Reiner and Yardbird – A Bebop Review

If I told you that Robert Hovakimyan was a pseudonym for Reiner Knizia, you’d believe me. At least that would be the case after playing Bebop, Bitewing Games’ old-school Euro-design that swims in the same sea as Babylonia and Samurai. That’s not the case, however, and Hovakimyan deserves a great deal of credit for fashioning an interactive and thoughtful tile-layer that not only nods towards those classic Knizia titles but deserves an equal status. This is a high-quality game that is worthy of study, standing as one of the best medium-weight Euros in recent history.

Bebop is of a different time. It could be described as a German family game of the late 90s. The type of design that values simplicity and interaction, even a hint of cutthroat play through competing for board position. This is not a modern Euro; it’s not overstuffed with mechanisms nor focused on resource management.

The structure is the first cue. On your turn you take one action. This is either placing a tile on the board or reserving a space for the future. Uniquely, you cannot place a tile unless the space is reserved, effectively making board control a two-step process.

Tiles are one of the more interesting quirks here, for they’re not tiles at all. They’re dice.

Dice are drawn from a bag, rolled, and then added to a player’s reserve area for future placement. All dice have identical faces with two dedicated to percussion, two to keys, and two to saxophones. They’re pulled from a bag so that the color of the die is randomized. This will make sense soon.

Functionally, the tiles are in a multitude of suspended states within the bag. You could think of them as Schrödinger’s tiles. This means you cannot guarantee that there will be an equal representation of instruments play-to-play. It’s a subtle shift in probability that adds a wrinkle to the evolution of the board.

If you’re not hip to variance, no worry, there is a limited public offer of pre-rolled dice you may select from instead. This approach is reminiscent of the Yellow & Yangtze tile row, an addition to the Tigris & Euphrates framework that I found intriguing, if unnecessary.

Don’t fret, for the tiles may be dice but there are still indeed tiles in the game. In this case, they’re cardboard frames for the dice that you place on the hexagonal spaces of the map to reserve your position. The dice then slot right into the center when you place them.

There’s an obvious question of purpose. Why not just place dice straight to the board? Why tiles within tiles?

By crafting Bebop’s core activity as a two-beat process it retains the tension of jockeying for position while adding a secondary timing element. To understand this, we need to understand scoring.

This is a victory point game, of course, but the way in which you attain points is unusual. Scattered throughout the map are stages hosting performers. The bands atop the platforms have a randomized selection of instruments, each mapping to one of those three die faces. As soon as all of the hexes surrounding a stage are occupied by dice, scoring is triggered with points for each instrument in the band going to the player with the most dice of that particular instrument nearby.

It’s a tricky process that new players often goof.

This is because you don’t just consider the spaces immediately adjacent to the stage. You also must include any dice touching those adjacent dice that are the same color. These are called “families” in the game, and they represent concertgoers in the same party, intermingling and enjoying the show in unison. These families can extend indefinitely, as long as dice of the same color are adjacent.

While it’s important to understand that families of dice are the same color, they do not need to belong to the same player. This is a little obtuse at first blush and easy to forget in practice. There are effectively two layers of color to assess, the die color which ties together families, and the frame color beneath the dice which denote which player owns the die. It’s wonky, but it works out to in a similar tactical process to Tigris & Euphrates kingdom construction.

Furthermore, while stage scoring will make up the bulk of a player’s point total, you are awarded additional points when adding a die to a family. In this case, you receive points equal to the number of like instruments in the cluster. This is neat because it adds a secondary pursuit which applies texture to die placement and can force some difficult decisions regarding spreading out or consolidating your tiles.

It’s even more slippery when you take notice of end game scoring. Those tokens that denote what instruments the band favors – they are awarded to the player who has the most dice of that instrument in eligible scoring spaces. This is regardless of family. Those tokens then pay out at the conclusion based on whether you have the most die of a matching instrument in the largest family of each color.

Sufficiently confused?

This is Bebop. It’s elegant as a procedure. Take one of two actions. Next one up. On and on. But it’s surprisingly obtuse in untangling the various scoring options and then finding your strategic footing. I can’t imagine a first-time player besting someone who has even played it one time prior. It’s just a difficult scoring system to internalize and then spring off of. This is enough of a hill to climb that some will be entirely turned off by it, never connecting with the potent underlying mechanisms due to this bewildering schema.

Incentives also can be misleading, as it seems as though you want to keep piling the same instrument into families to gain compounding point totals, but the most lucrative scoring occurs off in corners with players minding their own business and controlling stages by their lonesome. This is because you want to score the big points as quickly as possible.

In a clever twist, each instrument offers diminishing returns. For example, when the first stage is scored drums may award a total of 10 points. The next time drums only reward nine. Then eight. And so on. This is a funky quirk that’s hard to grapple with. Rarely do games narrow over time in their point distribution. It creates this confounding push of rushing to certain areas while wanting to carefully balance end game scoring. There’s a certain point where you become desperate, fighting over fewer and fewer available spaces to secure stages. It can get quite contentious.

The impetus to score quickly and in isolation is a detail I find undesirable at times. It feels at odds with the stronger elements of play, namely intermingling dice and competing in tense close-quarter bouts. It’s not a quality that undercuts the game’s most prolific strengths, but it’s a concern nonetheless.

All of these considerations make for a somewhat heady game that is not at all straightforward strategically. It’s a nuanced affair that begs additional attention, the type of game that you must work to become proficient at. It rewards you for doing so.

And just when have become comfortable, you can turn everything on its head. One of the more modern touches of Bebop is its tryst with content. While a single map would have been sufficient, the included board is double-sided. This isn’t merely an illusion of variability, for each setup plays quite differently. The backside has a bevy of smaller stages that score more rapidly, creating a quicker tempo to play as points must be pursued at a breakneck speed. This contrasts with the more open spaces of the standard board. Playing both back-to-back yields a pleasant experience with contrast that nurtures a stronger affection with the base mechanisms. It allows you to examine the pieces under a stronger magnification and tease apart the arrangement.

Additionally, a second set of boards may be purchased which offer even greater distinction. This is wholly unnecessary for all but the most devout of beboppers, but it’s alluring nonetheless.

If you notice, I spent little time discussing the setting of Bebop. I made faint mention of it to provide context for stage scoring, but I haven’t even described who you are or what you’re doing within the scope of the game’s story. That’s because there is no story. Or rather, the story is not about setting and instead about careful positioning and precarious timing.

Yet, it does seem to have a flow to play that resembles the combination of involved improvisation with sophisticated melodies. There’s a cerebral bounciness that mimics a lively tempo, one interwoven with adaptation and response as you bounce off the movement of your opponents and work within their rhythm. Part of this is the purity of actions which show restraint and give rise to the interaction of participants. It’s also evident in the board beginning wide open, fertile for creativity. Then it focuses over time giving rise to little runs and tight fills as everything builds towards the final few turns of more precise scrutiny.

Another thematic touchpoint can be extracted in examining this game’s inspiration. Reiner Knizia was instrumental in establishing this style of Euro-game, alongside names such as Kramer, Keisling, and Teuber. While this game is an ode to Knizia and that remembered era, I can’t help but place that within the context of the Bebop setting. In this respect, I liken Dr. Knizia to Charlie Parker, better known as Yardbird. Parker was one of the most significant artists in crafting the bebop style of jazz and had a tremendous influence on forming the blueprint which lives on to this day. Hovakimyan’s work can be seen as commemorating the spirit of Reiner Knizia’s design philosophy, in conjunction with praising the influence of a Charlie Parker and all those who worked to establish the genre.

This ludic-euphonic conglomeration is the essence of the Bitewing jazz trio, and it’s most confidently expressed in this title.

 

A review copy of the game was provided by the publisher.

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