I enjoy a good deduction game. But a lot of them, without it being a crime game, tend to be competitive. The obvious example of this is Clue. Paint the Roses by NorthStar Game Studio is a cooperative deduction game with very simple rules and a whole lot of thought that can go into it. A game that I got to play, taught by the designer, at Gen Con, and I knew I immediately wanted to pick it up, but let’s find out how it plays.

How to Play – Paint the Roses

Paint the Roses is a cooperative game where as a group you are trying to figure out secret objective cards. Basically painting the roses so that you stay ahead of the Queen of Hearts. On each players turn they put down a tile and then the group must guess as to what one of the objective cards are for the players.

How can you do that? Well, when you place down a tile, all players can put down cubes on that tile. The cubes tell how many matches they have for their objective card. So if I put a pink rose next two two other pink roses, and my secret objective is two pink roses, I’d put down two cubes. With the tile I put down and the other two tiles, I have two combinations of two pink roses. Even if the others were also a combination, on that turn I wouldn’t put a cube on them.

Then everyone else, whose turn it isn’t, is trying to figure out what my clue is telling them. Now, if I have an easy objective, they know it’s colors so they only have to look at the tile I played down and find combinations of two colors where there are two of them. Pink and pink in this case. But if I have a medium or hard, it could be shape and shape as well or shape and color.

No matter what you guess the Queen of Hearts moves forward. If you get it wrong, you stay still and she moves forward faster. If you get it right, she moves forward slowly and you jump ahead. The game ends when you’ve either completed the garden, filling in everything. Or when the Queen of Hearts catches you and off with your heads.

What Doesn’t Work?

This is a game that I really enjoy with every play that I’ve had of it. My win rate is a solid 0%, but I’m loving every play of it. If I were to come up with negatives for it, I think for a pretty simple game the teach is less simple. Mainly explaining how the cubes work and that even though I put down a tile, everyone should be checking their objective and putting cubes on it. It feels like the rule that people are apt to forget.

What Works?

I think that the deduction in this game works really well, because it seems simple and can be simple. In my example, I probably set it up so that only one thing had two options on it. But there are times where it might be multiple things. And this is where putting cubes on other people’s tiles comes in. If it could be two pink or a pink and a purple. If you had that card matched something previously, so the previous tile made a pink and purple combination. Players can remember that information to deduce and eliminate the pink and purple to know you have pink and pink.

And just to continue with the deduction. I really like that sometimes giving no clue is a clue itself. I might give a clue and not put a cube on it. So looking at the options I had for tiles, looking at maybe where I have or haven’t placed cubes, information is out there to know what I have.

But to go with that, I also like that the Queen of Hearts is always moving and you always need to make a guess. It wouldn’t make sense to not make a guess, but even if when you get it right, she’s moving forward. And she picks up speed the further you get around the board. That really makes it a fun experience because you feel the pressure as you play the game.

I’ll also say that I like the standard version of the game. There is a deluxe version and if I can find it and upgrade to that at some point in time I might. I’ve played with both, and both are nice. The artwork is nice, but the tiles, the main upgrade on the deluxe version, are amazing. Either way the game is good and looks nice, but the deluxe is a deluxe that is worth it, I think.

Who Is It For?

This looks like it maybe should be for casual gamers. And I do think that some will get it well, but the deduction level in this game is high. This is for the person who really likes the puzzle through problems, figure out what options are available and find those right choices. It can slow down a little bit for players who are prone to analysis paralysis. But your action is simple enough that it shouldn’t spend too much time with that.

For me, I think this if for gamers who like deduction. They don’t mind that it is an abstract game, they care more about puzzling through everything.

Final Thoughts on Paint the Roses

Needless to say, I really like this game. Paint the Roses just offers that good blend of crunchy thinking about a game with simple actions. You pick one of four tiles and place it. But where and how you place it matters so much.

I’m confident that with the right group, Paint the Roses might not be that hard. If everyone just takes easy or medium, no one goes hard. And certain ways that people think will make it easier. But because of those hard cards, you easily can adjust your own difficulty of the game. I like it when a group can regulate for itself that way.

And I do think that no matter which version of the game you get it is a pretty game. The box and the artwork on it is probably one that you could leave out just because it looks pretty. And while I think this game will excel with gamers who like deduction, it isn’t that hard to play for a lot of different types of players.

My Grade: A
Gamer Grade: A
Casual Grade: C

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