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I’m loving small box games right now. Perhaps it is because life is super busy. A few cards cards or tiles feels mentally manageable. Anything with eleventy billion tokens, or a rule book you could use to KO a horse out just isn’t happening right now.
Luckily for me, ENVY Board Games has recently published a series of small games including Sirens and Confusing Lands. Like Sirens, Confusing Lands is for 1-2 players, and takes around 10 minutes to go from box to table and back again.
Not so Confusing!
In the game, we are each creating a land full of specific features that compete for space and scoring. And, thankfully, it is super easy to learn.
Each turn you draft two cards. You play one and then pass the other to your opponent You can play the card using either the front side for its icons, or play it on the reverse side. If you do this, the card will include a specific scoring objective. And each new card must be patched onto an existing card, either horizontally or vertically, by covering at least one grid square of the card being covered.
When each land contains 8 cards, the game is over and it is time to score. The scoring objectives in your own land as well as the one shared objective are totalled, and the winner is the player with the most points!
Final Thoughts!
Confusing Lands is a light, placement optimisation, portable, soloable, micro 18 card game. If you like the Buttonshy range of games then you will know the format. I love multi-use cards for their efficiency and each card in this game has a dual reason for being there. I also love it when I have to decide between using a card as an objective, or as a resource. And this is the main thrust of Confusing Lands – do I use one side for its collection of icons to further an existing (or future) objective? Or do I capitalise on what I have, or could potentially collect by end game? That decision dilemma creates a fun spot of tension within a limited decision space. It’s made extra sharp by the fact that each time I place an objective, I know I need to score as high as possible because end game scoring will deduct negative 10 VPs for each one I display!
Pick and pass aka close drafting always feels really personal in 2P games – every card you give away is basically an invitation to your opponent to beat you with your own selection decision, and I really like that aspect of Confusing Lands
I enjoy the solo mode too - discarding the top card and taking the card underneath to play in my land mimics the close drafting in MP mode well. With only 2 cards per round, I'm also not missing out on the back and forth that can happen in solo modes where all unplayed cards simply get discarded each round.
The scoring objective icons on the cards are mostly easy to understand. I admit that I did have to check a few but luckily the rule book has a glossary of them all. Plus they become familiar pretty soon. The artwork is also simple, but bright and bold.
Confusing Lands is another super-fast, super portable option from Envy Board Games. It provides a quick hit of satisfactory placement optimization, and scratches my need for a puzzle itch!
