This beautifully woven game has been sitting on our shelf waiting its turn for way too long. Quarantine time means game time and in this case, it means a bit of civilization building with Jamey Stegmaier’s Tapestry.

I admit it, I am a very tactile game player. I very often judge a book by it’s cover or a game by its components and Tapestry had us at hello. Fortunately for us, the content was equally as engaging. We spent a few hours planning out our own paths to victory as we balanced each developmental track and created our own rich Tapestry of civilization.

2nd (two player rating) – Given our current social distancing situation, a two player game was our only option but that was just fine. Like most euro games, there wasn’t a great deal of interplay. We enjoy these kinds of parallel play games but it may be a drawback for others. I would like to see how this plays with 3 or 4 players but it is a solid game at two players. 4/5 🌟🌟🌟🌟

S (setup, take down, instructions) – Set up and take down are a bit involved but the instruction sheet (which is lean and light) does a good job of laying out the process. The civilizations sometimes have they’re own instructions and we stumbled a bit setting those up. Once we played a few rounds, things made perfect sense but the first round was a bit of a test run. While I adore all the components, be prepared to leave some time for setup and take down. 3/5 🌟🌟🌟

T (tactile, components, artwork, etc.) – I’ve already mentioned that I was sold on this game on artwork and components alone. Add an insert to that? Perfect. The iconography on the board is so easy to understand that after the first game you will not even need to instructions to get things ready. The houses, markets, armories, and especially the landmarks make this game sing. 5/5 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

A (action, mechanics, general gameplay) – Like I mentioned earlier, this is a bit of a parallel play game. The military track adds a bit more back and forth, and I would imagine with a higher player count, that would come into play a bit more, but we were busy building our own separate worlds. This works great for us. Once again, the first game was definitely a trial run but once we got moving everything made sense both for gameplay and thematically. Play it out and have a look at the end game and it will work out just fine. 4/5 🌟🌟🌟🌟

R (replay factor) – With all of the different option for civilizations and paths forward this game will only improve with replay. We are already looking forward to getting it to the table again. I am also looking forward to sharing it with other gamers. Now that we’ve played, it will be a piece of cake to teach. 4/5 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Final Thoughts – We are going to be biased when reviewing this game as we were part of the target audience to begin with. But objectively, this is a solid game if you love puzzling out civilization building games, deciding which track to advance, and where to expand your territory. If you are looking for a bit more of a take-that game, this might not be your choice. For us, this one finds a permanent home in the collection. 4/5 🌟🌟🌟🌟