Hive (PC)
Hive is a board game released in the year 2000 that boasts about being more complex than chess, and the video game release of it on Steam goes even further in trying to sell it as an incredibly deep and thoughtful strategy game by listing off the physical version’s plethora of awards. With an endorsement from Mensa, the High IQ Society, it certainly sounds like something that could be incredibly deep and tactical. But thankfully, Hive is still about just as accessible as chess despite featuring some rather drastic differences like having no game board involved in play and having its playing pieces be bugs.
Hive is a two player game where players have a selection of hexagonal tiles with bug symbols printed on them. In the PC version of the game, the default option has bugs literally sit atop the tiles after they’re played, making it a much more visually interesting way to play what is otherwise a fairly flat tile game. The objective of the game is to completely surround the opposing player’s Queen Bee piece from all six sides, but as mentioned before, there is no game board to be played on. Instead, players work together to build the play area, this being the hive the game takes its name from. Play starts with players placing pieces down, but other than the first piece from each side, a new piece must always connect to an allied tile without touching an enemy one. Furthermore, all pieces in the game need to be connected to the hive, this One Hive Rule meaning that the bugs you use to connect different chunks of the hive can be trapped and prevented from moving as they become the singular land bridge between all the other pieces in play. Already, a heavy degree of strategy can come from how you build the hive, players vying to trap troublesome tiles and working their way around the hive carefully to avoid being trapped themselves.
Players begin with a certain amount of each tile type. The Queen Bee is the most important piece, functioning similarly to the King in chess. She can move a small bit, able to attach herself to nearby tiles but not really able to escape being encircled too easily. In your first four turns of play you need to eventually add the Queen Bee to the growing hive, but putting down other pieces first can help her start off in a safer position. However, you cannot move any of your other pieces until she is played, meaning you can get a head start on the action if you’re bold, this adding another small layer of strategy to this board game that usually takes a fairly speedy 10 to 20 minutes to play so long as players are remaining alert and active.
The four other pieces in Hive are all based on different bugs and come in different quantities. Players get two stag beetles to play with, these bugs able to move only a single hex edge at a time if moved normally, but they can crawl on top of other pieces as well and get around cumbersome hive designs, this Beetle even able to keep a troublesome enemy piece stuck in place by resting atop it. The three Ant pieces are the workhorse of Hive, able to freely move around the outside edges of the hive and perfect for trapping or slipping into open areas around the queen. The three Grasshopper pieces and two Spiders are the more unusual pieces that slip around most of the limitations in Hive to keep things competitive. Grasshoppers can leap across all the pieces in a straight line to get to the other side of a hive, and Spiders must move a full three spaces when picked and thus can be one of the less straightforward tiles to effectively block. There are still limits to most pieces such as the Ant and Spider not being able to pass into an open area if it’s closed off by other tiles, but the five piece types ask for the player to constantly be thinking and strategizing, especially since you can use your turn to add a new piece to play at your leisure instead of needing to get them all out on the board at once.
The game offers three more bugs for purchase as downloadable content, the Pillbug able to lift nearby allied pieces and move them around its edges, the Ladybug able to crawl over top other pieces like the Beetle but needing to dismount after two tiles, and the Mosquito leeching the movement gimmicks of whatever tiles it is touching when the turn has begun, but Hive is still a fun little strategy game even without these more complex pieces. It’s not too hard to learn the pieces and start playing and it’s very easy to come up with new ways to arrange your pieces or approach the enemy queen, so repeated plays aren’t likely to grow stale. However, it does seem to be lacking a little bit of energy, possibly because your options are often rather limited by what’s able to move and the need to slowly build up the hive. The design angle that allows for thoughtful play can also lead to a few turns futzing around with bugs in a way that doesn’t really feel too tense until interesting trapping or encircling tactics find their footing. Whether or not it’s better than chess will certainly come down to if you prefer the quicker pace and constantly changing field of Hive over the reliable yet deep opportunities the chess board offers, but there is something nice about Hive’s digital adaptation that might make it a better play on a computer than in real life.
The hexagonal pieces and reliance on moving things around the hive can make it a bit hard for some players to tell at a glance which movement options are valid. I can very easily see inexperienced or stubborn players trying to argue that their Grasshopper did move in a straight line or the Spider is eligible for three moves to reach a location even if it’s not, but Hive has all eligible locations highlighted when a piece is clicked on. There is no ambiguity in what a piece can do, the game even warning you if you try to break the One Hive Rule. While you will eventually pick up on the way the hexagonal pieces can move around each other, the game enforcing fair play avoids any unnecessary rule debating. Hive also has another advantage over the board game in that you won’t necessarily have to convince a friend to sit down and play a new game with you. Hive has an AI opponent with five different difficulty levels so a newbie or seasoned player can still be challenged equally well. If you do have an in-person player willing to join in, you can do alternating play with no issue save for the view of the play field sometimes being a little uncooperative. Online play can also let you play with anyone else who owns a copy of Hive, players without the DLC even able to borrow it if they join in with someone who has it, but one interesting addition is the ability to play Hive like it is chess by mail. Even if the other player isn’t online at the time, you can send a move out, the players able to set different deadlines from a few days or hours to a full on month if they’d rather casually play it when they have the time instead of blitzing through an active game. Had Steam Remote Play been an option, then Hive would have covered pretty much every base it could for how it could be played in multiplayer, but it’s still fairly flexible and gets around potentially fluctuating player counts with what it does offer.
THE VERDICT: With its flexible ways to play with a friend, an AI opponent with adjustable difficulties, and a more interesting albeit minimal presentation, the board game Hive might work better for many players in its video game adaptation. The strategic play that emerges from the pieces being how the game board is built continues to stoke the mind and encourage diverse strategies. Utilizing the unique movement capabilities of the five bug types to trap the opponent’s tiles or squeak by to surround the queen does require some thought and clever play, and with the DLC things can get even more complex. The speedier play and dynamically shifting options could definitely make it preferable to other board games and multiplayer titles, so it is certainly an enjoyable strategy game despite not really having oomph needed to make the play consistently tense or overly thrilling.
And so, I give Hive for PC…
A GOOD rating. Since Hive’s video game adaptation really just makes it a bit more approachable and allows you to play with others in a more convenient way than whipping out physical tiles, most of the rating for it comes from the game design itself. Hive is definitely a complex and dynamic strategy game that rewards careful planning and accounting for plenty of shifting variables, even the standard five pieces an excellent fit for the concept of having to keep the hive together while simultaneously trying to trap one all important piece. The room for so many strategies and play styles certainly help it stay fresh on repeat plays, especially since you can keep tiles in reserve and gauge the usefulness of a unit before adding them to the current board state. However, while there is a lot of thought involved in effective play, it’s missing the extra spark that would make it more compelling than chess. In the end, it feels almost on par with chess, succeeding in different ways but being outdone by chess in other areas like piece versatility and the short term gratification of seizing an enemy piece. Hive’s bugs move around but never leave play, only a beetle sitting atop one being close to elimination, and the fact that play can boil down to frequent piece movement without those little highlight moments is what’s keeping it enjoyable but not exceptional. It’s definitely fun to suddenly lock an opponent’s valued piece into a useless spot, and when you’ve started to surround the queen it can start to offer those moments where you can watch your opponent squirm as they look for an out.
The payoffs to long-term strategies still provide fun moments in Hive as do opportunistic movements that shift the way the game is played from then on. Hive has a unique identity with its movement rules and it is a tactical game that can be easily picked up by new players, so while it might not be the kind of multiplayer title that hooks you for hours, the diversity of play found in the ever-changing hive makes it an enjoyable pick for quick strategic play that will still remain fresh whenever you do get the itch to revisit it.