Calico

A cute euro, probably best at 2-3 given the limited interaction (I find after playing 4 or 5 games that I'm solidly not interested in trying to block someone else). It's best played remembering one thing: your plans are trash, sorry, just accept it. "ok, I guess I'm not going to get either cat patterns or the double bonus for any of my goals" is how I've done the best since the tiles that will be coming out are unknown and under 4p (without houserules) you miss so many tiles.

So, why do I rate this (now) a 4 and Castles of Burgundy a 3 (which at a decision space and mechanical level is fairly close)? Well, I love cats. Second, the tile makeup and how little information that you have at your disposal causes the game to trend towards mitigation, not optimization or blocking as I find it did during my plays of CoB.

edit: down to a strong 4. The limited market means that you are rewarding lucky pattern matching in the tile draws. I wonder if the game would be more interesting if the tile pipeline was smoothed out so fewer didn't make it into the game or if the color patterns are just a stumbling block for our group.

edit2: I almost want to have a bigger market of say, 6 tiles, play at 2p, and pick one and chuck one so there is better interest in the market. This may become an art project more than a game on the shelf.

The most amazing wonderful, handcrafted just for me, copy ever made!!!

Kickstarter Edition

Good game! Though there is too much of luck of the draw to be a great game! Absolutely worth the occasional play.

Kickstarter Promo - Cats

Calico has good ideas that are dragged down by how inflexible the gameplay is. The permutations of various kinds of goal tiles and scoring opportunities encourage strategizing a board layout, but being able to build the layout is at the whim of the draw. Your opponents' need for these tiles encourages hate drafting, but there's not enough flexibility in the board to actually do it.

Only one play - the cute theme belies the brainburning of the tile laying.