Snowhere

Let’s not beat about the bush, I’m about the jump over the carpet of flames and into to a snow drift to get into the nitty gritty of Snowhere. A co-operative card game where I’m still not sure whether it’s telling me or asking me about snow, is the ‘snow here’ or ‘sno where?’

A game for one or more players, where you must work together to extinguish the flames with soft powdery snow, because it appears the world is on fire…

Sno Where?

Within this neat little box you’ll find 111 duel sided cards, one side will be filled with flames and the other a blanket of snow, and the premise is quite simple, flip as much of the fire as you can to spread the snow to stop the blaze in its tracks.

You’ll start by randomly spreading out all the cards fire side up in somewhat of a messy display, but also so each of the cards partially covers one another. You’ll need to extinguish the blaze by taking one of the flame ridden cards that is not covered by any other, then flip it to its snow side and place it on the fire.

There are of course a handful of rules to picking up flame cards and placing snow cards. As mentioned before, to allow fire cards to be picked up they should not be covered by anything else however there is a small caveat to that as they can still be picked up, if the card is only covered by at most one other card, and by no more than 1mm. Snow cards when placed cannot sit exactly on top of an existing fire card, and if placed next to another snow card must overlap that card and not sit edge to edge. And of course at all times the other cards not in play must not move, and therein lies the biggest challenge of the game!

All snow cards are placed immediately unless they feature a giant snow flake (there are 6 of these in all) if they do you save these until you can pick up no more fire cards and hopefully they will cover the gaps and help you put out any remaining embers.

Snow Here!

Snowhere comes with a great instruction guide and even include a reference card (and oh boy do I love a reference card!) but theres little else in the box. As part of the Nature Line games it boast no plastic but the cards are still great quality and although the artwork is simplistic – particularly the snow side – it does the job.

The problem is with such a simple game, the execution need to be on point and snowhere is a little way off which means the game can end up being quite frustrating. Its one glaring drawback is the constant movement of the cards. Even with the steadiest hand, the cards that you cannot let move are constantly moving and when that’s the whole premise of the game it’s kind of an issue. The cards themselves are not smooth and have a linen like texture, so I can’t see how that could be improved upon. But with most turns there is movement and the cards can just suddenly shift, so when your planning ahead which card you’re going to go for next only to find its now covered when it wasn’t before you can start to lose interest. Perhaps it’s all part of the game but for me, its takes away the enjoyment and the goal seems ever more unachievable.

Im also not a fan in general of the messy mixey upey pile of cards start in any game but as this is a co-operative it feels you could easily set it up to help you finish. Again this may be an intended technique of the game but it’s not for me.

Snow Joke

Snowhere is a super simple idea that I really like but unfortunately the execution of the game is nowhere near as slick as it needs to be. On this occasion sadly I can’t think of any house rules or adjustments we can make which would make this game more enjoyable and play smoother for us. Perhaps I’m being too critical or a little straight laced but there is too much ambiguity for this to be enjoyable for me.

Having said that there are lots of positives going for this game, it’s really quick to learn, so all ages can join in. If you have a mixed ability group the lateral thinkers could help to tactically decide which cards for the most dextrous to pick up and place. The setup is really quick (even if it makes me shudder) so your good to go in seconds and the games can be as long or a short as you want, all depends how long it takes you to make a decision. You really do have to think a few moves ahead, and you never know what moving a card will reveal.

If you’re after a simple co-op and you’re not as anal as I am about the details, then this could be for you.