Each of the game’s five rounds plays out the same way. In turn order, players put their little gate tokens in different positions on the forest map. You could spend three of your precious hand cards to gate a spot that guarantees you get the marble you want. But you won’t do that very often, because there are still juicy spots downriver that might also get you the marbles you want. There is even a lake space at the bottom of the board that will net you every marble in that space, as long as marbles get that far. Often, they will not.

Other spaces grant players the chance to grab more villager tiles. This is a necessity because marbles taken during the round can only be placed in the six spaces on the back of your goat. If you get more than that during a round, or keep marbles from previous rounds on the goat before the current round, you will lose out on scoring opportunities coming later. So, in most rounds, I found myself going for two marbles and a villager. Small “fairy” tokens are placed in certain spots on the forest map each round, which become powerful ways to tilt the game’s rules in your favor.

In fact, it is these fairy tokens that almost single-handedly became the reason why I recommend 12 Rivers so highly. Having a pool of those tokens is huge. Some of the powers don’t feel broken, but the hearts of other players were broken often by their game-changing effects. Each round’s planning phase, when new fairy tokens are placed onto the map, becomes so interesting because everyone wants to find ways to use their cards for anything except guaranteeing them the best spots on the board.

And the stabbery that resulted in each round, as players snatched up marbles that were more valuable before others could catch the best ones, was fantastic. And it just keeps happening all game long. Why would I want to guarantee a result when I could gamble instead?

A Certain Game for a Certain Player

If you are the kind of player who likes to get stuff, and then keep that stuff, I’m not sure 12 Rivers is for you. But if you are like me, a person who enjoys varying forms of chaos and figuring out ways to navigate that chaos, I think 12 Rivers is absolutely worth a look.

The marble gimmick is fun. There is a cardboard barrier used to keep the 6, 9, or 12 marbles in their starting positions, lifted when a round begins. Watching the marbles flow down the track towards each player’s gate tokens hasn’t gotten old yet. Waiting for players to play some of their hand cards is often tense, especially when a mix of cards and fairy tokens leaves players far downriver with almost no choice of the best marbles.

And 12 Rivers is a very easy game to set up, teach, score, and tear down. Despite the large box, 12 Rivers has a somewhat small table presence when it is fully ready to go.

The game’s major flaw is its player count. I love it at four players, but fewer players means fewer rivers, fewer rivers means fewer marbles, and fewer marbles means less chaos. I’m here for the chaos. For some players, two players and much less chaos might be your style. Just know that it’s not the same animal. Even my three-player game with my two kids was less interesting than four-player games, because there’s a little less going on.

12 Rivers was a very pleasant surprise. Even the way players can manipulate turn order is an interesting twist, thanks to the way players return their gate tokens to the turn order track after completing an action. Give this one a look and don’t make the same mistakes I did!