully manage their resources and actions to outmaneuver opponents and maximize their earnings.

Published by Dr. Finn's Games, Alpujarras is designed for 1-4 players, and has a game time of roughly 30 minutes per player.

Gameplay

The board is made up of five sections of farmlands with spaces for water tiles connecting them. There are also five types of fruit in the game. Around the board, 10 track segments are placed in a somewhat random order. These tracks have action spaces. Each player will have a mule meeple on the track around the board, and only one mule at a time can be on a space. Players will take turns based on the order of their mules, with the active player being the one whose mule is farthest back on the track. It is possible to take multiple turns in a row if a player’s mule is far enough back that there are multiple spaces between his mule and the other players’.

On his turn, a player will move his mule forward to an empty space on the track and then perform the actions on that space. There are a number of possible actions. The 'add a farmer' action has the player placing one of his farmer meeples on any of the five farmland spaces and then taking one of the fruit meeples on that farmland. There is a limited number of fruit on each farmland, and if there is no fruit there, you skip that step. The 'move a farmer' action has the player moving any one farmer he already has on the board to a new farmland, and taking one fruit from that new farmland.

The 'irrigate' action allows the player to place a water tile along the water path. The player earns any resources marked on the spaces covered (typically norias or dirhems). If the tile connects to a new crop space in a field, the player gets to choose which fruit to place two copies of in that spot, and also takes one of that fruit type for himself.

Actions also include acquiring norias, selecting any one fruit from the supply, and earning dirhems. There is also the 'complete a goal' action. When a player triggers this action, he checks all the goal cards and sees if he has completed any of them. If he does, he places a farmer on that goal card and earns a number of dirhems based on how many players have already completed that goal. Only one goal can be completed at a time. However, if a player was not able to complete a goal when he has this action, he instead takes a goal token. On future turns, when the player lands on this action again, he can spend the goal token to complete an additional goal (assuming he has completed the requirements of more than one goal). Goals can include, for example, having a certain number of farmers in a certain number of fields or selling or gaining sets of fruit.

The final two possible actions are the market actions and the harvest actions. Each farmland also has a town connected to it. Each town has a selection of delivery tokens on it, with a delivery token listing a fruit and the number of that fruit it requires in order for a player to claim it. When performing the market action, a player moves a farmer from a farmland into the connected town and then discards the required set of fruit in order to take a delivery token which is worth dirhems at the end of the game. The first player to earn a delivery token in a specific town earns that town’s bonus, the second player earns a slightly smaller bonus, and then the bonus is discarded for the rest of the game. Additionally, a player may at this point discard specific fruits to complete delivery cards which are also worth dirhems at the end.

Each farmland also specializes in one of the five fruits of the game. When performing the harvest action, a player checks to see if there are any farmlands where he has the most farmers. If so, he takes one fruit from the supply of that fields’ specialty.

At any time on a player’s turn, he can turn in his norias, earning fruit, farmer actions, and/or dirhems depending on the number he turns in.

The game ends once all players have placed their mules on one of the end spaces on the track. The player with the most dirhems at the end of the game is the winner.

Review

Alpujarras combines action selection, set collection, and semi-limited resources. The combination results in a game full of tough decisions as you try to balance which fruit to collect and which delivery tokens you are going to go after, all while jockeying with your opponents for resources and actions.

Every action feels important, and your choices are often building off previous choices you have already made. What goal cards are you trying to complete? Where can you get the fruit you need while also building up a majority of farmers at that location that will in turn give you more fruit you require? This combines quite well with the action selection mechanic.

Aesthetically, the game looks quite nice, with good component quality and very special meeples. The mules and the fruit are particularly fun to play with and give the game a great table presence.

The game does feel like a rung or two higher on the complexity ladder than 'casual'. There are a lot of little rules to keep track of, which makes teaching the game take extra long, as does setup, as there are a lot of components to organize.

This is also a game that can run long. The time given on the box is 30 minutes per player. That might be overestimating it a bit, but there is going to be plenty of downtime at the full player count.

Alpujarras is a very thinky game. If you’re looking for something with a bit more weight to it, it’s well-designed and nicely put together.

Pros: Great component quality, lots of interesting choices to make, lots of player interaction

Cons: Not a good fit for a casual audience, teaching to playtime can run long

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.