How To Play Patchwork Doodle

In Patchwork Doodle, you goal is to make as big a square as you can. To do this, you all fill in shapes on your board, a starting shape, and then six more per round. At the end of each round you score the largest square you have. If in round two you have a 6 by 6 square, that is 36 points. But if you have a 6 by 6 square and two more rows of six, that’d be 38 points. At the end, most points win, with empty spots being worth negative one point each.

Plus you use special powers. There are three, kind of four, in the game. When using a shape, you can use either one to the left or right. You can fill in a single spot. You cut off part of a shape to split it into two, with a single cut, and put in either of those shapes instead. And I say kind of four, because the fourth, lets you use one of those other ones again.

What Doesn’t Work

There are two probably negatives to this game. Though one of them I am just speculating about at this point. I’ll talk about that one first. I think that Patchwork Doodle might have limited staying power. While the game is fun thus far, I wonder about the variability of the game. It reminds me of Second Chance, which isn’t a bad thing, because I liked Second Chance, you can see my review here. But as time and plays have gone by, I am less interested in playing it again. The game is playing similar each time. Patchwork Doodle might do the same.

And the bigger thing is that they have colored pencils. And colored pencils work well for the game, but the ones in the box suck. They really aren’t usable, they are too light and you need to work to fill in the spots on your quilt. We pulled out other colored pencils, but don’t use the ones in there. It is like Second Chance in that doodling is part of the fun of this game, another peaceful roll and write.

What Works

Patchwork Doodle teaches very simply and quickly. It glanced at the rules and that was it. I could teach my parents and wife in a few minutes. And they got what was going in the game. The powers maybe need a bit more in terms of teaching, but they are still easy. It’s really the left or right shape one that takes a tiny bit more teaching.

The strategy of the game is pretty fun as well. Yes, it is luck based, but it’s less lucky than Second Chance. You get to make choices when you pick how to use the powers. Especially the ability to cut the pieces down. That allows you to fit in pieces later. And while missing a piece/shape doesn’t knock you out of the game, it does certainly hurt your chances of winning.

Some people might not like this, but I liked it, that the game is generally quite close. The starting shapes are different, and that’ll change up how well you can score, but if you are paying attention to making a square, you do well. But it isn’t so thinky that you need to spend a lot of time figuring out that ideal move. When a simple game punishes people for not playing ideal, that’s not fun, but if it’s too complex a game that it forces scores close, not always fun either. This is a right balance.

The rolling and limited number of cards, six of the eight, actually works for me as well. It works in that it gives you something to pull for. You want to know what number is rolled because you want certain shapes to be landed upon. When a game makes you want something, that’s a good thing. It keeps you invested in the game because you want that one perfect shape to get added to your quilt.

Who Is Patchwork Doodle For?

I keep on talking about family, but I think that’s really what this game is for. Patchwork Doodle works well with people who are familiar with games, but aren’t gamers. They maybe have played games like Five Crowns, Phase 10, or Ticket to Ride. I likely won’t pull this out with gamer friends, but for a nice fast game between stuff, it works. But this is one for playing with those casual gamers in your life.

This game isn’t heavy and it isn’t going to be my favorite roll and write game, but that’s okay. To me, this is that same spot as Second Chance, it just offers that little bit more that I think makes it interesting. So if you are a gamer and you want something that is easy enough for family but interesting you, I like this one.

Patchwork Final Thoughts

This is a fun game, I think that it’ll stick around in my collection for a while. In fact, it might, though I doubt it, bump Second Chance off of the shelf. I personally don’t know that I need both, but my wife might want to keep Second Chance as a very easy game to pull off the shelf. Patchwork Doodle as fits the bill, it just has that tiny bit more going on.

I really wish that the pencils had been any good. But with the size of this game, I’m probably going to laminate six sheets and just play off of that. But generally speaking, I think this is one that a lot of people will enjoy, but unless played in a casual setting, that a lot of people won’t love.

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

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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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How It Plays

Calico is actually a very simple game. You are placing a hexagon tile on your board from two that you have and then replacing it with one in your “hand”. That’s a full turn. But there is a lot more thinking going on behind it. You are trying to get sets of three of a color next to each other so you can get buttons, which are points. You are trying to get groups of patterns so that you can attract cats, which are points. And you have goals which you are trying to match which give you points. The person with the most points wins the game.

The Scoring

So normally when I do a TableTopTakes review, I do what I don’t and do like in the game. In this case, since I want to play it more before I review it, I just look at some things I find interesting. Calico has some great scoring. In particular the scoring tiles. You have three different scoring objectives that go into your quilt. They aren’t too complex, it’ll be something like AA-BB-CC for 7 or 11 points. If you get either the three pairs matching colors or pattern surrounding that tile you score 7 points. If you get both to work, you get 11 points.

That doesn’t seem that difficult because you can mix and match how those patterns and colors go. I don’t need 2 dark blue stripes and 2 light blue dots, I could have a dark blue stripe and a light blue stripes and I have two stripes. But what makes it more challenging is you have three of these. And they are close enough to each other that they will share some tiles. That means you need to make those tiles work multiple times.

The Aesthetic

This game looks amazing. Beth Sobel did the artwork on it and it is just gorgeous. She also did the artwork for Wingspan. It’s easy to tell what everything is in the game, but you just want to spend the time looking at the cute cat artwork on the cat scoring tiles as well as the bigger cat tiles. This is a game with an amazing table presence.

Simplicity and Complexity

This game is interesting because it isn’t a difficult game to play. As I said, you simple put one of two tiles you have onto your quilt each turn. Then you take one of the three tiles available and end up with two tiles for the next turn. I like that the game is extremely easy to teach because of that. But the game offers so much in the way of decision making. In the game that I played, the player who won ended up with a lot of buttons and a lot of cats, scoring well in those two areas. I was only slightly behind scoring well on the objective tiles.

But you need to think about what you’re doing. You can’t ignore a single area and score really poorly. Plus you need to think about both patterns and colors. To get the higher scoring on a tile objective, you often are just looking for that one perfect tile to wrap it up. And if you aren’t careful it is really easy to mess up. For a game that is so simple there is a lot of turn angst that goes on. Which I love in a game.

Who Is This Game For?

So, I am going to finish this up with one question. I said that this game gives you turn angst and tough decisions, but the aesthetic and simplicity make it seem like it should be very accessible. Is this game too tough for someone who is more of a casual gamer? Most definitely not. This game is easy to play, the decisions can be tough if you want to put that full effort into it. But to do even okay in this game you can focus on one of the things, getting lots of buttons, getting lots of cats, or getting the objectives right. You don’t need to do amazingly at all of them to have fun in the game.

This is a game that will be great for families, it’ll be a game that I can take to my parents and play with them. They play games and this would make sense to them. And if the people like cats at all, it is a game that is worth playing with them. It also is going to be fun for all ages or languages. There is nothing you need to be able to read on in this game, so overall, just highly accessible.

The Not So Final Grade

So what grade would I give them game. My initial gut reaction says that this will settle into that B/B+ range for me. I like the game, I’m probably always going to be up to play it. But I might not always pull it off the shelf myself. And I could see that going higher just because of the fun of the puzzle of the game.

Have you played Calico? Do you like it, does it interest you?

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