This is a game about Quilting.
I know what you’re thinking: “Next!” Right, me too. But I had seen so many people talking about it that I had to try it, right? I mean, it’s Tetris, but with quilt patches…so yeah…right.
Here goes:
When I opened the box, I immediately noticed the extremely cool components and was instantly drawn to the Tetris-y (new word) aspect of the game. The rules were really easy to understand so I sat down for a solo run before I launched into a game with my wife.
Basically the game really is a lot like Tetris except you have to buy the quilt pieces that you want to add to your board next. On your turn you can add any one of the next three patch tiles to your quilt board by paying the number of buttons shown on the patch. Once you place the patch tile on your board, you then advance your player token on the game track the number of spaces shown next to the hourglass on the patch tile. This represents the time it takes to work the patch into your quilt. If there is not a patch that you want to add (or you can’t afford any of the three) then you can simply advance your token to the space immediately in front of your opponent, gaining that many buttons to buy new tiles later. You also gain buttons by working tiles into your quilt pattern which pay out each time you pass the button symbol on the game track.
It’s all very easy once you start playing.
Anyway…you buy tiles, place them on your board, get more buttons, buy more tiles – all the while trying to leave as little empty space on your quilt board as possible. All very Tetris-y.
At the end of the game, you total up your buttons minus empty spaces and whoever has the most points wins.
All very straightforward.
So why don’t I love it? It seems like something I would like. I adore 2-player games even though I don’t get to play them as often as I would like. (If my wife doesn’t love it – she won’t play it).
I like light strategy games. This has that for days. I would put it on the same level as Lanterns, maybe a tad more strategy because you can actually see several moves ahead with this one, and there is less time between turns (especially with 4-player Lanterns).
I love the components. The tiles are just right. The player boards are big enough. I like the game track.
So why am I not gushing over this game?
Here’s the thing: I don’t like the ending.
In the game if you can’t afford a new tile or can’t use one of the tiles that are available for your quilt, you can choose to move your token along the game track to the space right in front of the other player and get buttons for every space you moved. It’s a kind of evening-out mechanic that works really well throughout the course of the game.
“Oh…you don’t have enough buttons? Well here, take some, but it’s going to cost you some time.”
At the end of the game, however, it becomes a bit of a problem for me. If you can no longer take any of the tiles because they just won’t fit on your board, you basically spend the rest of the game moving your token and getting buttons.
The first game I played with my wife, we both ran out of space for new tiles with about 17 spaces left. We both just kind of looked at each other and said, “What do we do now?” ( I had to search online to find out). Basically you just keep leapfrogging each other to the end of the game track, collecting buttons along the way.
To me, it would’ve been just as good to say that if you get to a point where there are no more moves to make, the game immediately ends. But that would’ve felt wrong too. The leapfrogging method certainly did.
If we end up playing this one again we will institute this as a house rule, but honestly it left a bad taste in our mouths and probably won’t be joining our game library (unless it’s really cheap). Which is really a shame.
I really like the gameplay, I just didn’t like the ending.