Vivid: Memories Review

boardgamequest.com:

Vivid: Memories is a game about collecting pieces of your childhood memories. Why? Did you get hit over the head and have amnesia? Are you so beat down from the day-to-day of your corporate job that your brain has deteriorated so much you no longer know how to have fun?

Well, who knows. Theme is good though, right? It’s kind of like that Inside Out movie. Maybe. But you also score points. Look… it doesn’t have to make sense. Abstract puzzle game, ok? Let’s get into it.

Vivid is played over three rounds which all follow the same structure. First, you’ll draw memory tiles based on the number of players and crystal-shaped memory fragments from a bag, placing them on the memory tiles. Players will then draft the memory fragments off the tiles. However, you can only pick fragments from either end of the line of tiles. You can choose any single fragment, two fragments of one color, or three if all of them are different colors. If you happen to take the last fragment off a tile you also claim the tile.

When you take fragments you must immediately place all of them in one of the empty hexes on your board. And all the fragments must go into the same hex. If you already have any fragments in the hex you cannot add to it. There are some ways around this. If you only take a single tile you get to take a bonus “rewire” action, allowing you to move all the fragments out of one space into an adjacent space or move any number of fragments from adjacent hexes into a single hex.

After all fragments have been drafted there is a reflect phase where you can take each of the four basic actions:

But, if you acquired any memory tiles during the draft they have a special action that will replace the basic actions available. It then flips over to