- Publisher : Lucky Duck Games
- Designer : Randy Flynn
- Artist(s) : Beth Sobel
- Players : 1-4
- Playing time : 30–45 Min
- Weight BGG : 1.88
What's this?
Cascadia is a tile-matching game that explores the theme of flora and fauna in the Cascadia region, located between the United States and Canada. You will have to compose your ecosystem while respecting the species cards as much as possible for the final count at the end of the game.
In the game, players take turns building their own area of land and populating it with wildlife. Ideally, you can place habitat tiles to create corresponding terrains, and at the same time you want to place wildlife tokens to maximize the number of points scored by them, with wildlife objectives being determined randomly by one of the four counting cards for each type of fauna.
How do you play?
The game is very simple: on your turn, you must choose a combination of habitat tile and wildlife token to add them to your ecosystem. You place the habitat tile adjacent to other tiles, and you must also place the wildlife token on any tile, as long as the habitat is suitable for the animal species. You will take turns attempting to build your ecosystem in accordance with the end-game objectives, which consist of a specific arrangement of your animal tokens.
This will become a real headache, because often the habitat tile will interest you, but not necessarily the associated wildlife token, and vice versa. It will likely be impossible to complete all end-game objectives, and you will have to choose which animal species to focus your efforts on to maximize your points.
The end of the game will be triggered when the draw pile of habitat tiles is exhausted. You will score points based on endgame animal cards and also based on the size of your habitat types compared to other players.
Is it good?
Cascadia is an excellent tile-laying game that caused quite a stir when it was released. Currently, it holds the top spot in the abstract games category on BGG.
Cascadia offers a real puzzle: which habitat tile to choose with which wildlife token, how to place this tile in our ecosystem without blocking an end-of-game animal objective, etc.
Cascadia is a good abstract game that can be played quite frequently due to quick games and a simple explanation.
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Review Cascadia
Positives
- A simple but very brain-busting game.
- Suitable for beginners and experts alike.
- Quick games that can be played in a row.
Negatives
- An abstract game and therefore not very thematic.
- Limited interaction
Breakdown
- Components and illustrations 10.0
- Mechanics 8.5
- Theme 7.0
- Replayability 9.5
- Handling 10.0
- Interaction 7.5
- riginality 8.5
