Full disclosure: A review copy of Sea Salt & Paper: Extra Pepper was provided by Pandasaurus Games.

Note: This is an expansion and requires the original Sea Salt & Paper to play. You don’t necessarily need Extra Salt, however.

My usual game group was out of town for most of this week, so this led to a Mild Panic where I was trying to figure out what I’ve actually played enough to review. I passed over Sea Salt & Paper: Extra Pepper a number of times, saying “it’s great, yes, but what have I played?” before finally remembering that I’ve played a ton of Extra Pepper on Board Game Arena. I felt a little stupid, but them’s the breaks. I think I had forgotten that Pandasaurus gave me a copy to review at Gen Con because I didn’t have one but still love Sea Salt & Paper and the first expansion, Extra Salt. Sometimes you like a game enough that you just assume you already have the expansion. But I digress, and that might be a little bit of a spoiler for my full review. Let’s dive in.

In Sea Salt & Paper: Extra Pepper, you’ve tried salt. You’ve tried extra salt. You crave something a little spicier. Not just new cards that are going to irritate your coplayer because you always get the Seahorse because you’re a better person than he is, but cards that can fundamentally change the way that you play each round. Enter the Event Cards of Sea Salt & Paper: Extra Pepper. Now, when starting a round, you’ll draw an Event Card and deal with the consequences. Sure, drawing two cards for a double fish is fine, and Octopus Cards being worth 1 point each is interesting, but what about a card that blocks the ability for players to say STOP, forcing Last Chance only? What about a card that makes every round go to 10 points rather than 7? What about a card that makes Mermaids worthless? You can find all of those in Sea Salt & Paper: Extra Pepper. To make matters more interesting, the player with the most (or least) points at the end of a round will be forced to keep the event! One per player, though. How will this expansion change up your game?

Overall: 8.75 / 10

Sea Salt & Paper: Extra Pepper is a hoot. I love the Event Cards, just because you really don’t know what to expect and what they’ll suddenly prioritize. There’s an idea that you can get into a rut by just trying to do the same things that worked in the original SS&P, and I will say that after 300 or so plays that’s possible. Adding in the Event Cards can change that calculus each round pretty specifically. I definitely want cards that will let me draw even more cards; that’s always good. But what happens when I win a round and get stuck with an Event Card that makes my game harder to play? It’s still fun. It’s more challenge and it provides something of a catch-up mechanic for players. Plus, sometimes it creates a hilarious detente where my opponent and I keep stacking up points because neither of us want to take the Event Card by just stopping the round. The Events are a great variety and they keep each round feeling fresh, though they infrequently just won’t be relevant because of how the random cards shake out. Them’s the breaks, sometimes.

Couple things do throw me off with this one, though. For one, I think it’s currently a Wal-Mart exclusive as of writing, but I wish there were more ways to store this than buying an entirely new set. The original box was not equipped to handle two expansions. I do truly hate the booster-pack-as-expansion packaging choice, as well, but that’s largely from a photography standpoint (you have to get the cards out of the booster extremely carefully) and a preservation standpoint (I like the art on the booster and I guess I have to throw it away?). I imagine folks aren’t super keen on buying a box to hold their cheap and portable little card game, but I wish the original box had been more future-proofed for this sort of thing. The Event Cards are also interesting as physical artifacts; they’re definitely a lower-quality cardstock than the original game’s cards, and I’m wondering if that was just to keep costs down or because they’re making the argument that you won’t be shuffling these as much as you will the originals, so they don’t need to be as durable? It’s hard to say, but the difference is noticable.

That’s not really enough to keep me down, though. Sea Salt & Paper has long been one of my favorite quick card games; I have a standing game with a friend that’s been going on for years, at this point, on Board Game Arena. The expansions are pretty perfect in that regard: they don’t completely overhaul how you play, but they add new and interesting ways to play that make the game fun with or without the contents. I still enjoy vanilla Sea Salt & Paper, but I’m also happy to play with Extra Salt, Extra Pepper, or both. Lots to like, and I like the opportunity this gave the artist (Anicé Claudéon) to do additional and novel art for the cards. That was always a high point of the game for me. If you’re a fan of quick card games, you love Sea Salt & Paper, or you just want to spice up the game with some randomized Events, I’d definitely recommend checking Sea Salt & Paper: Extra Pepper out!

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