Type of Game: Open Drafting, Tile Placement, Pattern Building
Number of Players: 1-4
Age: 10+
Designer: Randy Flynn
Artist: Beth Sobel
Publisher: Flatout Games
This copy of Cascadia was purchased by the author.
CONCEPT
Cascadia was released in 2021 as a puzzle game where players create the most harmonious ecosystem by puzzling together habitats and wildlife. It's an open-drafting, tile-placement game that presents a dilemma for players in how they work toward end-game bonuses. These bonuses can be achieved through both habitats and wildlife tokens.
Short story even shorter? This is a quick, tile-placement action game that provides many challenges and can easily be reset to play again after you finish one play.
HOW IT WORKS
Cascadia has two simple steps that each player takes on their turn.
Select a Habitat Tile and Wildlife Token
Place the Tile and Token into your Environment
Each player will take 20 turns going through the simple steps and building out their hex grid to try to maximize their end-game bonuses in habitats as well as certain patterns required.
When taking your turns, there are also ways to clear some of the wildlife tokens if there are either 3 or 4 of the same wildlife tokens. This helps players clear the board and use it as a free reset. When placing wildlife tokens, there are also unique Nature tokens that are earned and earn the player a victory point at the end of the game if unused. Conversely, players may allow someone to play it on their turn to pick any one Habitat Tile and Wildlife token of their choice. This allows for flexibility if you are unable to reset the Wildlife tokens and find one that you may be looking for to gain extra points.
There is an end-game scoring card that is reviewed at the game's conclusion for five different types of wildlife in the game: Salmon, Fox, Bear, Elk and Eagle.
There are four different scoring cards for each type of wildlife, plus a Family/Intermediate card that can be used for a slightly easier game. Each different end-game bonus scoring card is nicely explained in the rulebook to help answer any questions, but Randy Flynn and everyone involved in creating the game did a great job of trying to make the cards as easy to understand as possible.
After each player has taken their 20 turns and placed all of their habitat tiles and wildlife tokens, the end of the game is triggered and there is an easy process of figuring out how successful you were in building out your hex grid of habitat tiles and wildlife tokens.
For end-game scoring, you will review your board and add up the points for the following:
Wildlife Bonus Cards: Bears, Elks, Salmon, Eagles, and Foxes
Habitat Tiles: Mountains, Forests, Prairies, Wetlands, and Rivers (there are bonuses for having a certain amount of habitat tiles connecting to certain players depending on the player count)
The player with the most total points comes out victorious and claims the best environment!
COMPONENTS
As you can see from the above images, the components are of high quality: durable and fairly accessible for those with accessibility issues. There can be some concerns when looking at the habitat tiles, but there is enough of a difference in imagery to try to assist those who may have issues with differentiating each habitat.
My personal favorite of the components that come with Cascadia are the wildlife tokens, due to the fun of pulling them from the provided drawstring bag. It's that little downtime between turns that can build up some anticipation as you draw that new token that could make — or break — the next player's turn.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Cascadia may not be the most interactive game out there, but every turn taken by another player keeps your focus, as it can change what you may or may not be able to take when it comes back around to you. For me, I don't mind this aspect of it, as tile placement games are always a challenge that I willingly take on. Tile placement isn't a mechanic that I particularly play well, but Cascadia is so quick and light that I will willingly play this with any group. I'm currently in the process of playing all the different scenarios that the box includes and it has created a unique challenge after completing the first four of many!
There is also an expansion for Cascadia called Cascadia: Landmarks that adds some new aspects to the game to expand on the importance of environments among other areas. I have yet to play this, but it's one that I'm on the lookout for to add to my collection.
We'd love to hear your thoughts on Cascadia if you've had the chance to play it! Are there any future board games you'd like to see more information on?