So what is A Dragon’s Gift?

A Dragon's Gift is the best pick-up-and-deliver micro game I have found thus far. I don't think it's the final word on the subject but I think it's a fine word.

As of my writing, it's either currently on Kickstarter or about to be. Either way, a demo version is available on PnP Arcade. It's part of Scott Almes' and Button Shy's Simply Solo series, a series of games that has pretty reliably made me happy.

The idea behind the game is that a dragon protects a group of villages and they are making him a gift as tribute. Honestly, the theme could have been about building an atomic bomb or a super computer or founding a medieval city and the mechanics would have worked just as well. A Dragon's Gift is a train game in disguise. That said, tribute to a friendly dragon does stick in your brain.

A Dragon's Gift is a tile-laying game where you are trying to connect materials to towns that will make finished products. Each card has one town and one raw material on a network of roads. The cards are double-sided, showing the same network but with the town either inactive or active. A town has to be supplied with materials before it can be active and supply its good. Simple goods require two raw materials. Refined goods require a simple good and a raw material. The final dragon gift requires one of each.

Here's where it gets interesting. Your basic transport of a yak can only deliver materials across two cards. Each game, you get three special transports that break those rules. However, they get tapped when use and only get reactivated if you activate a town with a specific good.

A Dragon's Gift hits the mark for because of two key reasons. It is successfully minimalist and has clean, solid rules.

Like all the Simply Solo games, it consists of eighteen cards and nothing else. No pawns, cubes or tokens. I certainly don't mind games with pawns or cubes or tokens. In most pick-up-and-deliver games, they are absolutely essential. However, if I am using them, I'd like use them in a game that's bigger than a micro game.

More importantly, the mechanics are clean and intuitive. And, most important of all, they work well. It only takes a couple of plays to understand how the game works and what you are trying to do. However, reliably winning the game takes longer than that, giving you an interesting and replayable challenge.

A Dragon's Gift is not a substitute for Steam or an 18XX game. It strips down pick-up-and-deliver to about as little as I think you can go while still managing to be functional and interesting. It is a game for ten, fifteen minutes, which is often about as much time as I personally have. If you want a bigger game than that, you are going to need a game that is actually bigger.

I know that the final version of A Dragon's Gift will get some more spit and polish. And, if it follows the Simply Solo formula, there will be at least four expansions. And I will probably revisit the game for a more detailed review when is more finished. But the demo shows a world of promise.