Base price: $12.
2 players.
Play time: ~10 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy on Amazon (via What’s Eric Playing?)
Logged plays: 2
Full disclosure: A review copy of Winter was provided by Devir Games.
Winter in Seattle usually just means cold, dark, and rainy, but we actually got about two weeks of good snow this season. It was awesome. I love snow, and I hate driving in snow, but I love when it snows and you don’t have to go anywhere. It’s pretty ideal. Granted, it’s also still pretty cold, but that just means I need to remember to close my windows before I go to sleep. We’re working on that. In the meantime, though, a good snowy game seems like the perfect move, so let’s check out Devir’s small-box title, Winter!
In Winter, two things can usually be expected if it’s cold enough: snow is going to fall, and snow is going to eventually melt. That’s the driving force at the heart of this little snowy card game. Your goal is to be the last snowflake around when the spring thaw starts to turn frozen water back to its liquid state to signify the change in seasons. If you’re the last snowflake left, you win! Will you be able to pull off a strategic victory in this chilled little game?
Contents
Setup
Not a ton. Shuffle the cards:
The first player reveals two and places them adjacent to each other. Set out the snowflakes, next:
The second player chooses which color they want to start as. You should be ready to go!
Gameplay
Gameplay takes place over two phases: Freezing and Thawing.
During the Freezing Phase, each player can take one of two actions on their turn:
- Draw a card and add it to the center. You can rotate cards 180 degrees or place them staggered, but they must be played adjacent to other cards and touching at least one snowflake. Your goal should be to create squares of the same color in the play area (your color, in particlar).
- Place a Snowflake Token of their color. Snowflake Tokens can only be placed on spaces between a square of four Snowflakes of the same color on two or more cards. Note that this does not happen automatically; you have to choose to do this as your turn.
Once the cards are all placed, the Thawing Phase begins. Here, players have three options:
- Move any free card and place at least one Snowflake Token of their color on it. A “free” card is any card with no Snowflake Tokens on it. You can move a card and re-place it according to the earlier rules, keeping in mind that you must create a square of Snowflakes of your color in order to make this move.
- Remove one of their Snowflake Tokens. Remove any one of your Snowflake Tokens and return it to your supply.
- Remove a free card. Again, the card must be free, but you can remove it from play. If this causes the play area to be split into two or more different sets of cards, the smallest set of cards and all tokens on it are discarded from the game.
Play continues until any one player’s final Snowflake Token is removed. The other player wins!
Player Count Differences
None; two-player game.
Strategy
- Balancing when you want to place tokens and when you want to place cards in Round 1 is critical, but make sure you’re placing some tokens. Getting favorable card constructions are nice and all, but if you don’t have any tokens down by Round 2, you’ll … lose. Don’t do that.
- When removing tokens, be mindful of what cards your removed tokens are locking down. If you’re removing a token that gives your opponent access to a really useful card or lets them cut off an entire section of the board, maybe look elsewhere for a token to remove? Just to try and make it a bit harder for them.
- It’s useful to lock down cards that would be useful for your opponent as rewards for you. If it has three icons of your opponent’s color, try to get one of your tokens on it. That way, yor opponent can’t use it to build up their supply.
- Be careful with leaving an isthmus; that usually means you’re setting your opponent up for a big play. If that section is unguarded, removing that card will create an island (and cause everything that island contained to get discarded). That’s usually not ideal for you.
- If you move cards and place tokens near where your opponent is building you can cut off some of their momentum with your cards. You can essentially weave a strategy that revolves around making sure your opponent can’t place many Snowflake Tokens in Round 1.
- Later in the game, you ideally want to move cards such that you’re scoring multiple squares at once. That puts up even more guard and locks that space down in such a fun way that your opponent won’t be able to move around a lot. That’s good for you!
- If you can’t lock down your opponent’s cards, just place them in useless places. This is more Round 1 advice than anything, since you can’t move cards in Round 2 without being able to place a token.
Pros, Mehs, and Cons
Pros
- The art is extremely pleasant! For how minimal it is, especially, but the box art is really nice as well! It’s nostalgic for when I used to go outside in the snow, before I knew better.
- I like how strategic this is for such a little game. There’s a surprising amount going on! I can see why it won the Cardboard Edison so handily.
- Again, pretty impressively portable. Tiny games really are all the rage right now, and I think that’s great. It’s less stressful to find space for them in my collection, too.
- Being able to split the play area and dump all the tokens in the smaller section feels great, even if it’s a jerk move. It’s awesome, especially because it’s so good for you. It’s terrible for your opponent, in almost every case, but it’s great for your strategy.
- This largely feels like a better version of nim. I really don’t like nim-type games because they’re usually pretty solved, but this expands out the placement aspect of the setup into its own half of the game, so it includes a lot more variability. That makes the game significantly more fun, for me.
- I do like the theme, especially now. Winter games during winter are always homey.
- Having a four seasons set of games is charming. I really want to try the others, now!
Mehs
- Playing the cards non-overlapping leads to a bunch of gaps and ever-so-slightly misaligned cards, which bothers my sense of aesthetics. I’m just very picky about this kind of thing. I prefer when cards can be played overlapping so the only thing below them is usually other cards.
Cons
- We’re still using he / him for generic players in rulebooks, eh? Actually, it’s only used once, which just makes the rulebook feel weird and inconsistent. Must have missed it in editing; alas.
Overall: 8.25 / 10
Overall, I like Winter a lot! I usually hate nim-type games, but this one can’t be reduced down to nim; it just has a lot of the same vibes. I like that players do the initial setup of the board and then slowly reduce the cards and the tokens until one player is the last one standing. There’s a nice bit of balancing that has to be taken into account, there. Do you go for cards to get the placements you want, or do you place tokens, since that’s how you avoid losing? That tension sets the stage for the second half of the game, where the slow retraction lets players find out if they planned well or poorly. For only 18 cards, this little game’s got a lot of punch. I know better than to discount a game for only being 18 cards, though, if Button Shy has taught me anything. So the game continues as players struggle to build up their dwindling supply of cards and tokens until the winner is the last player left. It’s elegant and quick, not to mention portable, but at no loss to interesting strategic choices. All good things, even if I get a bit agitated by the gaps that are always left between cards as players brush past them by mistake. If you’re looking for a great game to close out the season, you like a two-player game, or you just enjoy the snowy theme and aesthetic, I’d definitely recommend Winter. It’s been a lot of fun to try!
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