Designer: Kevin Russ

Artist: Beth Sobel (Arboretum, Between Two Cities, Herbaceous, Lanterns: The Harvest Festival, Snow Tails, Viticulture, Viticulture: Essential Edition, Wingspan, World’s Fair 1893)

Publisher: Flatout Games

Genre/Mechanisms: pattern building, set collection, tile placement

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Calico is already fully-funded.  In fact, pledges currently total almost 18x the initial funding goal with 6 days left to go on the campaign.

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: high

What It’s About:  Sew patches together in this abstract tile placement game, where sewing the right patterns will attract calico cats to your calico player board for nap time and bonus points!

How It Works: “In Calico, players compete to sew the coziest quilt as they draft and play patch tiles of different colors and patterns onto their quilt board.” On their turn, players place 1 of the 2 Patch Tiles in their hand onto their Quilt Board in any open space, possibly gaining a Cat Token and/or Button Token in the process. The Cat Token can also be placed onto a section of the player’s completed Quilt Board if an area exists in a similar pattern and in the correct shape. Button Tiles can be “sewn” onto the player’s Quilt Board on an area of matching color of at least 3 patches. The active player then chooses one of the 3 face-up Patch Tiles from the tile market to replace the one they just used, and reveals a new tile from the face down stack of Patch Tiles. Play then proceeds to the next player in player order.

The game ends after each player has completely filled their Quilt Board with Patch Tiles. Players earn 8-11 VPs for each completed Design Goal Tile, 3-7 VPs for each Cat Token, and 3 VPs for each Button Token, including 3VPs for each Rainbow Token (Rainbow Tokens are received and added to the Quilt Board for each full set of 6 different colored buttons already on the Quilt Board). In case of a tie, the player with the most Cats wins.

Comparisons:  Calico is a very simple tile placement game with some set collection bonuses. Similar games include Azul, The Castles of Burgundy, Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Kingdomino, Quadropolis, Sagrada, and Takenoko.

What Should I Pledge?:
$29 Calico – Kickstarter Edition: includes the KS Edition of the game, the KS Promo Cats, access to the Print and Play, all unlocked stretch goals, and a “Thank You!” on the publisher’s website.
The various vanity levels of the game, including things like artwork in the game based on a pet, are sold out and no longer available.

Add-Ons:
None.

KS Exclusives:
The KS Promo Cats will not be included in future retail versions.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S. you’re looking at $29 for the Calico – Kickstarter Edition plus $9 in shipping for a total of $37.

Calico completes its Kickstarter on Thursday, November 7th and tentatively ships in October 2020.