My favorite animals are Highland cattle, bears, octopuses, crabs, and lobsters. The hermit crab is a particular favorite of mine. An intriguing puzzle where you have to place patterns to guide this beautiful creature to the sea? Of course I had to play it.
Theme and Background
Hermit crabs are fascinating and unique crustaceans that protect their soft abdomens by living in abandoned shells. I haven’t always been 6’4″ tall—thankfully for my mother—but during these nearly 35 years of my life, I’ve grown. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower. My weight also fluctuates from time to time. Not all my life has my clothing or even the size of my living space been suitable. The same goes for hermit crabs.
Throughout their lives, hermit crabs regularly change shells because they grow or need a sturdier home. Hermit crabs love searching for new shells, and like me, they enjoy reusing things. These crabs are very social creatures and often look for new shells together, and sometimes even engage in “shell trading” with each other. When one crab leaves its old home, another finds a beautiful new shelter.
In Hermit, players try to guide the titular crab to the sea, but to do so, they must provide shells in the correct patterns so the crab wants to move. Hermit was originally and fittingly a pure solo game for the hermits among us. Appropriate, since ‘hermit’ is also used as a metaphor for people who want to isolate themselves for a while, just like the hermit crab in its protective shell.
In the Netherlands, Hermit is published by Benki Games (Tyron de Windt and Vivienne de Windt), whom you might know from their game Pizzachef. As a (very welcome) addition to the solo game, Tyron and Vivienne have also introduced several game modes for two players. Time to come out of your shell, little hermits! By the way, it’s nice that a multiplayer mode is being added to a solo game for once, instead of the other way around. The German or English editions might introduce these elements in a later print run (and otherwise get the Dutch version….).
Gameplay
In solo mode, the player tries to get the crab to the sea. At the start of the game, ten cards with the beach side are placed on the table. The sea is placed on the sixth card. The tide moves the sea during the game, but if the sea reaches the end before the crab arrives, it’s game over.
How do you move the crab? Each turn (depending on how littered the beach is with plastic caps), you have one or two cards in your hand, and each turn you play one of these cards face up in front of you. You can place cards next to each other or even on top of each other to create patterns. Because these cards are double-sided, the playing field is always different, which creates a lot of variety.
All cards are double-sided and feature a beach with a pattern on one side, and a collection of shells, starfish, caps, and water on the other. On the beach card in front of the crab is the pattern that players must create to move the crab. If the crab reaches the sea, make sure you also have enough driftwood in the correct pattern to actually reach the sea and victory.
Want more of a challenge? Hermit has something for you. You can make the game harder by adding more driftwood or real challenges with specific conditions for even more variety.
If two lone wolves want to play together, that’s possible in different ways. For two-player games, you also add all cards with a small star. You can play both cooperatively and competitively. The basic game remains the same: each player must create patterns in their own playing area. In the cooperative game, players must each be able to make the same pattern. In the competitive game, players mainly try to outdo each other to turn the tide.
Conclusion
I love games where players have to make patterns to collect points or unlock actions. Some of my favorite solo games are those in the Orchard series, where you have to place patterns in your orchard by overlapping cards. Hermit features a similar puzzle, but adds fun twists, making this game feel completely different and almost as if Hermit was made specifically for me.
Hermit is an intuitive and challenging puzzle that really stimulates your mind. I’ve caught myself spending quite a few hours with Hermit this past week, even though this game only takes about fifteen minutes to play and is easy to set up. That’s quite a few rounds of crab. Long story short: play Hermit, unless you have a severe shellfish allergy or don’t like a challenging puzzle.
