Sea Salt and Paper Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Sea Salt and Paper a set-collection/push-your-luck game published by Bombyx. Designed by Bruno Cathala, Sea Salt and Paper has players collecting cards with some of the greatest artwork we've seen in a tabletop game.

As I was walking through the convention hall at 2022’s GenCon, a modest little table caught my eye, set up for French publisher Bombyx. A couple of very nice Frenchman were sitting there with a very small box and a fresh steaming batch of croissants (ok, maybe they didn’t have croissants). This tiny box had the words, Sea Salt & Paper, Bruno Cathala, and Théo Rivière printed on it, along with some of the most undeniably adorable artwork I’d seen all day, so I said “bonjour” and I sat down for a quick teach. I’m glad I did, because I found a simple new pocket-sized card game I take with me when I travel and plays well for 2-4 people in about 30 minutes. Did I mention it has the best art I’ve seen in ages?

Sea Salt & Paper is a relatively simple hand management/set collection game on… ahem, paper. The deck is populated by a variety of maritime-oriented iconography: fish, squids, shells, boats, sharks, crabs, swimmers, sailors, etc. Each card is also one of eleven different colors. The game consists of 3 primary point-scoring mechanisms: playing unique matching pairs that each provide an additional bonus action, collecting sets, and potentially boosting card values with multipliers. The deck also contains four powerful Mermaid cards which allow you to score points equal to the number of cards in your most copious color.

Each round begins with no cards in the players’ hands, the deck in the center of the table, and two discard piles. A player may draw two cards from the deck, select one, and discard