CALICO (2020)

PLAYERS	TIME	DESIGNER	PUBLISHER
1-4	30-45 mins	Kevin Russ	Flatout Games / AEG

What starts out as a relaxing game that has players making a nice cat enticing quilt, eventually turns into a devious tile laying puzzle that will have you cursing under your breath when the wrong colour hex gets drawn from the bag.

With only . . . three . . . turns . . . left.

CALICO does that amazing job of being easy to teach, and simple to play, but with a second layer below that which is full of tactics and puzzle.

All you do on your turn is choose one of the two tiles in your hand to place on your board. Then pick a replacement from a selection of three. And finally draw a new tile from the bag.

Rinse and repeat.

But the board, with its three scoring goals, each with colour and pattern objectives, makes every decision important. Something you lay early can have massive consequences in the later stages.

And the only thing worse than the tile you want not showing up? When it does, but someone else takes it before you can.

CALICO rewards players who plan a little, but pivot a lot. You’ll do well to work out which battles you walk away from so that you don’t mess up your whole board.

Its components are as simple as the rules. Card, card, and more card. But the double layer player boards are exactly what was needed. The cat and button tokens are cute. And the art by @bethsobel works perfectly with the subject matter.

The game also has a nice selection of cats and scoring tokens so that there is variety in the set up. Some people might not like the hard thinky second half to CALICO. And if you get frustrated by players taking that one thing you needed, I’d say stay clear.

CALICO is like a lot of cats. It starts off cute and cuddly, but the more you play with it, the more feisty it gets, and by the end, you’re lucky to walk away with your sanity.

Or is that just my cat?