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Tucano is a simple game where you are a toucan trying to collect the tastiest fruit and avoid the ones that will upset your little birdy tummy. From that description it may sound like a throwaway children’s game but dismiss this game at your peril, it’s really rather good.
How Does It Play?
Tucano is a game of open drafting and set collection with a side-serving of stitching up your opponents. You will take it in turns to choose from three piles of face-up cards. These cards are then taken into your collection. Then one more card is put into each of the three piles. At the end of the game, you will score depending on the sets of cards you have collected.
Tucano consists of 70 cards: 58 fruit cards and 12 toucan cards. The fruit cards are, amazingly enough, cards with pictures of fruit on them. They also show how different sets of these cards score. For instance, a set of four blueberries will get you 5 points, but a set of six will get you a whopping 13 points. The toucan cards let you mess with your opponents and also protect your own cards.
Is The Take-That Really Annoying?
Normally, I don’t like take-that games but due to the short length of this game and the gentle nature of the take-that, I actually enjoy it a lot here. One of the toucan cards lets you give one of your fruit cards to an opponent. This doesn’t sound that good until you realise that some of the fruits give you negative points. If you have one lime card you get -2 points. But if you’ve got two then it's -8 points! Now imagine that your opponent already has one lime card and you gift them another. Glee and evil chuckling ensue.
Even better are the orange cards. One orange gets you 4 points, two 8 points, and three 12 points. But four oranges get you nothing! Yep, 0 points for a set of four cards. So, if your opponent already has three oranges and you oh-so-kindly gift them another, well, the word guffaw doesn’t do it justice. For me, the player interaction in this game is spot on.
How Long Does A Game Take?
All of that skulduggery would be hard to take in a long game, but a game of Tucano can be knocked out in 15 minutes. It really doesn’t outstay its welcome and is the sort of game that is very easy to play a few games of in quick succession.
How Well Does It Scale?
Tucano can be played with two to four players. Although it plays okay at the larger player counts it really shines at two players. You get to collect a lot of cards and it is easier to remember the cards your opponent has. One of the toucan cards lets you bank all of your cards so far so that your opponent can’t mess with them. But the cards all get collected up into a pile and flipped face down and neither you nor your opponent can look at them again. This requires some memory work. Has my opponent got two or three oranges already? Will I scupper them by giving them an extra orange or am I just giving them four points? This is a lot more fun at two players as it is a lot easier to track what your opponent has.
At four players, it is less likely that any one player will ever have three oranges so those moments of evil hilarity happen less frequently. The game doesn’t feel as satisfying when you collect fewer cards. Even so, it is perfectly fine at four players. Playing with two players is my strong recommendation though.
Replayability
I have now played over 50 games of this at two players and it constantly amazes me how many times it throws up new and interesting situations. There are also many different strategies you can go for. Do you go for the cards that get you more points if you have the majority of them? Do you try to collect the fruits that get you a lot of points if you have four of them? Or do you just try to collect a lot of cards and pick up points from numerous sources? As an added extra bit of gameplay spice, there is a rainbow card that can count as any other fruit card. Funnily enough, this is a card that regularly gets stolen. I was initially dubious about Tucano’s longevity but after 50 plays, I’ve found it is not an issue at all.
Complexity
For me, Tucano has now become a staple game to play at the end of an evening of gaming. It is a fun way to wind down. It is a light game that doesn’t overtax the brain. Some decisions are no-brainers. For instance, one pile contains a lot of cards including the rainbow card. I’ll take those, thank you very much. Whereas some decisions get you scratching your head. It’s not just what you’re taking, it’s what you’re leaving for your opponent. You don’t want to leave your opponent a steal card in another pile when you know you’ve got the rainbow card, but that pile with a papaya and a red onion could lead to huge points. Decisions, decisions…
It says on the box that Tucano is for ages 6-99. What happens when I hit 100? Will the nurse in the nursing home throw my copy in the bin and say, “Not for you now, matey?”. As for the younger end, I think 6-year-olds would need some help with negative numbers and adding up the scores at the end of the game. It feels like the look is appropriate for 6-year-olds but the gameplay is more suitable for 7-8+.
Fun With Fruit
If you too like gently annoying your partner by incorrectly referring to fruits, then this game is for you. Tucano includes these well-known fruits: the king tomato, the alien fruit, and the red onion. Okay, these may be referred to in the rules as pomegranate, lychee, and figs respectively but where’s the fun in that? Here’s how a typical conversation goes:
- “I really need that other red onion.”
- “It’s a fig.”
- “Well, why have they drawn a picture of a red onion then.”
- “They haven’t. It’s a fig.”
- “It’s not a fig. Figs come wrapped in that sort of cakey pastry stuff.”
- “That’s a fig roll. Oh, I give up.”
How Does The Game Look?
Everything about Tucano is charming: the shape, size, and feel of the box, the narrow cards, and the simple colourful artwork. It is a perfect look for this sort of game. The game is light and fun, as is the art. The card quality is fine. No linen finish here but for such a quick game it’s not a problem.
Conclusion
If I had to sum up Tucano in one word, that word would be “fun”. It is similar to Sushi Go Party and unlike that game, it has flown under the radar. But is it too simple for someone who likes heavy games? I love Spirit Island, Gloomhaven, and Sleeping Gods. But sometimes I want to play a fun, relaxing game that only takes fifteen minutes. Tucano fits this perfectly. It really is a hidden gem of a game.
