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Calico
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Description
Calico
Calico might draw you in with it’s promise of cats and easy gameplay but it’s a devious trick! This is a brilliant mind melting game of optimal placement. Oh and cats.
Calico is primarily a tile drafting and laying game. Each round you will play one tile from your hand to your player board before choosing a replacement from a selection of three. The components themselves are nice thick and chunky tiles, and player boards are dual layered keeping everything in place.
Speaking of the player boards, this is where the action unfolds as you construct your patchwork duvet for the cats to moult on! Before the game starts you will choose or randomly draw three scoring tiles. These will reward you for specific combinations of tiles adjacent to them at the end of the game.
Each tile has a colour and a pattern and the scoring tiles have a request like AAA-BBB this means that the six tiles are either of two colours or two patterns to score, however if you manage to have both two colours and two patterns around the tile you will score more points! This is where the brain burn comes in as you try to maximise your points.
On top of this are cats and buttons! Buttons are added to the board at the point you join three of more tiles of the same colour. Cats have their own specific likes which are listed on their cards. Achieve it and that cat will slump on to your duvet and sleep.
Calico is one of those rare games that is easy to teach and understand but then gives you a lot to think about on your turn. While younger players will be able to play it, understanding the scoring and making best placement can be tricky! However the fun and tactile nature of the game make it a definite winner on game night!
Player count: 1-4
Time: 30-45 minutes
Age rating: 13+
Cats and Quilts; a purrrfect match!
If there was ever a time where we needed the cosy comfort of a warm, enveloping quilt and the calming company of a contented kitty cat, it is now. However, the dream team that is renowned illustrator Beth Sobel (you may have heard of a little game called Wingspan) and designer Kevin Russ have very different ideas in Calico. Please don’t let the cutesy cover fool you. Calico is a complex, puzzly, abstract tile-placement game and, from the look of the sleeping tabby on the box, one which under promises and massively over-delivers!
Ready, Set, Sew!
A game for 1 – 4 players, Calico is very simple to set up. In a normal multiplayer game, each player receives a unique colour coded player board (quilt) and a corresponding set of six goal tiles, four of which are chosen at random. Out of those four, three are then placed on the marked spaces and form a player’s personal objectives for the game.
Three cat cards are also selected from the available pool of ten (showing different levels of difficulty) and two black and white pattern tiles are assigned to each of those chosen kitties. These are the cat’s players will try to entice onto their personal quilts as they are sewn together during the game.
The small button and corresponding cat tokens are placed within easy reach and each player takes two coloured patch tiles from the communal bag into their hand. 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. And that’s it; it’s sewing time!
On every turn (22 in total), each player will be carrying out two steps; (1) placing a tile from their hand onto an empty space on their quilt board; and (2) picking a tile from the draw pile and placing it into their hand ready for the next round. The draw pile is then replenished with a tile from the communal bag so that the draw pile is full for the next player’s turn.
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!
Similarly, if patch placement has secured a pattern sequence printed on any of the cat cards, a little cat token can cosy up onto one of the relevant tiles on that player’s quilt and will score the relevant number of victory points shown on the corresponding card (and underneath the token itself). Play it just right and it is even possible to pull off killer-combo moves gaining cats, buttons, and goals in a single turn; enough point booty to make even the greatest Street Fighter fan weep into their bandaged hands!
Haberdashery Health Warning; once a group or sequence has scored, those patches cannot form another group of identical tiles for scoring purposes……so choose wisely my little sew and sews!
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.
Moreover, if you can place tiles in a way that satisfies both pattern and colour around a particular goal, you’ll be squaring up to stitch up your opponents when it comes to final scoring as the hefty yellow point values become yours for the taking!
Buttons, Bags, and Boards
Whilst it doesn’t dictate play, I have to give a special mention to the quality and attention to detail that has gone into the components; they are quilt simply wonderful. From the double-layered, chunky player boards which help to lock in tiles during a game, to the thick printed bag, and extra stitching annotations on the patches, the team behind Calico have not left one button hanging by a thread. And that is before we even start admiring the illustrations depicting Coconut, Millie, Leo, and the gang of feline friends (not directly, mind you – have you ever tried to win a staring competition with a cat?!).
Continuing in the same vein, this high level of care carries through into the fully formed solo campaign and the easy to read rule book which also contains the personal histories of the purrrfect pussycats inspiring the game’s creator. It is also encouraging to see a proactive decision by the designer to make this colour-centric game accessible to those players with colour vision deficiency; each patch having a specific symbol correlating to its matching colour button shape so that everybody can play the game to its full potential without being disadvantaged. The use of black and white pattern tiles for the cat cards is also a particularly neat thematic touch given the limited spectrum of colours cats are known to recognise.
Final thoughts
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.
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. Whilst it is of course entirely possible to play an intense game of Calico in multiplayer solitaire mode, the added crunch really comes when you factor in your opponents; what tiles are they collecting?
Do they know what I am collecting? Are there any patches I can use? Will the placement of a patch achieve one of my goals but ruin all the others I have been building up through the course of the game? Would I be better off scrapping my goals and going for buttons and cats instead? Argh!
Now, this can be a nightmare for analysis paralysis sufferers and the sudden inability to commit can seriously affect the momentum and flow of the gameplay. On this basis, Calico probably won’t appeal to those who like fast-paced machine-gun style rounds and direct player interaction, or to those who dislike luck-driven experiences.
But, similar to other AP inducing games like duelling Battle Line, unique-euro Targi, and runaway bag-building successes like The Quacks of Quedlingburg, the blind panic and fist-shaking frustration these mechanics cause create an exquisite pain and dials up replayability to the max leaving fans desperate for more purrrrrrfect punishment.
Overall, Calico is a game with its claws out and I cannot wait to get scratched again!
Purring like a contented kitty, Calico sits on my shelf. Quiet, calm, inviting. After all, it’s got cats and quilts on the cover. BUT! Don’t be fooled. Even in solo mode, this game is a spatial, scoring optimisation puzzle that ties me up in knots!
If you haven’t yet checked out the multiplayer review, you can find that here. And there are a few hints in there to level up your point scoring as you buckle in for this cat-tastic ride! For now, however, I’m going to take you briefly through my solo experiences in Calico.
Sewing Solo
Setting up a basic Beat Your Own Score (BYOS) solo game is simple. You take a board and select 3 out of the 6 colour coordinated design goal tiles at random which go on the marked spaces. 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. Finally, grab the bag of colourful quilt tiles, give yourself two as a starting hand, and then place 3 quilt tiles on the table to form your draw pool (“market”). The bag then goes to the left of the market. That’s it! You are ready to rumble in the quilted jungle!
So, on your turn, (22 in total); you carry out three actions:
(1) place a tile from your hand onto any empty space on your quilt board;
(2) pick a tile from the market and place it into your hand ready for the next round; and
(3) Discard the market tile furthest to the right of the bag, slide the remaining tile along and then refill the two spaces from the bag.
As your turns pass, you’ll be building your quilt in the same way as in multiplayer mode – having one eye on achieving colour based button and pattern connected cat bonuses, and the other on achieving the design goal tiles! Thankfully with nobody else playing, you won’t need a third eye to factor in hate-drafting opportunities!
Solo Good
Once I became familiar with the beautiful brain pain that is Calico BYOS, I cracked into the Scenarios. And the designers have put a lot of effort into making Calico a crunchy-munchy delight for us single players!
10 scenarios in total, they specify a number of additional requirements when setting up and playing the game. Going from easy to hard, each one shows which design goals and cat scoring tiles to use. Not only that, however, but they also show which type of cats and buttons you need to have added to your quit, and whether those goals have to be met using colour, pattern, or both! And if that’s not enough, every one has a minimum score to achieve! I need to lie down after that! Or I would, if my Calico quilt wasn’t so poorly crafted! Haha
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.
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
I love Calico. And I love Calico solo as much as I love it in multiplayer mode. But it feels like s a slightly different game. Not because there’s only you around the table (although that is different). Rather, it has to do with the tile-discard mechanic. It works really well to simulate another player taking a tile away – you don’t have to think, pick, or try and score for an AI (and there’s nothing more vexing than a solo mode where you have to spend time thinking about how to optimise a turn for the dummy player/automa!).
The game is different because you basically have some insider information – you always know which tiles are going to be discarded at the end of your turn. So if you know you are going to want one for later, you can take it into your hand (obeying the two tile limit). Playing against another human, their preferences may be obvious from their board, but you don’t actually know which tile they are going to take until they pick it up (and look at you, smiling, as they know they have just hate-drafted the tile you wanted!).
Luck of the draw is still there in the market replenishing stage. But overall it does feel a little more controlled. And that’s not a bad thing at all because those Scenarios are hard! And I am always up for anything to help me smash this catty, crunchy, space optimising super puzzle of a game!
The other indulgence that I get to enjoy in Calico solo is analysis paralysis. Many see this as a bad thing. Admittedly, it can be frustrating in multiplayer mode. Downtime between turns extending into the ether is not fun for anybody. But in solo mode, there is no pace. There is no pressure to get my turn done so that someone else can have their go before their patience runs out. And I love the exquisite brain burn that comes with having zero clue as to what to do for the best. To be faced with a number of options and have a mini-panic over lack of instinctive action. In real life, it is my absolute worst nightmare. In my job and out of it, I have to be in control 24/7 or I have a full-blown panic. In the safe confines of a board game like Calico, however, it is like peeking over the fence to see how the other half live. To experience consequence-limited indecision for just a moment. And in Calico, it’s terrifyingly glorious!
It’s Calico time… Okay, so you’ve got your cat and you’ve got your quilt. But how do you turn those beauties into points? Well, have no fear for I am here to show you how to play the purrrrrfectly puzzly Calico!
Sewing Up
I’ll run through the 2-4 player mode here, but, check out the Solo Review tab for single player rules.
Now, there is a specific “Beginner Set up” in the rulebook but the only real difference there is that it specifies which Cats and Design Goal tiles to use (and where to place them). So we are going to jump into a regular game so you can hit the ground running!
S0, start by giving each player a unique colour coded player board (quilt) and corresponding set of six design goal tiles. Pop the cat tokens and button tokens within easy reach. Everybody then chooses 4 of the tiles at random and then further narrow this down to 3. Those get placed on the slots on their board (wherever they like) and the others are returned to the box.
(NB: for added competition, we tend to select 3 at random and then have everybody place the same ones in the same slots on their own boards).
3 Cat scoring tiles are chosen at random – 1 from each group (1, 2 or 3 dots to signify complexity) – and 2 black and white patches are randomly slotted in underneath each one.
Give the bag of patch tiles a big shake and everybody takes two into their hand. Finally, 3 patches are randomly picked to form the market.
And that’s it! You are ready to play nice……or scrap like alley cats!
On Your Calico Turn
On your turn (and you’ll have 22 in total), you will be carrying out two steps;
- placing a tile from your hand onto any empty space on your quilt board (there’s no adjacency rule here); and then
- picking a tile from the draw pile and placing it into your hand ready for the next round.
(NB: Once a tile has been placed it cannot be moved. Also, the market is replenished with a tile from the communal bag as soon as your turn ends so that there are 3 tiles in readiness for the next player’s turn).
Now, each patch tile you place in Calico is going to have the potential to score points or ruin your chances of scoring points! And that is because those Design Goals are sneaky! And they can often contradict each other in what they need in order to be satisfied! But you do have two chances per goal.
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!
The lower blue points just need colour or pattern. So in the AA-BB-CC example, so long as you have e.g. 2 blue + 2 yellow + 2 green patches or 2 stripes + 2 spots + 2 ferns, you’ll have achieved that objective and will score 7 points at end game!
Button It, Kitty
But Design Goals aren’t the only way to score points in Calico (phew!).
If you can also (or alternatively) connect at least three patches of the same colour, you can sew (add) a colour co-ordinated button onto any one of those matching patches which is worth 3 points at end game. Indeed, get a button of each of the six available colours and the rainbow bonus token is yours!
Similarly, if your patch placements have connected a number of tiles of the same pattern in a configuration that satisfies one of those hard to please Cats, you can add the corresponding cat token onto your quilt and you’ll score the relevant number of victory points shown on the cat at end game.
And the partial tiles around the edge of your unique board count when it comes to totting up matches for buttons and cats. So build off them if you can!
NB: play your tiles right and you might even achieve a purrrfect combo move gaining cats, buttons, and goals in a single turn; enough points to make even the judgiest of felines flick their tail in wicked delight!
The game ends when the last player has placed their final tile. Then it’s time to score. And, in case you forget which features give you points, there’s a cute little score pad inside to help you tot up your totals for Design goals, cats, and buttons!
When you’re feeling kitty-cat confident, there are also some Achievements you can work through which include added rule restrictions and 10 complete scenarios for games with even more crunch! But I’ll let you explore those for yourselves because right now I need to get back to my Calico game – we are scrapping over prize tiles like territorial alley cats!
Zatu Score
You might like
- Cats and quilts - what's not to like?!
- Challenging, crunchy puzzle with an integrated solo campaign
- Deceptively tactical but can be played with claws retracted!
Might not like
- Analysis paralysis may disrupt the momentum in a multiplayer game