How To Play Ninjan?

Like i said, Ninjan is a game of rock paper scissors. So the normal winning hands work in this game, but there is more to the game. You play the game over nine rounds, and the person who wins the most points is the winner of the game.

How Does a Round Work?

In Ninjan you deal each player a hand of ten cards. Those cards will be the ones that you play rock paper scissors with against three cards that are set out in the middle of the table. Each card is going to have a symbol and a number on it between 10 and -6. Each player picks a card to play.

The player who played the highest value card is going to go first. They take one of the cards from the middle that they beat and replace that card with their new card. That continues for each player going in numerical order and then if there are ties on numbers the “stronger” card goes first. So in a tie between rock and paper, since paper beats rock, paper goes first. In the case of a three way tie, it goes rock, scissors, paper.

Once every player has played out their cards, each player plays down a new card and you continue until you have a single card left in your hand and total up your points. But what if you can’t beat something because you didn’t play a winning card?

What If You Don’t Beat Anything?

So what is going to happen if when you come to your turn you have a paper and there are no rocks out there? You add your card to one of the piles. So you might make a pile better with a positive point card, or you might make it worse if you played a negative point.

What Doesn’t Work?

There is luck in this game for sure. I’m going to say this more as a neutral thing, but for some people it is not going to be fun because there is a bunch of luck. You get dealt a hand. If you find that you have a ton of a single suit and are locked out of getting points some hands. And especially at lower player counts since you see a smaller percentage of the deck, that might be the case.

What Works?

Firstly, the game is simple and easy to understand. Everyone knows rock paper scissors so they understand how that works. That means I can teach this game in minutes and people will understand what is going on.

But the game also has more depth than you might think. If you are playing a game and it’s a good rock out there, or maybe two, but you only have low papers, the other players might fight over the rocks. So if you play a really low, negative value, scissors and they play out paper, you might be able to grab a good point card of paper. That changing middle section is really interesting to work with. And there is more strategy to the game than first appears.

I also like that the game is one hand of cards. I think the first game that you play might go twenty minutes. And with a full five players it might be twenty minutes all the time. But because everyone picks a card at once, there is little downtime and the game keeps moving. And I think that negates the negative above because it’s over so quickly. I think you could even play in ten minutes if people are on the ball and not overthinking everything.

Who Is Ninjan For?

Ninjan is going to be for people who want a filler style game. It is purely that and it is one that I think is going to have great success for me for game nights. Why, because people know how to play rock paper scissors so that is going to be easy for them learn and understand. And it scales from 2 to 5 players which is going to make it a good game as people who up.

Grades and Final Thoughts on Ninjan

I went into Ninjan expecting to think it’s just an okay game. The concept of Ninjan with rock paper scissors is so simple. And my expectation was that I would find there wasn’t enough going on in it. But I enjoy Ninjan a lot. The little addition of scoring and playing against that center board versus playing against other players makes it a good time.

Now, I’ve only played Ninjan on BGA thus far. So I suspect it is going to work in person well as well. Mainly because I think that a lot of people will enjoy and get into it when they sneak out a card before someone else can take it and stick them with negative points. Or it could be the heartbreak of being one number short. Or it could be the smart play of throwing down a -6 of scissors and snagging a 10 of paper with it.

My Grade: B
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: B+
Luck (out of 10): 5
Strategy (out of 10): 3

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How to Play Paper World

Paper World is the race to most points. You get points for each visible star that you have in your grid. And then you lose points for cards that you have discarded and cards in your hand at the end of the game.

Actions

On your turn you do one of two actions. And the actions are very similar in some of the details. You either take cards from five piles or play cards to your grid. But there are rules as for what cards you can take or what cards you can take. We’ll talk about the part that is the same for both, and then how playing can be slightly different. When you take or play cards you either take all of the same color of card or all of the same number of card to add to your hand or play area.

The rules do differ slightly playing cards, though. In that you need to play out cards, but you always need to build up. So you go from one to two, or from three to four, for example. But you can break that rule. There are two ways to break that rule. The first is that you can simply skip a number. If you skip a number, you discard a card for that, remember that discarded cards are worth negative points.

Or there is the scissors. The scissors can go on top of some cards. If you end the game with the scissors, they are worth two points. But there is another bonus. On a pile without the scissors (since you can’t cover up the scissors), you can skip a number without discarding a card.

Bonuses

The game also gives you three bonuses to go for. These bonuses give points to the first player to complete them, and then fewer to the next player. You get your bonus points from either placing numbers or colors in certain ways. For example, you might need to get 12 points in a column. Or you create a square in your grid with each different color. The points are fixed, though, so first always gets a set number and so on.

That’s how the game is played. Once three piles are emptied each player gets one more turn. And the most points in stars is the winner.

What Doesn’t Work

The game is very simple. This is not a massive negative, but it’s going to feel like there’s not much going on at times. And as you get down in stacks of cards, you are going to feel like you are doing the really obvious things. Because of the simplicity we’ll get some good things, but it does mean that it feels more limited in how it plays out and if you can do interesting moves.

What Works

Firstly, the game is simple. It’s a negative and a positive depending on who you are playing with. Because it is simple the game is also a fast game. You shouldn’t run into too many situations where you feel like you are locked in a long game. Even if someone maybe is struggling for a turn, the decision space is limited enough that you can’t spend too long on it.

There are a few clever moves you can do as well. Though that’s somewhat offset by the fact that there is sometimes not a great move. But you can be smart about how you play out your cards from hand, or add cards to your hand. Towards the end of the game you don’t want to get too many cards. So you might make a decision to take a number that only is showing in one spot and forgo taking more with a color.

Who is Paper World For?

I think that this game works best for people who want that quick little game. I actually think that adding cards to your hand element is pretty nice with deciding on number or color. But for people who want a game that has more thought going on with it, Paper World is going to feel very simple.

Final Thoughts on Paper World

There are elements of the game that I like. And I’ve had fun with my plays of it on Board Game Arena. But I think for me, it has a limited shelf life so it’s not one I’m likely to get in person. The game is just very light overall. And while I think there are some minimal strategies that you can employ, the game isn’t going to feel that different from play to play.

The two biggest differences in the game are number of copies of numbers, which I believe is based on player count. And the bonuses. But the bonuses are very limited in difference. 12 points in a column, a row of three of the same color, or ascending numbers. That is going to vary your strategy slightly. But the bonus points, especially at two players, aren’t enough to massively sway the game. One points versus two if you’re first is not that much. So it just works okay and the differences don’t feel that different.

My Grade: C
Gamer Grade: D
Casual Grade: B
Strategy (out of 10): 4
Luck (out of 10): 4

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How To Play Gold’n’Crash

Gold’n’Crash is a two player game where players are trying to gain victory in one of two ways. Firstly, you win by having stored away the most gold (points) when either player gets through all of their character cards. Or the other way to claim victory is to destroy all of your opponents blimps.

The game is played going back and forth with each player taking two of three actions on their turn. And you can take the same action twice. You take a card, you discard a card, or you draw a card. That is how the game works, but let’s talk about the actions a bit more.

Drawing

Firstly, drawing a card is simple. You draw a card from your deck and add it to your hand. There is no hand limit, so it allows you, late game, if you don’t draw good cards to play or you think you have the most points to push the end of the game.

Playing

Next you can play out cards. There are six different types of cards. Some of them are just point cards that don’t have powers. But five of the types of cards have powers. They might draw more cards from you, from the discard pile or your draw pile, or attempt to blow up your opponents ship. There are rules for playing cards. You need to play in the column with the fewest cards. And in the case of a tie, you decide where to play them.

Discarding

Then you also are able to discard cards from your played cards. Each card, minus the point cards, can be discarded. When you discard you trigger a different ability. It might be to add cards to your scoring pile or remove cards from your opponents, or look at the top of your deck and move cards to the bottom of the deck.

You are playing out these cards to bank point cards. Every card has a point value, but there are some cards that have a bigger point value. And there are some cards, above the blimps in the play area, that give you a lot of points. But you need to meet a specific condition, like three green cards in that column, or five total cards, to gather those points. In the end, most points wins, or if you destroy all the blimps you win right there.

What Doesn’t Work

Firstly, it isn’t super obvious what each card type does immediately. You need to know ten different actions between playing cards and discarding. This is not a major issue in the game. It is one of those things where the more that you play, the more you are going to know how the game works and what the cards do. But there is a learning curve to what everything does.

The next thing is that this isn’t a game that is fast. I talked last week about Zenith and how the turns are simple and the game, while it can be a battle back and forth, it moves quickly. This is not that sort of game. Some of it is because of what I mentioned above, there are a lot of powers and abilities you need to know. But even with that, the bigger element is there are just a lot of cards. So while there is variety, you often feel like you are treading water on turns.

Finally, blowing up the blimps, it sounds like fun. But it’s an abrupt end to the game that sometimes you can do nothing about to stop. For a game that wants to be strategic in what you are doing, sometimes there is not really a choice. So the end of the game through the blimp destruction just feels a bit out of place compared to everything else you do, and it comes down so much to the luck of the draw.

What Works

I think that the game has a good amount of strategy to it. It is a game that wants to be a tense and well thought out back and forth game. And there is certainly an element of it. And as you play it more, more strategy is going to emerge as to how you manipulate the board state to your advantage. Because, everything is going to mess around with that board state, on your side of things or your opponents a little bit.

I also like how actions stack. If you play a second brown card to a column, they allow you to store treasures, you get to activate that ability for each brown card. That means you can stack up some good scoring turns. Or you might be able to mess with your opponents board state a lot in a single move. So you might want to plan out your moves that way to try and optimize it. However, since you can only play in the lowest stack, sometimes that isn’t all that reasonable to do.

Who is Gold’n’Crash For?

I think people who want to play a lot of really intense two player games will enjoy this one. Not that I think this is the most intense two player. You compare it to abstracts like Chess or Onitama, this is going to play with more luck in it. But for someone who wants all the powers and abilities, there are going to be a lot in the game. And for someone who maybe wants a game to play in a night, instead of player a two player game twice or more, this one can work for that as well.

My Final Thoughts on Gold’n’Crash

Now, I think that my opinion on this is going to be colored a little bit by the fact it was played right after Zenith. While Zenith is a smooth fast game with a lot of great decisions, Gold’n’Crash is a bit clunkier and clutchier.

And, by clutchier, I mean that it’s harder to get into and get going. I played quite a number of games of Gold’n’Crash to get a good feeling for the game. It wasn’t until I was at four or five plays that I started to really utilize all the abilities all that well. That is not a major negative to the game, but for a two player game, it is going to cause discrepancies between how good players are.

And it is a bit clunkier. You might draw what you need, you might not, but there is less ability to pivot. I definitely played games where I just drew card after card because none of them were worth playing. So it is better for me to build up a massive hand of cards until I get a couple cards that I need for a great turn, than it is for me to just play out cards. That doesn’t feel fun, too many passive turns in the game.

My Grade: C-
Gamer Grade: C+
Casual Grade: C

I think that some people will like this game better. When it comes out, I expect that some people will make it the game they play with their partner in an evening weekly or more often. But generally, I think people will find it kind of middle of the road. It isn’t a bad game, but it isn’t that good a game either.

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How to Play Mountain Goats

Mountain Goats is a simple game to play. You roll four dice and then you use those dice to go up the mountain. You move up your goat on columns of cards numbered 5 through 10. When you make it to the top of a row, you get a point card. If you are still at the top and play that combination you get another point card. But if an opponents goat makes it up to where you are, you get knocked down to the bottom again. This only happens if you are at the top. Then you start the climb again.

The game is over once all the complete set scoring tokens are gone or a number of piles are emptied. When that happens you complete the round and whomever has the most points wins. And that is basically the whole game. If you roll more than one one on the dice, you can pick a die face on those dice only needing to leave one of them as a one. That’s just to help balance it out and keep a bad roll from messing you up too much.

What Doesn’t Work

There is a lot of randomness in the game. You get a tiny bit of strategy as you roll dice and then figure out how to combine their numbers. However, what the dice are rolled to is completely random. Obvious if you get multiple ones it isn’t random, but most of the time it is. So I think a lot of people will find this too simple and too random as they play it.

What Works

I like the simplicity and speed that this game plays. The rules are simple to learn and I like that about it. I sit down and teach and play the game in a very short period of time. Which is something that I want from a very small game like Mountain Goats. I don’t want a hefty lift or long play time, especially with a game that is lucky.

I find that there is also an excitement to the game. It does come from the luck in the game. You roll dice and you might find that it’s exactly what you need to complete a set. Or sometimes even better, it might let you grab that last scoring tile in the tens spot to keep anyone else from getting it. On your opponents turn you hope that they don’t knock you down so you can keep getting more points. It’s a simple element to the game, but it works for generating excitement in a lucky game.

Who Is Mountain Goats For?

I think it’s for people who want a fast fun filler game. Yes, it might be a game night to play it three times with friends who aren’t gamers as much. But for a lot of people, I think this is that good sort of game to end or start a game night. Or even play between games when you want to break to something lighter. For most gamers with a large game collection it won’t be the focus of the night, but one that might come off the shelf often for what it is.

Final Thoughts on Mountain Goats

I enjoy this game. And I enjoy it for what it is, a light filler. But also because it feels exciting. If a filler game isn’t all that exciting it’ll get played some and then leave the collection. I think Mountain Goats is going to have that longer shelf life because I like and enjoy that little bit of an extra rush of fun from it.

It’s not going to be a game that I play every week. But it’s one that is just fun enough and does just enough that it’s going to feel good when I play it. And I do think that Allplay and Mountain Goats are great games for introducing to people. So simple, but something that feels different and fun if you don’t play a ton of games.

My Grade: B
Casual Grade: A-
Gamer Grade: C

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How To Play Icecool Wizards

Immediately it’s pretty easy to see the differences between Icecool Wizards and Icecool. Icecool Wizards is adding in a new element to the game. You are still in a penguin school, but this time a school for wizards. And you are trying to collect resources or knowledge to be able to cast spells.

The basics of how you do that is similar to what’s done with Icecool. You flick your penguin twice each turn collecting resources. And no one is chasing you down. Instead, you and your opponents compete for the resources and the exams. You get both of them by crossing over them on your turn.

Then the game ends when all the resources are gone and players have an even number of turns. You score up the resources you haven’t spent on exams. And you get points for exams. The penguin with the most points wins.

Initial Reaction on Icecool Wizards

Let’s look into my initial reaction to the game here because I think it’s useful to compare it quickly to Icecool. I think that Icecool Wizards, for me, is a step down from Icecool. Mainly because Icecool is a pure dexterity game. There is some cat and mouse, but it’s all about flicking the penguins about.

Icecool Wizards offers some of the same thing, but seems to have built on it in a way that doesn’t make it more fun. It doesn’t make it unfun, but it adds in some to the game. And some of it I think is the smaller board size. It’s meant to be more portable and take up a little bit less space, I guess, but it neuters the ability for some great shots.

I think the fact that it’s all players versus each other versus a one versus all style of game also hurts it. The tension is gone and the excitement of that will they or won’t they hit me is gone. Instead a lot of it comes down to luck so let’s get into some of this.

Luck vs Skill

So let’s talk about what I mean by this. I kind of touched on it above, but the original Icecool is the skill of a player versus the skill of the other players. Can I pull off better shots and avoid the hall monitor better than the other players.

Icecool Wizards is a bit more luck focused. Why, because what exams and resources come out are random. The resources always go into specific spots. And while the game tries to balance that out, with powers, if the resources available on your turn are better than the ones on my turn for completing exams, it’s an advantage for you.

Collecting Resources vs Using Powers

Now it’s time to talk about the powers in the game. There are two types of resources in the games. Ones that you get in the classrooms vs ones you get in the doorways. The ones in classrooms are worse in that they don’t add in extra powers. And the exams they are used in don’t offer higher points.

But the ones in the doorways are interesting. There are four of them, and they offer extra powers. An extra flick for one of them, or adding in more resources for another. You might trash an opponents card instead.

These resources offer the decisions that this game is trying to give you. Do you flip one of them over, it’s still worth a point at the end of the game, but now you can’t use it on an exam. But it’s only kind of a choice because if there’s an exam that needs that resource, I can likely get to it in the next turn and it’s unlikely that someone else will have the exact resources to get it. It might happen, but it’s not super likely.

Who Is Icecool Wizards For?

It’s a tricky question. I think that they were attempting to make a game that offers a bit more balancing of strategy with skill. But I’m not sure it hits on that. So that is making it hard to know who this game is for. In some ways, I think it is making the game for a market that doesn’t exist. If you like Icecool, like I do, I don’t think it’s better. If you don’t like Icecool, Icecool Wizards isn’t adding anything new that you need to play.

Final Thoughts

For me, what I’ll like about Icecool Wizards in the long run is if I can mix it in with regular Icecool. Why, because that is how I want to play Icecool. Either as a race or as the hall monitor trying to catch the students. But this one only works with the former, but I think I can make it work with the latter as well. It’s easy enough to keep track of the doors you’ve done through.

Now, if this is your first introduction to Icecool, I think Icecool Wizards is going to be fun. For me, it is still fun. But it isn’t more fun that I’d pull it off the shelf over Icecool. And when I play Icecool, I generally want to play it with a lot of people. So I think it’s a situation where Icecool Wizards adds in too little and too much all at once. It’s too little because the game is too close to Icecool, and I just want to play that one.

Have you played Icecool Wizards, do you like it?

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How To Play Paperback?

Like I said above, Paperback is a deck building game. That means that you start out with a hand of cards, in this case letters, and you draw a hand of them. You use those letters to make a word, that gives you are “score”, really purchase power, to buy more letters or point cards. The turns go around with drawing up to a hand of five, making a word and buying more cards.

The game ends when one of two things happen. Either someone has put down a 10 letter word, after 7, 8, & 9 have been completed to take the last common card. This card can be used by anyone any time. Or two of the scoring piles are gone. Then you add up the points on the cards that give you points, different than the “score” when is just for purchase power. Player with the most points wins the game.

Initial Impressions

Generally, I like this game and what it does. It rides a balance between something like Ascension with it’s ever changing market, and Dominion with it’s scoring cards that clog up the deck. I think it’s easier, less combos, to think about than either of the games, though. And unlike the Duchies and other scoring cards that clog up a Dominion deck and do nothing, these scoring cards do still give you a wild letter.

And I think that is a nice balance in the game. I like being able to play out a big word. I like using the double letters so that my hand of five can create a 7 letter word. But, it is not a game that gives you too many dead hands. In a four player game, I think there were four times where someone couldn’t buy something. Twice because we didn’t have enough wilds or vowels. So my hand is all consonants and I’m stuck. And twice because there were no low cost cards left to buy.

And I like the two different ends to the game. We went through two scoring piles. But I did play down and get two of the common cards. That means I played a seven and eight letter word before anyone else did. I almost was able to do a nine letter word, but couldn’t quite get that one.

How Is It As A Word Game?

I want to address this separately. I think that there, generally are a few, two really, types of word games. The first is the Scrabble type of game. In that game, knowing big words can be good. But Scrabble, in my opinion, is about pattern recognition and playing to optimize placement. If I know a big word, doesn’t matter if I don’t line up my “J” or “V” on the double letter score. You pick words to optimize the tile placement.

Paperback is not that type of word game. Instead it falls into the second camp. The second one is about what words you have in your vocabulary. I still need to puzzle out how the letters in my hand best create a word. But I don’t play my word off of anything else. That means that I score that word in a vacuum. Or, another way to think, what I do doesn’t matter to what word you create. Letter Jam is also in this category, but different.

Now, both types have their flaws. If I recognize patterns better than you, I win at Scrabble. If I create larger words with “harder” letters in Paperback, I win. This is an inherent problem that can arise in most any word game. Even Letter Jam, which is cooperative has some of this problem. But Paperback is up there with Letter Jam for a game that limits that.

How Does It Compare To Other Deck Builders?

That is the other thing to talk about. I compare it to Ascension and Dominion. But I do think it is a bit more than them in some ways. I say in some ways because it is about the vocabulary aspect. It requires a different skill than just deck building.

I think that it does a good job with it’s powers though. Most any deck builder, from Dominion and Ascension to Lost Ruins of Arnak and Clank! offer cards with powers. Paperback does a good job of keeping it simple. I think it is about as simple as Dominion whic just gives you more purchase power, number of buys, or action cards you can play.

But the powers on the cards work. I mentioned that if you play a seven letter word you get the common card. With a hand of five cards, you need cards with powers to let you draw more cards next hand. I think they do a good job with the cards that draw more and other powers. Other powers allow you to purchase better cards that give you more “score” to buy more cards. We didn’t get the high scoring cards, but with the right combos we could have.

Final Thoughts on Paperback

Obviously, this is initial impressions, but I want to give some of my preference with this game. I like it, I think it is a good word game. If I have a concern with it at this point, is that some people will struggle with some of the options that they have. I had 9 cards in hand one time, that is capable of being a lot of words.

I also wonder a bit about variety in this game. Am I likely to push for high cost cards, high cost letters, which are harder to play in hopes of getting the really high scoring cards? Or is it better to get more of the lower cost ones and fill up my deck that way. I want to experiment with that a bit more, because maybe it would be worth it.

And I do like that they offer an expansion for it. That adds in cards that have three letters on them. But they also have modules. We didn’t play with any of them, but it is just different things to get mixed in. That means that some of my concern about variety is already taken care of. Initial judgement, if you like word games, this is a fun one.

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How To Play Foodies?

In Foodies you are building out a food court of five different nationalities of food. All in order to have your food court gain the most popularity. You start with nothing, but you add more and more carts to your food court as you go. Each of them being activated when their number is rolled and them helping you gain more popularity until someone passes 20 points (in a two player game) and you trigger end game.

Each turn the active player rolls a die to activate one of nine locations in their food court. Players then take their coin or popularity for activating that spot. But the player who rolled the die gets to spend their coins in order to get another cart for their food court. Then the next player repeats the process.

As you place down a cart, you want to consider what is around it. Carts have stars on some or all of the sides. And as you place them onto your three by three grid you want to line up the stars because when you activate one of them, you gain more popularity. So there is an element of strategy where you place the carts that you buy.

And with the carts, you also consider the goals of the guest chefs you can get in. Some of them you can use any time 4 coins for a popularity. The others each player can score once. It might be four carts from one nation or three pairs of two carts from different nations. Each of those giving your three popularity. Until someone passes twenty popularity and then the round finishes so each player has the same number of turns.

What Doesn’t Work?

This is a very light game. Now, that is a negative because it’ll give the game limited shelf life, most likely. You roll and a die, get coins, by the thing that fits into your goal the best, and repeat the process. The biggest decision that you really make is trying to optimize a little bit of scoring. And making sure you line-up as many stars as possible. But those things are very obvious.

And another thing, while I like that you rotate the different nationalities so that you get different combinations each time you play, what you get from them is very limited. You basically have one resource in the game, coins, and you are trying to get two things, coins and popularity. The game would benefit from more choices around what you can get. There are menus, but your ability to get them is very limited.

What Works?

The speed that this game plays at is great. Turns go by really quickly. And with a few exceptions, I don’t need to think about what you are doing. The two exceptions are US and French foods where you want to have the most to get either money or popularity when you activate them. And that is barely glancing at what someone else is doing. But a two player game, taught and played two last night, took maybe just over and hour. So the game goes very quickly. But I suspect it might slow down a bit with more players.

I also think that while the variety of what the nationalities do work on a few basic things, I like that they give variety or variability. And it isn’t just the nationalities, you can swap out chefs as well. That does give you a lot of replayability before you repeat something. Now, on the flip side, it doesn’t actually feel that different, but for a gateway game, it is accessible and variable.

Who Is It For?

Foodies is for, well, a foodie who is interested in gaming. Or it is a good one for someone who wants to get into board games. If I were to compare this to other games, Machi Koro, Valeria: Card Kingdoms and My Farm Shop, I think it’s the second least interactive. Now, that can be a good thing with gateway games. It means that the player learning only needs to think about what they are doing.

And comparing it to My Farm Shop, also not interactive, I think that Foodies is a little bit simpler. And for some people that will work better. Plus, the theme, which I don’t think is bad on My Farm Shop, the Foodies theme is going to be more appealing. Most people like going out to eat, so it hits an accessible theme.

My Final Thoughts on Foodies?

Foodies is a fun theme for a game. And I think that it is a game a lot of people are going to enjoy. But like a lot of games in the genre, I think for me, I want there to be more. Machi Koro gave me good combinations and building up and engine but the engine was generally similar each time. And that had more cards to it, Foodies is going to do the same thing the more I play it. In fact, I don’t think it’ll be sticking in my collection.

Now, that isn’t to say that Foodies is a bad game, I find it fine. I think I probably prefer Valeria: Card Kingdoms out of all the ones in the genre that I have played. And Dice Forge for a game where I collect stuff on your turn. But in that case you are rolling your own dice. Foodies is going to, however, be a very good gateway game about engine building, and one that anyone can play. That’s what is tempting me to keep it in my collection.

My Grade: C
Gamer Grade: C-
Casual Grade: B+

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How It Plays

Calico is a very simple game. Your turn consists of taking a tile from two you have and putting it on your board. Then there three tiles out and you pick one of those tiles to add to your hand to bring it back up to two. You do that until you have your board filled. That is extremely simple, but the rest of the game is less so.

The rest of the game is how you score. There are three ways that you score points. The first is by getting matching colors. Groups of three or more of the same color get you a button. Buttons are worth three points at the end of the game. Then there are cats, they want certain patterns in certain shapes or size groupings. Cats can range from 3-11 points depending on which ones you are playing with.

Finally there are scoring tiles. These are tiles on the quilt that you need to place certain tiles around. You score points for getting colors or patterns around that tile that match it’s objective. For example, around the scoring tile it might want something like AA-BB-CC. So if you have two blue, to purple, and two green around it that’d give you a number of points. All of the objectives are like that, very simple, but tricky because there is overlap on them in that they’ll share tiles.

What Doesn’t Work?

For me, not much. I think one thing I need to get better at is one of the rules. When completing the pattern around a tile, say AA-BB-CC, you don’t need the two blues next to each other. While I never explicitly say that they need to be, people to assume that just because of how it’s printed. So it’ll be something that slows down or trips up players who don’t know that rule. I think that might hurt the fun for some players because you do need very specific things at times. So there are a few games, Criss Cross being another, where there is a specific rule or thing that needs to be emphasized.

While I think the artwork works for the game, I think it also will trick some people. This game looks very cute, and cute looking game, the assumption is that it’ll be fairly simple. This game has depth and a lot of decisions as you play it. The mechanics are simple enough to play with Grandma, but I’m not sure that all Grandma’s would be able to keep up with the decision making.

What Works?

Firstly the simple yet complex nature of the game. Turns are exceedingly easy because it’s placing a tile and taking a tile. The game with it’s artwork belies the depth that is in the game. There is a lot to think about when it comes to how you complete all of the goals. Do you focus more on cats or buttons? Do you try and get both patterns and colors for the scoring tiles? It’s a lot to consider and it works well. I really like this about the game, there isn’t a ton to keep track of in terms of game components, but there is a lot to think about.

I also like that you can’t plan perfectly in this game. There is no way to know what will be drawn out of the bag and available to draft. So there is no perfect strategy for the game, instead you need to adjust on the fly a little bit. This might make the game bad for some analysis paralysis players, but for me, it means that I don’t need to plan out my turns in advance. In fact with five tiles that I know about and only two being the ones I can play on a turn, it limits how much decision fatigue I can have.

The artwork stands out to me as well. The art is great from Beth Sobel and again it has a really friendly look to it. While I say that Grandma might not be able to keep up with the depth of it, but if you want to play a more hobby gamer game with less hobby gamers, this one is still good. The game feels like a challenge for gamers but is friendly enough for a lot of people because of the artwork.

My Final Thoughts

This is my type of game. Well, in terms of an abstract game anyways. I want something that I can do that’s a bit reactive and a good puzzle to figure out. Calico gives me a really good puzzle. And it’s worked well with the people I’ve played it with. And the theme is really cute. I don’t mind the quilt theme and I like cats, so that fact that it’s very accessible to a large group of people is good.

The complexity of decisions will keep it out of some players wheelhouse I feel. It is a thinkier game than it looks like, but still fun. I actually give three solid reasons as to why you might not want to buy this game in my 3 Reasons Buy/Not Buy. The video will be below so you can check it out. But for a lot of people who are just dabbling with gaming, I think it’d be a good fit.

My Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: B
Casual Grade: C

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In Point Salad you are going to take turns either drafting vegetables to make your salad or taking cards that are going to tell you how to score. The trick is that you need to take the best scoring cards for you, but when you take a card for scoring, you only take a single card, but if you take vegetables, you take two on the turn. So can you figure what is the best scoring option for you and draft cards so that you can out score your opponents. The game is really that simple, once all the cards have been drafted, then each person scores their salad based off of the scoring cards that they have. The person with the most points wins.

There are a few things that I really enjoy about this game. The first being that the play is really simple. You’re either taking two vegetables or you’re taking a card that is going to allow you to score. People who have played games like Ticket to Ride will have some idea as to how this works because you can either take two normal train cars or a wild train car. So it’s a common concept which is good, because how the scoring works is a bit more unique.

The thing about scoring cards is that it’s the base side of the vegetable cards. So if you don’t take a scoring card from the top of the stack, there’s a chance that it’ll flip down and become a vegetable before you can take it on your next turn. It’s a really nice way to give interesting decisions. In fact, sometimes you have to make the tough decision to take a vegetable instead of a scoring card causing that scoring card to turn into a vegetable. But, even with that decision point, it’s not that hard to make it and turns still move by pretty quickly. For me, this is a really clever way to do the scoring, because everyone is going to have different scoring so you might not overlap on what vegetables that you want, but everyone might want different vegetables.

Another thing is that when you are drafting cards, you put them on the table in front of you creating a tableau. That means that I can see what the person to my left is wanting, and the person to my right can see what I want. Maybe on a turn there’s only one vegetable that I want and no scoring that I want. I can then draft that one vegetable and possibly draft something that the person to my left might want. Now, that’s not always the best strategy, but you can get an idea of what people might want. In fact, the better reason to draft a card might be that taking a certain vegetable will cause a scoring card the person to your left might want to turn into a vegetable, and once it’s a vegetable, it can’t be used for scoring again. So if there are three tomatoes and I want to take two of them, I might take the ones that will get rid of scoring that the person to the left of me wants. So it’s a simple, subtle little thing that can add more into the game. But it’s not a massive part of the game being mean to people, because if you do that, you won’t score as well.

I do have one negative about the game. The cards a little bit flimsy, thankfully the game is cheap so you can play it a couple dozen times and replace it if you want. The other solution would be to get card sleeves, which I might, but because you need to see both sides of the cards, that means that the sleeves have to be clear, which you can find, but those sleeves are often a bit flimsier as well. The box is also about twice as big as it needs to be, but I don’t mind that, because I have space for it. But if space is at a premium for your gaming collection, I could see it being annoying.

Finally, let’s talk about the name. Probably something that I could have lead off with, I’ve been talking about how you are drafting vegetables, and it’s all vegetables that you’d live in a salad, so you get points for your vegetables and they are a salad vegetables, hence point salad. While that is true, point salad is something that is used in board gaming. In board gaming it describes a game that you can get points in a ton of different ways. So point, and how does salad fit in, think about a buffet. At a buffet, you can make a salad and you have 20 different toppings, 8 different dressings, and a few different types of lettuce. So like you can get points in a ton of ways, you can make your salad at a buffet in a ton of different ways. So the name, Point Salad, plays off of this idea of basically everything you do gives you points. And while it doesn’t score you as many points as some point salad games do, if you draft well, basically every card should give you some points.

So, is this a good game? I definitely have more positive things about it then negative. For me, Point Salad is a great filler game, even with a higher player count, the game plays quite fast, and you can play a two player game in 15 minutes. I like the tongue in cheek nature of the game as well with the naming and the vegetables. I also like this game for newer gamers because it’s introduces tableau building and drafting, two things that show up in a lot of games. I think for a gaming group of very seasoned gamers who like heavy games, this won’t be a hit, but for most groups it’ll be good fun.

Overall Score: B+
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: A

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