Propolis

Along with Point Galaxy, Flatout Games and AEG had another small box game release called Propolis. This is a mix of worker placement, area control and tablaue building themed with bees making buildings. You'll be sending out your bee workers to gather resources from the lands, which you need in order to build the buildings from the shared market rows.

Buildings can have points, immediate bonuses, such as getting back workers from the supply, or they can be used as discounts for future buildings. It gives a very Splendor-like vibe to it. Once a player has built 10 buildings, the game ends, so building the right buildings will matter.

The other half of the game is the area majority with workers. Once a row is filled with workers, you'll evaluate that row and whoever has majority gets the bonus of a wild resource as well as retrieving their workers. So there's benefits to trying to gather from a single row if possible.

While the game is simple to play I did feel like there were gotchas when trying to learn solo for the first time, such as how to get new landscapes. But still, the game intrigues me and it got me thinking for how I'd do some similar mechanisms in different game concepts.