Quilts and Cats of Calico Digital Review

boardgamequest.com:

While I have not played the original Calico, I couldn’t help but try this digital version simply because the game trailer revealed actual animated cats wandering around the quilt. As an aspiring cat parent, the combination of two worlds I love lured me in, but eventually I did stay for the gameplay.

Quilts and Cats of Calico is a digital version of the competitive quilt-making game for 1-4 players that takes about 45 minutes to play, though its story mode takes longer to complete. The best experience is with 3 players to provide a more balanced cycling of Patch Tiles, or, for those looking for a solo objective, playing alone is just as fun with story mode.

Quilts and Cats of Calico follow the same player turn as the tabletop board game Calico, with the exception that you are also able to see what tiles are left in the bag and not just the three faceup Patch Tiles. Players will take turns until each player’s Quilt Board is completely filled with Patch Tiles. The players will then count points for Design Goal Tiles based on the surrounding six Patch Tiles, Cat Tokens based on preferred pattern placements, and Button Tokens based on groups of three Patch Tiles of the same color. The player with the most points wins.

In story mode, the player will encounter different characters that have backstories and quirks which partially influence the quilt-making challenge for the player. After completing these challenges, the overarching story progresses and the player is free to move about the world for more adventures.

Upon launching the game I could already tell that this would be slightly polarizing depending on one’s familiarity with the analog game. The tutorial itself was quite wordy, and I know that they would rather go into each action in detail than leave a player guessing but it felt a little over the top for me as a new player. I can imagine players familiar with the game would find the patch tile interactions annoying because it feels more mechanical than simply