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Players work on building their beautiful quilts in ways which achieve victory points. For example, if by placing a tile, a player is able to connect at least three patches of the same colour, they can sew a colour co-ordinated button onto any one of those matching patches and that is worth 3 points at the end of the game. Indeed, get a button of each of the six available colours and the rainbow bonus token is yours! Don’t get me wrong, I know it isn’t groundbreaking, but it’s so accessible. It’s fairly compact, it’s easy to teach and to learn, there are a few different things you can focus on doing, which is great as a new player, and one of those things is “laying tiles in such a way as to attract these adorable cats that are also worth a bunch of points”. Even if I didn’t love the game myself, I would still be glad it exists. My delightful quilt after a game of Calico.
You can earn buttons thanks to the colors on your patch tiles. To sew on a button, you must first make a group of three or more patch tiles of the same color. The shape of this group doesn’t matter. Turns are simple. Select a single patch tile from your hand and sew it into your quilt, then draw another patch into your hand from the three available. If you are able to create a color group, you may sew a button onto your quilt. If you are able to create a pattern combination that is attractive to any of the cats, it will come over and curl up on your quilt! A button is worth three points. Once you have formed a group, you can take a button token and place it onto your quilt on the group that was most recently formed.
Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement. I’ve been trying to work out what it is about these simple-ruleset/formidable gameplay games that I like so much, and the main thing I can come up with is that no matter how well or badly I do, it will never be because of a rules mistake. I might have to try and hold a lot of different bits of information in my head, but I’ll never misinterpret some card and end up with fewer resources than what I was counting on. 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. It’s obvious that the game has been exceptionally well designed down to the very last detail, much like the board game Sleeping Gods . Players compete to create the best quilt by playing a quilt tile on each turn on their personal player board. [3] Then players draw a new tile from one of three available in a public market. If a player has placed three connected tiles of the same color, they may place a button of that color on their board which will score them points at the end of the game. [4] Placing tiles with matching patterns attracts cats which are also worth points, which can also be scored by placing the right number of colored or patterned tiles around preset goal tiles. [4] The most points wins the game. Calico is certainly an unusual board game, and in many ways, it’s much like marmite; you either love it or hate it.
Turns are simple. Select a single patch tile from your hand and sew it into your quilt, then draw another patch into your hand from the three available. If you are able to create a color group, you may sew a button onto your quilt. If you are able to create a pattern combination that is attractive to any of the cats, it will come over and curl up on your quilt! At the end of the game, you score points for buttons, cats, and how well you were able to complete your unique quilt pattern.
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. But I often use them when playing alone if I am not in the mood to sit down to a full-blown scenario. To score the higher yellow Design Goal points shown on the tile, you have to achieve it for both colour and pattern. For example AA-BB-CC means that you have to encircle that goal tile with 6 tiles comprising 3 pairs of the same colours and patterns. They don’t have to be identical pairs, but the 6 tiles must comply with the goal. E.g. you could have 1 yellow fern + 1 blue fern + 1 blue spot + 1 green spot + 1 green stripe + I yellow stripe as that would equal 2 x yellow, 2 x green, 2 x blue, 2 x stripe, 2 x fern, 2 x spots! 11 points thank you kindly! But if you like strategy games and you can appreciate high-quality illustrations, this is a brilliant choice. It’s something different, and since so many board games on the market today share similar stories and gameplay, that’s very refreshing.
Calico is a puzzly tile-laying game of quilts and cats. In Calico, players compete to sew the coziest quilt as they collect and place patches of different colors and patterns. Each quilt has a particular pattern that must be followed, and players are also trying to create color and pattern combinations that are not only aesthetically pleasing, but also able to attract the cuddliest cats! Fit to Print is a puzzly tile-laying game about breaking news, designed by Peter McPherson and set in a charming woodland world created by Ian O’Toole! The player will encounter many animals in the world of Calico. Once befriended, you can name them, add them to your party, or send them to their new home at the café. Animals in your party will follow you everywhere you go and listen to your commands. The animals in your café will relax and play with any customers that pop in for a visit. Point Saladis a fast and fun card drafting game for the whole family. There are over 100 ways to score points. Players may use a variety of strategies and every game of Point Saladis unique!
You can also use the family variant and lower-variant two player mode (which takes away one of the patterns) when playing solo. But in true confessional style, I went in hard on my first game and wouldn’t be able to dial down the crunch now. As such, I can’t say what these are like! Top Quality Quilting From the team that brought you the smash hit Point Salad, Point City is a fast and fun card-drafting engine-building game for the whole family! There are over 150 unique building cards, so you can create a completely different city each and every time you play! Now, the needle sharp-eyed amongst you will have spotted two things. Firstly, that around the edge of the quilt boards are pre-printed partial/whole patches. These are sew helpful as they can form part of any pattern or colour sequence you are trying to achieve. Secondly, whilst you might have a quilt bursting with buttons and/or covered in cats, there are some meaty victory points up for grabs if one or more of your three objectives can be achieved during the game.
In Calico, players compete to sew the coziest quilt as they collect and place patches of different colors and patterns. If you want a game with a high degree of interactivity, I will say now that Calico is not it. The most you do is draft from the same “market” of tiles, but in the five or so games I’ve played it’s never worth it to “hate draft” because you always have to place the tiles you take, and each tile is so impactful. You’ll only get to place 22 tiles through the game to maximise your score and reach your goals. The set-up is delightfully simple and the form factor is really compact. Personally, I really love abstract games, but when there is a theme, (even a loose one) it does need to be something engaging and enjoyable for me. For example, the game Ingenious is very abstract and has no theme at all, and that is fine by me. The Undaunted games are a good example of where the theme is very strong and in a way that doesn’t work for me – I strongly dislike military and war themes, doubly do if they are based on real-life. Calico, on the other hand, could be themeless like Ingenious, or it could be themed around the military or something else, but instead, it’s themed around quilts and cats. It’s soothing even if the gameplay is challenging and I believe that is really important. Crunchy difficult deeply thinky games don’t have to be themed in a traditional way to do well and have a wide appeal. It feels like a step forward for the board game industry.There is an element of strategy involved which gives the board game a wide appeal, but it isn’t so complex that younger children would struggle to play. Full disclosure time; I am a huge fan of this spatial, creative puzzle and not just because, due to family allergies, this is the only way I can cuddle up with a cat! The depth it reaches is very deceptive; it looks light but plays deep and that’s very clever. We also have a few surprises for the Calico fans like variations of the rules and mechanics in the campaign play. In addition to the well-known gameplay scenarios, new ones await to be discovered. Point City late pledges are open here HERE: https://gamefound.com/projects/flatout-games/2023-releases
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