Review: Revive

Introduction & Overview

Revive civilization 5,000 years after everything was destroyed. Lead your tribe and explore the frozen earth. Harness its resources. Recruit surface survivors to your cause. Build factories with powerful machines. And populate ancient sites to relearn your tribe’s forgotten technologies.

This is the premise of Revive, a game designed by Helge Meissner (Rebel Nox), Anna Wermlund (Rebel Nox), Eilif Svensson, and Kristian Amundsen Østby (the latter two behind Santa Maria, The Magnificent, and Automania). It was first published in 2022 by Aporta Games in an English edition. The artwork is handled by Gjermund Bohne (Santa Maria, Bad Company), Martin Mottet (The Magnificent, Merchants of Dunhuang), and Dan Roff (his debut in the board game industry).

It will be published in Spanish by Devir Iberia (the game has some language dependency on the faction effects). It supports 1 to 4 players, with a recommended minimum age of 14, and a playing time of approximately 90 to 120 minutes. The MSRP is €80. A review copy of the English edition from Aporta Games was used for this review.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Go to Personal Opinion

Components

Inside a standard two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom), measuring 29.7×29.7×7.2 cm (a standard square box like Ticket to Ride), we find the following components:

• Main Board
• 25 Area Tiles
• 5 Starting Area Tiles
• 5 Large Location Tiles
• 48 Slot Module Tokens
• 30 Machine Tiles
• 12 Major Artifacts (4 of each color)
• 8 Minor Artifacts
• End Game Tile
• 28 Crate Tokens
• 4 Player Boards
• 6 Double-Sided Faction Boards
• 107 Cards (62.5×88 mm):
  • 24 Starting Cards
  • 10 Artifact Cards
  • 4 Reference Cards
  • 39 Citizen Cards
  • 30 Campaign Cards
• 12 Machine Track Markers
• 80 Progress Discs
• 16 Resource Markers
• 20 Small Buildings
• 12 Large Buildings
• 28 Meeples
• 4 Switch Tokens
• 8 Player Markers
• 2 Action Cubes
• 28 Energy Tokens
• Rulebook

How to Play

Revive is a post-apocalyptic development and exploration game where each player leads a unique tribe seeking to rebuild and repopulate the world following an ice age. Throughout the game, players alternate turns in clockwise order. On their turn, the active player must choose between taking up to two main actions or hibernating. Available actions allow players to play citizen cards into slots on their player board (activating their top or bottom effect and triggering associated modules of matching colors), flip their switch token to gain a basic resource, explore unexplored terrain tiles within range to reveal the map and recruit cards, populate locations to unlock technologies on their tribe’s tech tree, or construct buildings to advance along the three machine tracks based on adjacent terrain types. Additionally, as free actions during their turn, players may trade crystals, open supply crates, or spend energy to activate unlocked machines. If a player cannot or chooses not to act, they must hibernate to retrieve their played cards, reset spent energy, reactivate their switch token, and advance along the hibernation track to gain additional bonuses. The game ends after the round in which the last major artifact is taken from the board. At that point, players score points for their progress track, researched technologies, presence at large locations, recruited cards, minor artifact bonuses, and, multiplicatively, the scoring categories on their personal artifact card boosted by each major artifact acquired. The player with the highest total score is declared the winner.

Key Concepts

Let’s start with the Main Board. It features a central area of hexagonal spaces grouped in clusters of four and five spaces. In the upper right corner, there is a reserve for the major artifacts. In the lower right area, we find the hibernation track (with rewards and/or penalties at various steps). Along the left and bottom edges runs the score track, which features immediate rewards at every multiple of five up to 25. It is worth noting that when placing pieces on this main board, players always branch out from the central space. Reaching adjacent spaces is free, but traveling further requires calculating range and paying an additional cost. Once a player has a presence on the board, distance is calculated from their existing pieces rather than the central space.

Placing onto the hexagonal spaces begins with the Area Tiles. These cover four hex spaces and, except for the starting ones, begin the game face down, displaying an immediate victory point reward (in blue), an exploration cost, and a citizen card bonus. On their revealed side, each space may depict desert (where buildings can be constructed), terrains (which advance machine tracks), locations (where the civilization can populate and develop), and water spaces (which provide specific one-time bonuses).

In the corners of the map lie the Large Location Tiles. These are double-sided tiles showing scoring criteria that players can unlock if they manage to reach them during the course of the game.

Each player has two Track Markers: one for tracking victory points earned through exploration and special effects (the blue points) and another for the hibernation track, which advances every time the player takes the hibernation action to reset their play area.

One of the main goals of the game—which also acts as the endgame trigger—is collecting Major Artifacts. These are tokens in three possible colors (purple, orange, and white) that multiply specific personal scoring categories. If the supply of major artifacts is exhausted, Minor Artifacts are awarded instead whenever a player is entitled to claim an artifact, providing flat victory points in the final scoring.

These connect directly to the Artifact Objective Cards, which outline three scoring criteria tied to the three colors of artifacts. Each criterion begins pre-activated with a base multiplier.

Each player has a Player Board featuring three spiral machine tracks traversed by three corresponding markers. Each track contains slots initially covered by discs that unlock secondary machine actions as markers progress past them. In the lower right corner are the resource tracks, where markers track available quantities of each basic resource. In the lower left is the switch token, which provides a free basic resource when activated. Along the left edge is the progress track, where players place freed discs to increase their end-game scoring potential. Along the edges of the board are card slots, equipped with notches to slot in module tokens.

Players also have a Faction Board, which includes supply spaces (for buildings on the left margin and meeples across a tech tree), alongside a unique faction ability that can be activated a limited number of times during the game.

To block the machine action slots and track the uses of a faction’s special power, each player receives a set of twenty Progress Discs. Whenever a faction’s special action is used or a machine track slot is cleared because the marker reaches or passes the space, the corresponding disc moves to the player’s progress track, unlocking the next immediate reward.

Whenever a machine slot is cleared, the player claims one of the available Machine Tiles from the display to gain a new secondary action. These tiles come in three distinct types, matching the track colors.

Activating these secondary machine actions requires Energy Tokens (lightning bolts). Players begin the game with a single energy token, but can gain more by advancing discs along their progress track or triggering specific bonuses on the main board. Energy tokens are spent when used and only recharge when the player hibernates.

Each player has a supply of Buildings that can be constructed on revealed desert spaces on the main board. Their primary purpose is to activate adjacent hexes: advancing along the corresponding machine tracks, claiming water bonuses, or gaining crystals if adjacent to the board’s edge. Small buildings activate each adjacent space once, while large buildings activate them twice. This effect is retroactive: if a neighboring terrain tile is revealed later, any newly adjacent spaces activate immediately for the building’s owner.

Meanwhile, Citizens (meeples) are sent to populate location spaces or large locations to unlock scoring criteria. In addition, removing meeples from the faction board unlocks powerful tribal technologies.

Throughout the game, players collect Crates that provide diverse bonuses. These are kept face down until the player chooses to open them for an immediate benefit at any point during their turn.

The primary resource and action engine of the game comes from the Citizen Cards. These multi-use cards feature two distinct halves (top and bottom) and belong to one of three colors matching the machine tracks. A card can be tucked into an available slot on the player board to trigger its visible half. Players start with a deck of six cards, but can recruit new ones through exploration. Some cards feature a brown bracket icon along the edge, allowing another card to be tucked over them into the same slot, activating both cards sequentially.

Card slots can be upgraded with Module Tokens, which show one or two colors. When acquired, a module is slotted next to a card slot. If a card is already present, it does not trigger retroactively; however, the very first module placed into each empty slot triggers immediately upon placement. Moving forward, slotted modules activate whenever a card of a matching color is played into that slot.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

1. Place the main board in the center of the table.
2. Shuffle the 5 starting area tiles and place them face up onto the matching starting spaces of the main board.
3. Shuffle the remaining area tiles and place them face down randomly across the remaining board spaces.
4. Shuffle the citizen card deck, place it nearby, and reveal the top 5 cards to form a display.
5. Separate the machine tiles by type, shuffle each into a stack, and reveal the top 2 tiles of each stack.
6. Shuffle the slot module tokens to form a face-down draw pile and reveal the top 5.
7. Create a general supply of energy tokens.
8. Place the major artifacts onto their designated board spaces (in games with fewer than 4 players, return those marked with higher player counts to the box).
9. Stack the minor artifact tokens in their designated space, placing the end-game tile on top of the pile.
10. Shuffle the crate tokens and form a face-down supply pile.
11. Each player chooses a color and receives:
    • 1 Player board.
    • 4 Resource markers, placed on the starting spaces of the resource tracks.
    • 1 Energy token, placed in the center space.
    • 3 Machine track markers (one of each color), placed on the starting space of each track.
    • 1 Random faction board (using the sun side for the base game), slotted into the main board notch.
    • 1 Switch token, placed in the designated slot with the active side facing up.
    • A starting deck of cards: shuffle and place 3 face up in the active area below the faction board, and 3 in the resting pile.
    • 1 Random artifact objective card.
    • 1 Reference card.
    • 5 Small buildings and 3 Large buildings, placed on the faction board supply spaces.
    • 7 Meeples, placed on the tech tree spaces of the faction board.
    • 2 Player markers, placed at the start of the score and hibernation tracks on the main board.
    • 20 Progress discs, placed onto the machine track slots and ability slots on the player and faction boards.
12. Randomly determine the starting player and give them the 2 action cubes. The first player receives 1 crystal; the second receives 1 crystal and 1 gear; the third receives 1 crystal, 1 gear, and 1 book; the fourth receives 1 crystal, 1 gear, 1 book, and 1 food.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Revive is played over an indeterminate number of turns, starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise.

On their turn, the active player must choose one of two options:

• Take up to 2 Actions. The player selects from the five available main actions:
  • Play a Card into a Free Slot: The player tucks one of their available cards into an open slot (or a slot with cards allowing stacking). They resolve the played card’s visible effect, matching module bonuses, and any previously slotted matching cards in any order they choose.
  • Use the Switch (if available): The player slides their switch token down to gain 1 basic resource of their choice.
  • Populate: The player takes an unlocked meeple from their tech tree (unlocked from bottom to top), pays the required book cost, and places it onto a valid location space on the board, paying any necessary food costs for range. The technology effect uncovered by the meeple is immediately activated. If other players already occupy the location, the active player must pay 1 additional book to each opponent present.
  • Build: The player selects an available building (small or large), pays the required gear cost, and places it on a desert space within range, paying food for distance if needed. Non-desert spaces adjacent to the new building activate immediately (terrain spaces advance machine tracks, and water spaces yield bonuses if it is the player’s first time activating them). A large building triggers each adjacent space twice.
  • Explore: The player targets an adjacent face-down tile, pays the listed exploration resource cost plus any required food for range, scores the indicated victory points, drafts a citizen card from the display into their active pool, and flips the tile face up in any chosen orientation. Any previously built adjacent buildings immediately trigger the newly revealed terrain and water spaces retroactively.
• Hibernate. The player carries out the following reset steps:
  • Return all spent energy tokens to the center of the player board.
  • Move all cards from the resting pile to the active hand area below the faction board.
  • Move all cards played in the board slots to the resting pile.
  • Flip the switch token back to its active position.
  • Advance the hibernation marker 1 space on the track and resolve the corresponding reward or penalty.

Play then passes to the next player.

Additionally, players may perform any number of free actions at any point during their turn:

• Trade: Exchange 1 crystal for any basic resource (gear, book, or food).
• Activate a Machine: Place an available energy token on an unlocked machine to trigger its effect (which can modify or support an ongoing action).
• Open a Crates: Flip a collected crate face down and immediately gain its rewards.

Game End

The end of the game is triggered when the final major artifact is taken from the main board. The player who claims it takes the end-game tile. All other players take one final turn, and the game concludes when the player seated to the right of the player who triggered the end finishes their turn. Final scoring then takes place, with players adding the following to their in-game victory points:

• The lowest visible value on their personal progress track.
• Points from unlocked faction technologies.
• Points from cleared population spaces.
• Points from end-game scoring machines on their player board.
• 4 Points for holding the end-game tile.
• 2 Points for each minor artifact collected.
• 1 Point for every 5 leftover resources.
• Points scored from their artifact objective card multiplied by the matching major artifacts acquired during the game.

The player with the most victory points is crowned the winner. In case of a tie, the tiebreakers are:

• The player with the most leftover resources that did not score a point.
• The player who advanced furthest across all three machine tracks combined.

If the tie persists, victory is shared.

Variants

Solo Mode. The end-game tile is not used. One action cube is placed on the first space of the progress track (the other is returned to the box). The player has 20 “play a card” actions over the game. Every time a card is played, the marker advances 1 space on the progress track; hibernating advances it 2 spaces. During hibernation, the player may discard and refill any number of slot modules, citizen cards, and machine tiles from the display. The objective is to achieve the highest score possible.

Campaign Mode. The game includes a campaign deck that strings games together, gradually unlocking new components and rules over successive plays.

Personal Opinion

The batch of games presented at the Essen Spiel 2022 fair left few titles that have managed to stay in the limelight over time. Among those select few, Revive is arguably the one that has stood out the most. Let’s explore why, though I will say upfront that its theme and visual presentation aren’t the main reasons.

Civilization as we know it has become ancient history. Much like the premise of the manga *Dr. Stone* (which I warmly recommend, alongside the anime adaptation), our task is to re-expand across the Earth’s surface, which is currently buried beneath a blanket of ice. And that’s about it. There isn’t much more narrative depth to dig into, nor does the game really need it.

We are greeted with a modular hex board featuring a central starting nexus for all players, who must reclaim the surface by exploring and sweeping away the snow to reveal terrain types. On these, we can establish outposts to advance technological development and repopulate habitable zones.

Driving these actions is a core hand management mechanism using multi-use cards divided into two halves. Whenever we want to use a card, we slot it into an open space along our player board to trigger the visible half. It is a system shared with *Lacrimosa* (check out its tocho-review here), though here there is far more freedom regarding where and how to slot cards, since, unlike the Devir title, Revive is not rigidly structured around fixed rounds.

Playing these cards mainly allows us to accumulate resources, acquire slot modules (which augment future card plays of matching colors), activate unique faction abilities, or advance along the player board’s machine tracks. That player board, by the way, is one of the few visually attractive components in the entire package.

Advancing along these tracks is a central pillar of the game. As markers climb the spirals, they uncover slots where players can fit machine tiles, unlocking auxiliary actions that can operate independently or enhance other actions.

The other fundamental pillar is the hand management we touched upon, combined with a subtle deckbuilding layer tied to exploration. Revealing new tiles grants victory points and lets players recruit new cards into their pool, lengthening turns and generating richer synergies. For instance, some cards allow players to reuse an occupied slot and reactivate cards nested beneath it, very much in the style of *Deus* (tocho-review here).

In this way, the game creates a race dynamic where players rush to claim as many major artifacts as possible. These are earned by accumulating enough victory points (typically via exploration), rushing up the machine tracks (primarily via building), and populating the board. These artifacts provide end-game points tailored to the three criteria listed on each player’s personal objective card. In other words, a specific artifact type (out of three colors) won’t have the same value for every player; its worth depends entirely on how effectively that player developed specific facets of their engine.

What is abundantly clear is that, much like in games such as *Concordia* (tocho-review here) or the recent *Phraya* (tocho-review here), the fewer times you take the reset action, the better off you will be. In fact, there is a dedicated track on the main board counting how many times each player has hibernated. The early spaces grant minor perks, but eventually the track begins docking points—a none-too-subtle sign that your engine is lagging behind. In none of my games has anyone reached those penalty spaces before someone triggered the end game, but the fact that the penalties exist means it can happen (or that we were playing suboptimally, which is never out of the question).

As you can tell, the game doesn’t necessarily reinvent the wheel mechanically. It carries an aroma reminiscent of *Terra Mystica* (tocho-review here) and its acclaimed successor *Gaia Project* (tocho-review here), in that each player commands an asymmetric faction with a distinctive power around which they must shape their game, racing up tracks to build unstoppable momentum towards victory.

It also shares that spatial positioning element on the map when placing buildings to trigger adjacent hexes. High-value locations become apparent very quickly, sparking races to claim them first. Losing a prime spot to an opponent can grant them a massive tempo advantage while leaving you in the dust.

Comparisons can be unfair, and I will say right away that, for me, Revive sits a step or two behind the masterpieces by Jens Drögemüller and Helge Ostertag. However, it boasts two distinct virtues that make it one of the standout eurogames of Essen 2022.

The first is undeniably its variability, which yields tremendous replayability. While the core game loop remains consistent, the setup variables ensure that almost everything else shifts between plays. Every game starts with different starting decks and asymmetric faction abilities. The modular board is revealed dynamically much like in *The Island: Survive!* (tocho-review here), though exploration costs provide hints about what lies underneath. The recruitable citizen deck is generous and diverse enough to open up distinct strategic avenues, while crate tokens offer flexible, situational boosts when timed properly.

Above all, slot modules and machine tiles unlock a vast spectrum of combos on your personal board as your tracks advance. This cascading progression can feel downright addictive. The flip side is that later turns can drag out if a player enters “analysis paralysis” while triggering a chain of four or five energy-fueled machine activations, but stringing those massive turns together is deeply rewarding.

I also appreciate how varied the scoring objectives are, both individually (each personal artifact card sets three targets) and globally via the large location tiles. Aligning these two goals and building an engine that scores on multiple fronts is key to racking up big points.

The other great strength of the game lies in its pacing and flow. Without rigid round structures and with relatively straightforward actions (you either play a card or execute one of the resource-based actions: pay the cost and resolve the effect), turns move at lightning speed once players internalize the iconography and rules—provided nobody at the table suffers from extreme AP.

In this regard, the resource economy is exceptionally tight. Available resources tightly constrain your immediate choices, preventing turns from bloating with too many viable branches. This is another parallel to *Terra Mystica* and *Gaia Project*: resources are your fuel. Once your pool runs dry and your card slots fill up, you are naturally funneled into hibernating to reset the cycle.

Naturally, this is a design that outlines a clear strategic roadmap from the outset (the large location goals in the corners, your faction abilities, your starting deck, and your personal artifact card). Yet it demands sharp tactical agility, constantly presenting micro-decisions to reinforce your engine. Every time you draft a module or a machine tile, you must weigh which option best complements your current build. Occasionally, you’ll pick a machine only to realize several turns later that you barely ever had the energy to activate it.

The included campaign mode adds relatively little to the overall experience; it mainly serves as a guided unboxing tutorial to introduce content that you were initially instructed not to punch out. Most experienced gaming groups will likely skip the campaign wrapper and integrate all components directly into standalone games.

Regarding player count scalability, map friction is noticeably softer than in the aforementioned heavy euros. Certain central spots are certainly contested, and getting blocked can sting, but the map is spacious enough that players can operate in their own corners without stepping on each other’s toes if they prefer—even at four players. As such, player scaling is minimal, limited mostly to starting resource adjustments and artifact availability. The race dynamic for major artifacts is where player tension shines most, though that emerges naturally from game tempo rather than direct aggression. Consequently, the game scales gracefully across all player counts, though two players might be the sweet spot for pure, brisk pacing. The solo mode essentially tasks you with executing the standard rules under a tight action timer to shoot for a high score.

All that said, Revive shares a similar fate with other Essen 2022 releases like *Tiletum* (tocho-review here) or previous hits like *Bonfire* (tocho-review here). It stands out partly because the broader field lacked massive, era-defining heavyweights. It is fun, engaging, and easy to recommend, but it doesn’t quite cross the threshold into becoming an all-time classic. It comes remarkably close, though.

Turning to production values, we arrive at one of the game’s more debated points. Not due to substandard components, but rather the broader market price hikes, where Revive seems to set a high benchmark for standard, non-deluxe eurogames. The standout component is the dual-layer player board (functional and very welcome given how many tokens sit on it, though nothing extraordinary). The punchboard is thick and sturdy, the cards feature great linen-finish cardstock with solid elasticity (and since they aren’t held in hand or constantly shuffled, sleeving is optional), and the wooden pieces are well-sized with good density. The rulebook is logically organized and unambiguous.

The visual style is another polarizing aspect. To begin with, the box cover might be one of the most misleading in modern hobby gaming. Looking at the cover illustration of Revive, it is nearly impossible to anticipate the mechanical depth or theme waiting inside; the prominent blooming flower easily makes it look like a cozy nature game in the vein of *Cascadia*, *Verdant*, or *Herbaceous*. Furthermore, the semi-realistic art direction throughout the board and cards can feel sterile. Despite the impressive table presence (it easily demands a large gaming table to spread out comfortably), it rarely draws admiring glances from players passing by. Personally, while I don’t find it hideous, it leaves me rather cold.

And let’s wrap this up. Revive is a solid eurogame centered on multi-use card management, track advancement, and tile placement across a shared map. Its continuous race structure, free of rigid rounds, delivers a brisk and engaging tempo where optimizing turns and unlocking synergies on your player board feels deeply satisfying. It successfully marries a clear strategic direction with engaging tactical micro-decisions when drafting modules and unlocking technologies. On the downside, the low direct interaction on the map can create a somewhat multiplayer-solitaire feel, and late-game turns with cascading combos can bog down the pace if prone to analysis paralysis. For all these reasons, I give it a…