The incredible river Mezen has mesmerized man for centuries. Thus, they decided to commemorate it through art. That’s how the Mezen painting style came about. Take on the role of a northern craftsman and create an intricate painting by combining and flipping your symbols. Let’s get to it!

What Is It?

Abstract Strategy + Pattern Building – Each round, one of the 5 symbols will be chosen and players will select a connected group of that symbol in their grid to remove. They’ll slide the other tiles down and then put the removed tiles back into the grid, after flipping them over. Players are trying to create the patterns on the active goal card each round in order to score points.

Who Is It For?

  • 1 to 5 Players – I liked solo quite a bit because it’s just a little puzzle, and you have more control of the symbols, so I found it fun. Multi-player is also good; very similar, you just aren’t the one picking the symbol each round
  • Ages 10 & Up – Small ruleset, it’s just about recognizing how your grid will change as you remove, slide, and replace tiles
  • Fans of pattern puzzles, multi-player solitaire

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Nice art, symbols are cute
  • Components – Nice quality cardboard for all players, plenty of amulets
  • Good variety of goal cards
  • I like the dual amulet uses – they can help you avoid a bad symbol pick on someone else’s turn, or let you manipulate the groups on your board
  • Quick rounds / game – very little downtime
  • Scoring each card is very streamlined
  • Easy set-up/clean-up

CONS

  • Theme doesn’t really matter to the mechanisms
  • The player shapes are not super distinct for the small scoring tokens, so I wish they weren’t all red
  • I thought in 3 & 4 player games, the 3rd and 4th players should get an extra amulet or 2 at the start of the game. Since the game is always 10 rounds, they do not get as many opportunities to be the active player and choose the symbol for the round

Final Thoughts

I like games that have a little multi-player solitaire vibe to them, so I thought this was neat. There was a little interaction since the symbol choice rotates between players, but you were in charge of your own board. Still, I think I liked it best solo, so if I were to play it more, I’d probably just play on my own.

While I do love red, and I liked the general look of this game, I really wish the score markers were more distinct, because that was very distracting when scoring each round. Overall, if you like puzzley games, you very well might enjoy this, so check it out!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10

Designer – Nikita Sorokin
Artist – Mariya Stankevich
Publishers – Hobby World; Arcane Wonders
MSRP – $39.99
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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