Cascadia Review
The great outdoors is the inspiration for many board games. With nature clearly being a fan favourite, perhaps others like me, prefer the great indoors and to live vicariously through their board games! Cascadia is one of only a few nature-themed games that has secured its place on the Board Game Geek Top 100. If you’re wondering why, you’ve come to the right place. Get comfy and we will crack on with the review…
©boardgamereview.co.uk
Setup
First thing to do is remove habitat tiles according to the Setup in the rulebook depending on player count. Choose a set of Wildlife Scoring Cards and lay them out for all to see. Then, give each player a random starting board and decide on the first player. Place stacks of the remaining habitat tiles face down, the bag of wildlife tokens and nature tokens within easy reach. Finally reveal four habitat tiles face up, and four nature tokens to create the market. Set up is now complete! It all should be done in a jiffy!
©boardgamereview.co.uk
Gameplay
The gameplay is very simple, on your turn you take one of the four face up tiles, and the animal token that has been allocated beside it. The tile has to go adjacent to your starter board or another tile, and the token has to be placed on a tile with a matching symbol. If that tile has a nature token on it, you also take the nature token.
If ever you want to mix things up you can spend a nature token to take a tile and any token rather than the one it is paired with. However, unspent nature tokens are points at the end of the game and they can be tricky to get so they need to be utilised wisely.
Tiles and tokens are replaced after every turn so there is always four to choose from. If ever there are three matching animal tokens on offer, you can choose to wipe those and redraw three new tiles. However, if four matching animal tokens are ever present, they must be wiped and replaced. Wiped tiles go back into the draw bag after the new ones have been placed.
Your aim is to make large realms of matching habitats and to fulfil the scoring objectives on the set of animal cards you chose during setup. You get points per tile of each habitat in your biggest region of that type and bonus points are on offer if you have the largest area of each habitat amongst all players. All very straight forward and easy right! The game is played until the habitat tiles run out and then scores are tallied. As is the norm, the player with the most points wins!
©boardgamereview.co.uk
What it’s like
With only four tiles and animal tokens to choose from on your turn, obvious choices often present themselves, but that’s not to say there isn’t anything to consider. I find that Cascadia is about mitigating the luck of your choice, and keeping options open. You see, some habitat tiles have options for one, two or three animal tokens to be placed upon them, making sure you can take a variety of animals should a bad draw come your way is quite key. Of course, nature tokens can affect this, but they are a precious commodity. Building up your habitat territories in an equally opportune way can be really beneficial too.
As the game goes on, you will find yourself checking in on your opponents to see whether you can make any of your terrains big enough to get bonus points. That just adds a little interaction to stop this being a completely solitaire experience.
There is a bit of luck as to what tiles and animal tokens come out, but managing that is a big part of the game, while your turn may not be the best you could hope for every time, there is usually something you can do.
Whenever I teach and go through the animal cards I always explain that not all animals are equal. From my experience the eagle cards can ramp up in terms of points quite quickly, so allowing a player to fly away with those is a mistake. They can be a pain to score at the end of the game too! At the other end of the spectrum, the fox is a last ditch scavenger that you only really take if you have to. Most of the other animals are fairly even depending on the card set.
The other point I labour, that jolts and conflicts for some, is that the habitat terrains do not have to match when you place them down. It is obviously beneficial if you do, but there are some occasions, say when you want an animal in a particular location, when you might want to ignore the fact you are placing a forest next to water, and that is okay!
©boardgamereview.co.uk
Table Presence
I’ve never been to sure how I feel about the artwork in Cascadia. It’s not that it’s bad I hasten to add, but it doesn’t lure me in particularly. The terrain that sprawls out in front of you clearly defines the different habitats, but isn’t anything more than that. Player areas are formed of habitats that jolt in their haphazard mismatching angular forms across the land. I know this is the nature of the puzzle, I just feel some blending at the edges might’ve worked.
The animal tokens add splashes of colour and are printed with the animal, but the print is a little dull and flat. Again, they are perfectly serviceable and I like the colour in front of me. The bag that stores them in is lovely and plenty big enough to be able to give the tokens a nice swoosh.
My nature tokens were woefully misaligned on the punchboard and some of my land tiles were too. It is still playable and does not affect gameplay, but equally I wish it was nicely lined up! I fixed this by buying wooden upgrades from Etsy at great personal expense!
The artwork on the cards are nice, and the iconography for scoring makes it super clear, so rarely do you have to consult the rulebook. It’s been a long time since I read the rulebook, but I’m pretty sure it made the game harder than it was, at least it was thorough I guess! The scorepad does a good job of tracking everything too.
The box is okay, but there is only a cardboard divide for the tiles and a well for everything else. It is usable, but it would be lovely to have an insert where the tiles are divided to aid in the setups for different player counts.
©boardgamereview.co.uk
Final thoughts on Cascadia
I hate using the word cosy to describe a board game, but Cascadia oozes that more relaxing feel that board games can offer. The game totally clicks with me and it feels natural choosing and placing the tiles. My brain is set up for this kind of game and I really enjoy it.
I never turn down a game of Cascadia if suggested by someone and always enjoy my time playing it. I’ve played Cascadia so much now, it feels like an old friend is sitting at the table. I love that familiarity with a board game.
Cascadia is an absolutely delightful puzzle that always entertains me. It’s another one of those perfect midweek games for when you need to unwind but still give the grey cells something to do. I whole-heartedly recommend giving it a try if the opportunity presents itself.
©boardgamereview.co.uk
Key Facts
Number of players: 1 to 4
Board Game Review Recommended Age: 10+
Publisher’s Recommended Age: 10+
Playing Time: 50 minutes
Setting Up and Take Down Time: 2 minutes
Designers: Randy Flynn
Publisher: Flatout Games / AEG
RRP: £39.99
Summary
Despite all the competition sitting on my shelves, I’ve played this board game so much for a reason: Cascadia is a game I am always happy to play and enjoy getting to the table. The puzzle and gameplay is just so darn enjoyable!
-
Artwork and Components
-
Complexity
-
Instructions
-
Interaction
-
Value for Money
Overall
Pros
- Cosy puzzle
- Relatively quick turns
- Great gateway plus game
- Lots of replayability with different cards
Cons
- Not the most beautiful
- Box insert could be better
- Punchboard might be misaligned
Buy Cascadia
If you want to buy Cascadia after reading our review click on one of our affiliate links below (note there has been no affiliate links until this point)
Reviewer’s Note
For clarity: we don’t get paid for our reviews. I backed Cascadia on Kickstarter ages ago with my pocket money. We have tried not to let this affect our review in any way.
We may however earn a tincy wincy commission if you buy a game having clicked one of our affiliate links like the one above… this hopefully gives us a bit of pocket money towards hosting costs and new games to review!
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Board Game Review is a brand ambassador for Out of Town Games.
We also are an affiliate of Board Game Prices, a price comparison website for Board Games.
These affiliate advertising programs are designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to their websites.
