Keyper

About this board game

Keyper is a highly interactive worker-placement game for 2–4 players, played over four seasonal rounds in about 120 minutes.

Each player develops a village while sending a team of colorful keyples to country boards. Every color specializes in a different activity, such as woodcutting, mining, or clay working, while white keyples can represent any other color.

Keyper’s standout feature is its shared worker placement. When one player places a keyple on a country board, another player may join them with a matching-colored keyple during that turn, giving both players access to the benefits. Keyples can potentially work twice, and even a player who has used all their workers may continue placing keyples if another player still has some available.

• Four rounds represent spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
• Country boards can be folded and rearranged between seasons to reveal different field layouts.
• Players can develop their farms or villages, support shipping and mining, and prepare for seasonal fairs.
• Strategic choices include joining another player, claiming a country board, working in your own village, and preparing a team for the next season.

Seasonal availability constantly changes the possibilities. Raw materials can be upgraded into finished goods in spring and summer, while gem mining becomes available in autumn and winter; later conversions can be handled through tiles in your own village.

The spring country tiles a player acquires and the keyple colors available in later seasons help shape each strategy. Cooperation is valuable, but Keyper is not a cooperative game: players interact through its mechanisms rather than through direct attacks. With several routes to points, the winner is usually the player who combines at least a couple of different strategies most effectively.