Alderac Entertainment Group | Calico | Board Game | 1 to 4 Players | Ages 10+ | 30 to 45 Minute Playing Time, Multicolour, 23.88 x 23.88 x 7.11 cm

Product Information

We would like to express our immense gratitude to the backers listed below the images who made Calico a success on Kickstarter in Fall 2019! Whether I do well in a game of Calico or badly, it feels like that will always be because of the choices I made with the tiles that were available. Players will build a deck of crop cards and, each round, simultaneously arrange the cards to maximize their yield. The setup of the forest grid and twilight and moonlight goals along with concoction cards and special player abilities in each game provide great variability so that no two games of Nocturne will play out the same.

I’d recommend Catan as an alternative to Calico for anyone who wants a family board game but isn’t a massive fan of cats (or quilts! As with other abstract games of a similar ilk (think Sagrada and Azul), Calico requires a lot of forward-thinking in relation to a number of simultaneous, competing objectives and both your plans and ultimate success are dependent upon not only the luck of the tile draw but also the motivations of others. Although Cascadia’s rules are as simple as pick one, place one, the game offers multiple layers of modularity and challenging decision-making to keep even the most seasoned gamers coming back for more!The gameplay reflects that with a laid back, low stress creative environment to explore and play in.

If however they’re fortunate enough to match both color and patterns, they’ll earn 11 points instead. Calico is a quilt and cat themed board game designed by Kevin Russ and released by Flatout Games via Kickstarter in 2020, with a retail release from AEG soon thereafter. Calico Calico might draw you in with it’s promise of cats and easy gameplay but it’s a devious trick! Cats, patterns, cute little buttons, and bright colours all just add up to tick a lot of boxes for me. You then choose 3 cat cards at random placing 2 monochromatic pattern tiles under each, and put the button and cat tokens within easy reach.The player boards are double-layered, so they’re thick enough for the tiles to slot in without moving around or becoming damaged over time. Landmarks give each environment its own look and feel, while also providing dynamic endgame scoring bonuses! Finally, three more patch tiles are removed from the bag and placed in the central area between the boards to make up the draw pile. There are also other achievements set out in the rule book (minimum scores and rule restrictions) which aren’t listed as being used in solo mode. Because this is a prototype I can’t comment on these specific components, but I can tell you how hard the team worked to produce the copy that I was given to review.