Matthew BaileyGame #3 of our “UKGE ROUNDUP 2024” is “Happy Home,” which we played at the “Alley Cat Games” stands and definitely was one of the “must have games” people were buzzing about on my travels at the expo.
“Happy Home” is a tile laying game that is similar to last years “Little Board Gamers” favourite “Subway Squeeze” and “Alice’s Garden”… based on this alone I was already on board as Jack(9) and I are suckers for tile placement.
Each player gets an empty home board at the start and its up to you how you fill it by picking tiles placed on a circular track. the key here is while you can pick whichever tile you like the person furthest back on the track always goes next meaning if 2 players move far ahead the 3rd player may get a few turns before they get a turn again.
Selection of things is key. tiles are specific to certain rooms and ideally in each room you want to have items of different colours and of different type in order to score highly at the end. There are also points for space around pot plants and lost space if scratches in the floor are not covered up. There are also points to be the first person to finish giving incentive not to just wait until the other players are complete.
Components are good and the meeples are a lovely addition. I am also pleased that there are symbols assigned to each colour for accessibility to ensure colour blind people can play,
“Happy Home” is a light-hearted game with a lovely theme that we really enjoyed the time we spent playing it. The wording of some of the scoring is a little confusing but not a big deal and if you like games like Subway Squeeze, Alice’s Garden, Patchwork etc then this is a good bet.
Sadly by the time I go to their stand all of the copies had sold out but it is available to preorder now and should be shipping in the next few weeks.
Look for my full review likely as part of this year’s Summer Marathon once I manage to get hold of a copy.
