Base price: $25.
2 – 4 players.
Play time: 15 – 20 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy directly!
Logged plays: 2
Full disclosure: A review copy of Out of Sorts was provided by Always Awake Games.
I did actually try to get ahead of the curve this week and enjoyed some success. I have at least next week’s photography already half-done, and I don’t even need to do too much more to get to where I need to be. I even have a stack of games quite literally at the ready to start working on, which I’m excited to dig into. Everything is coming together just in time for Gen Con, I suppose. I’ll be there again this year happily hanging out in the BIPOC Lounge when I’m not in meetings, so come by and say hi if you’re around! If you’re not, well, Indianapolis is too hot for me, so I don’t blame you. Before I complain about the weather again, let’s dive into Out of Sorts!
In Out of Sorts, you’ve been called to do the impossible: organize an alien library. Sure, you can sort of make heads or tails of some of this stuff, but you have no idea how to properly classify these glyphs; they could mean anything! You do have an idea, however: they can be anything, but they look how they look. So if you can just convince other players that these are the correct classifications, you can make them consistent within those categories. Easily said than done, though. How will your Newy Decimal System work out?
Contents
Setup
Not a ton here. Shuffle and choose three category cards:
They’re double-sided, so be mindful of that. The ones with stars are more difficult. Above them, place the Librarian with her book covering up to the 5:
Shuffle the Book Cards, splitting the deck as evenly as possible between all players except for one (the Sorter):
Also shuffle the Index Cards, making a pile near the Category Cards:
Finally, set the Round Cards in order (lowest Round on top) near the Librarian Card:
You should be ready to start!
Gameplay
This is a game of categories and categorization! To start each round, draw five Index Cards and place them into a stack, and set a 20 minute timer. Then, go!
The Finders (players who aren’t the Sorter) can draw a card from the small Index Card stack and try to locate that Book Card. If it’s not in their hand, they must describe it to other players who can reveal one Book Card at a time to try and match. Once there’s a match, the Book Card is given to the Sorter and the Index Card is played face-down on the other side of the Category Cards.
The Sorter then discusses with all players where this new Book Card should go in their hand based on the categories. Once everyone’s happy (or as close as they can be in the process of playing a game), the Book Card goes into the Sorter’s hand for later.
After all five Index Cards are added to the face-down found pile, it’s time to check the system so you can advance to the next round! To do so, look at the Round Card. Shuffle the Found Stack of Index Cards and reveal the number on the round card, and then the Finders need to put these Index Cards in relative order based on the order of the Book Cards in the Sorter’s hand. Once they have an idea, they can check with the Sorter. If it’s right, they get set aside until next round. If not, they get sorted into the right order, they’re shuffled back into the Found Stack, and the Librarian’s book goes down by one. That’s bad. Some Round Cards require multiple successful System Checks. Once all are completed, move onto the next round! Place the set-aside Index Cards back into the Found Stack.
If the timer runs out, you complete 9 rounds, or you disappoint the Librarian, the game ends! If you completed 9 rounds, you win! If not, you lose! you can still check your score either way.
For two players, the Sorter gets all of the Index Cards and describes them to the Finder to keep the game moving. You can also move the Librarian’s Book down by one to just show the Finder the Index Card.
Player Count Differences
Not a ton, for a memory game. You’re going to have to manage and balance things anyways, but more hands doesn’t necessarily make for lighter work. With more people, you’re less likely to draw an Index Card that you have, so you’ll have to spend additional time searching your cards and then describing it to other players in order to advance. On the other hand, more people means you can offload some of the pain of trying to memorize the entire ordering, which can be handy. One of the places we struggled the most when we played was drawing cards that are adjacent to each other in the ordering and trying to figure out their exact placement. Not fun; quite challenging. With more people, you might get lucky, or you might find that additional voices just makes the situation more confusing. It can really go either way. The major difference is with two players, where there’s extra structure so that the Sorter gets something to do during the rounds, too. No specific player count preference, though; I think you can make any of them work.
Strategy
- Make sure players agree. The more people who have buy-in, the easier it’ll be to remember because the more obvious it’ll hopefully seem to everyone. This is not a game where you want to force your opinion on others; you really want to play collaboratively and listen to everyone, which is nice.
- Move fast. 20 minutes is not that long of a time, especially for nine rounds.
- When in doubt, go back to the categories. Does this card give more “royalty” or “reptile”? Is it a royal reptile or a lizard queen? Why is that? The more memorable you make the card, the better off you’ll do. If a card is forgettable, it gets forgotten.
- As you get the hang of things, you can get more points through other means. Fewer categories or harder categories or even try to sort every card in the Found Stack. All challenging but potentially lucrative ideas.
- Make sure you pay attention if you get things wrong. Those cards get shuffled back in so it’s likely they’ll come up again and you might be able to fix the part of your brain that mixed them up in the first place.
- Subcategories help too. The easier it is to allocate cards to categories, the better you’ll do. It’s also why going off-the-wall won’t help you much; it becomes too hard to remember anything like that.
Pros, Mehs, and Cons
Pros
- The art style is very fun! I love how abstract and alien everything is; it really makes the game’s theme shine through as we try to ground abstract nonsense in Earth Language terms.
- I like the concept a lot. I don’t often find myself saying “ah, this one’s plant of cat but definitely plant of monster, too: the plantest plant” or other similar garbage, but here, it all makes sense based on the card and the categories.
- This is a hard memory game. You pretty quickly burn through the limit of how many cards you can keep, in order, in your head, and then you don’t even get all of them at once. You just have to figure out the relative order based on what you agreed upon, but as the rounds go it becomes harder and harder to remember that.
- It lends itself well to multiple plays even if it’s just to see how other players organize these symbols. I always like seeing how other folks’ minds work.
- Seeing how the categories synergize (or don’t) is a very fun part of the game. The categories and / or the art were clearly chosen to complement each other and that was a lot of fun. Love design synergy.
- Pretty portable! The tuckbox is small and the game can be played relatively anywhere since the spread is less intense. You can hold most of what you need in your hands.
- Plays quickly. 20 minutes absolutely flies by.
Mehs
- I wish the card backs were clearly asymmetrical so that we could have some confirmation about which side is “up” for the images. It’s annoying to be describing an Index card to someone and them not getting it just because they’re holding all the cards upside down. Is that a dealer error? Possibly. My fault? Hard to say.
Cons
- Tuckboxes remain one of my least favorite gaming storage options. They tend to fall apart and tucking the flap back into the rulebook or game box leads to the rules getting a bit messed up over time. You don’t love to see it.
Overall: 8 / 10
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by Out of Sorts! I really like games in this category, like Signal or Rosetta, where you’re trying to ascribe meaning to nothingness (to some degree). Here, it’s made extremely doubly tough since you’re not just ascribing meaning, you’re also forced to remember it and forced to perform under time pressure. It’s a triple threat that leads to fun, surprising places. You’ll laugh after the game when you remember what certain cards were supposed to mean or be, you’ll enjoy the experience and the stress of finding cards, and you’ll never quite forget the mild disappointment of almost correctly sorting them to pass a round. It’s a game that gets its audience with its cleverness but doesn’t come across as smug, and I enjoy that. Plus, I just love listening to people argue over the meaning of some abstract symbol or glyph because everyone brings their own experiences, upbringing, and sometimes even values into the process. It’s a reflection of you, sometimes, and how you see the world, and games that get us to share that with other people are pretty cool. And, I mean, the game’s a solid challenge and experience overall anyways. I’d happily play again. If you’re looking to test your memory, sort cards with friends, or you just want to imagine what being a space librarian must be like, I’d recommend Out of Sorts! It’s been fun to play.
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