North Star Games - Paint The Roses Board Game - Alice in Wonderland Strategy Puzzle Board Game - 2 to 5 Players - Average Playtime 60 Minutes

Product Information

After a successful guess, players may also choose to guess another player’s card. If they do so, The Red Queen only moves once players either choose to stop guessing or when they make an incorrect guess. All player pieces, tiles, cards, and miniature are of good quality. The miniatures in particular are nicely designed and each of them feels very unique. The acrylic tiles add a great value to the game compared to cardboard ones in the retail version and are definitely an upgrade to look after. That said, I do feel like the game moves fast. Just as I got into a really good groove, we would already be placing our last garden tile, which triggered the game ending. I do like that it means it'll always be a relatively short play (took us about 25 min each time) and that we can try to beat our previous records with each subsequent play. Another key aspect of the game you will experience is its strong sense of escalation. The Queen starts very slow but she progressively moves faster and faster giving you a strong sense of urgency. You soon realize that the better you play the faster the Queen will move and that she will always be very close to you when you arrive at laying the last tiles. It is not infrequent to place the last tile just to realize the Queen’s last move will chop off your head. Escape The Castle

Here’s a Medium card with a tile placed in the same position on the board. Remember, medium cards can either be color to color or shape to shape. Medium card example. If a correct guess is made, and the group chooses to stop, the queen moves at single speed which is equal to the number of flower tokens she holds (starts with 1, but gains an extra each time the team token passes a rabbit space). The Red Queen starts with a single red rose under her. This means for each correct guess she’ll only move one space closer. For each incorrect guess, she’ll move twice that number, or two spaces. As players move around the board, there are set spaces where, once you pass over them, The Red Queen acquires another rose. And another rose. Two roses means two spaces for a correct answer and four for an incorrect guess; three roses means three spaces for a correct guess and six for an incorrect guess. If the active player places, say, two cubes, on the tile they place, that gives you a lot of information about their card. If the other players don’t place a cube on the tile, it also tells you a lot about their cards. That information (“It’s not this color or this shape.”) only builds with each subsequent turn—and helps mitigate the feeling I initially had of dealing with too much imperfect information.For the player(s) who had their card correctly guessed by the others, it has a number on it to show how far your team token will move (Easy cards are pretty short, and Hard cards are pretty long). Overall, I really love Paint the Roses. I played some deduction games in the past but I feel this one gives a nice refreshing experience in the genre. It should definitely be considered in your collection if it is not already there. Final Score: 4.5 Stars – Beautifully produced deduction game that has some more depth than what you see on the surface. These cards represent the Red Queen’s whims regarding how she wants her garden arranged. Easy, Medium, and Hard cards. Guessing is just that—making a guess as to what is on a player’s card. After that, depending whether the guess was correct or not, The Red Queen will move a little or a lot.

Set in the puzzling world of Alice in Wonderland, you and your friends are the newly appointed Royal Gardeners. You are working together to finish the palace grounds according to the whims of the Queen of Hearts. Use strategy, logic, and teamwork to finish the garden whilst staying one step ahead of the Queen, otherwise, the last thing you hear will be, "Off With Their Heads!"However, this is where the game gets interesting. Do those two cubes mean a match between the diamond and the hearts? Or the diamond and the spade? What about the yellow rose and the two red roses? Or the two purple roses? Paint the Roses is a cooperative deduction game from North Star games set in the world of Alice in Wonderland. In the game 2 to 5 players play the role of newly appointed Royal Gardeners. Yes, I’m talking about the ones that are trying to paint the roses to match Queen of Hearts’ whims before she gets angry and cuts off their heads. The other players look at the two cubes and determine this could mean the card could be a match between diamond and diamond; diamond and heart; purple and purple; purple and pink; diamond and pink; diamond and purple; purple and heart. At the end of each turn, two things will happen: players must make a guess and The Red Queen will move. As in, move closer to you with her axe raised. When the active player places a tile on the board, all players look to see if the placed tile and the surrounding tiles match what is on their card. If so, they place their cubes on the tile as well.

You and your teammates win if the royal garden is filled without the Gardeners being caught by the Queen. If you are a fan of deduction games, routinely play with 3-4 players, and don’t mind having to really struggle with the first couple plays, I highly recommend Paint the Roses. Obviously, the added benefit of the depth is that you really benefit from additional plays as time goes on. And I highly recommend going for the deluxe edition as the expansion modules provide new wrinkles that give the game even more legs. What I like best about the Paint the Roses gameplay is how varied it can be. Each game feels different because you're drawing different tiles, placing them in different spots, and getting different cards. Plus adding on the character modules tweaks the game even farther, though we haven't tried many of those so far. I'm looking forward to digging deeper into these mini expansions to see which change the gameplay the most drastically. Each player will also get a whim card that shows a particular pairing of tiles the Queen would like to see. There are also three difficulties of whims. Easy difficulty shows “color-to-color,” a red tile next to a yellow tile, for example. Medium can be color-to-color or shape-to-shape. And hard whims can be either of those but may also be color-to-shape. Players attempt to fill the garden before the Queen catches up to them.

The game aims to work together to finish the palace garden according to a random set of cards that represent the Queen of Hearts’ whims. A nicely sculpted gardener miniature traces your progress while another one, the Queen, chases you. If the Queen reaches you before you complete your goals, the last thing you hear will be, "Off With Their Heads!" and the players will lose the game. Let’s get this to the table so you can see how Paint the Roses plays. The Best Way to Explain It Is to Do It

If you have ever spent an afternoon in a rose garden, you may have stopped to think about what the gardeners who put so much time into these flowers. The long hours in the sun. The constant threat of bees. The Queen of Hearts cutting off your head. You know, the usual. In Paint the Roses, you are playing as the gardeners in the Queen of Hearts’ Garden, trying to fulfil her whims. This is a co-operative puzzle deduction game where you are trying to fill the garden before the queen gets you. Do this, and you win but if she catches you, game over! Sounds intriguing, right? Let me tell you how to play. Set Up Although the trays look quite nice, I feel only the bottom tray adds some value to the game by organizing the cards and the expansions. All tiles could probably be better stored in the bag to be ready to be used instead of in the tray. Also, the tray does not have space for sleeved cards which for me is a big fail. The game aims to work together to finish the palace garden according to a random set of cards that represent the Queen of Hearts’ whims. A nicely sculpted gardener miniature traces your progress while another one, the Queen, chases you. If the Queen reaches you before you complete your goals, the last thing you hear will be, “Off With Their Heads!” and the players will lose the game. And of course, if you master all this, the deluxe edition has some mini-expansions that can be added to add even more to keep in mind throughout the game. These have so far universally been great and add a nice change to the base game. Final Thoughts:

Paint the Roses: The Caterpillar Kickstarter Module

In the box sits another organizer for all the Escape the Castle cards, as well as the other items used in the game.