Couture, a surprisingly fun card game about runway fashion

Last year I backed a Kickstarter campaign for a set of four small box games. The two that I was really interested in were Chomp (dinosaurs, need I say more?) and Sail (a two player cooperative game about sailing and navigation). I could have just pledged for those two, but the price was only a little bit more for all four games. Couture, a fashion themed card game, was the one I was probably the least interested in, but it has turned out to be my favorite in the set, and I've played it more than any of the others.

Couture is an auction game in which each player starts with a hand of four cards: two basic cards with a value of one each, an "iconic pose" worth two, a "signature walk" that's worth three. Each round begins with a spread of nine cards from the main deck, in columns of three separated by tiles indicating which fashion-forward city they are in: New York, Paris, or Tokyo. Players will bid cards from their hand for each of the three cities, with the winner taking their choice of card, then the second place bidder, and so on. Of course, there are a few catches that keep the bidding interesting.

Cards from the main deck fall into two broad categories: bid cards and scoring cards. Bid cards are added to the player’s hand, sometimes at the expense of discarding a hand card. They tend to have higher values for future bids, but sometimes they carry a cost, for example, the Agent card has a bidding value of four, but causes the player to lose two points if they still have it at the end of the game. An Assistant card, on the other hand, is worth zero for bidding but adds one victory point. Part of the strategy of the game is to control when to retain and when to discard certain hand cards.

Scoring cards do just that, score victory points. These are worth points on their own, but some score more when collected in particular sets. Streetwear cards each have a matching card, with an immediate bonus given to the first player with a matching set, and a lesser bonus for the next players to do the same. Ready to Wear and Haute Couture cards award extra points at the end of the game to whoever has collected the biggest variety of brands and largest sets of individual symbols.

But beware the dreaded Flop cards, which subtract points for the players with the most, next most, and so on. How would you end up with a Flop? That’s one of the key points players need to figure out when deciding how much to bid in each city. Bidding is a single round and simultaneous, with players arranging their hand cards separated by city cards so that it’s clear which cards have been used in which city, without revealing how many cards have been bid for each. It is allowed to bid zero cards.

When bids are revealed, the player who bid highest gets the first choice for that city. Then the next highest bidder chooses, and so one. There are three cards for each city; if there are fewer than three bidders in a city, the winning bidder takes the remaining cards, and if there is only one bidder that player takes all three. So if there is even one Flop in a particular city, you have to be thoughtful in how you bid, as it’s often better to come in second or not bid at all.

While the theme isn’t something I’m particularly interested in, it doesn’t overwhelm the game, and the fashion design style illustrations are quite nice. I imagine players who are enthusiastic about high fashion will find it even more engaging, and in any case the more “grown-up” theme and relatively straightforward game play could make this a hit with non-gamer friends and relatives.

Rating: 5 (out of 5): Although it’s relatively simple, this is a very engaging and accessible game, great for playing at a noisy pub or family get-together.

Chomp! A game about herding dinosaurs

Why do dinosaurs seem to have such an enduring appeal? I think it’s the idea that, once upon a time, there was a world teeming with thousands of varieties of fantastical, dragon-like creatures, untouched by human mediocrity. And that world wasn’t dreamed up by a novelist or game designer. It was real, at least as far as the reasonably dependable science of paleontology can tell us.

I’m not sure if Chomp, a small box tile laying game published last year by AllPlay, quite captures the majesty of prehistory, but it is a pretty fun little game.

The game consists of 36 double-sided tiles, plus a handful of tokens and a lovely dry-erase board (pen included!) for keeping score. The tiles depict herds of carnivorous or herbivorous dinosaurs in different sizes, lush vegetation, nests, watering holes, and tar pits in various combinations of two, three or four shapes. Sometimes the different elements on a tile are separated by mountains, sometimes not. The idea is to draw and place tiles in order to form larger herds of same sized dinosaurs, making sure they are adjacent to food sources – vegetation for the herbivores and watering holes populated by unwitting prey for the carnivores. But you have to keep an eye out for tar pits, as they are certain doom for your dinosaur herds.

It’s the tile placement that’s particularly interesting in this game. Tiles can be placed overlapping other tiles, as long as the grid is maintained and individual elements are completely covered. This means you can pivot your strategy more easily than in most traditional tile-laying games, perhaps placing a tile that’s good but not ideal in the hopes of covering up some or all of it later in the game. 

On the reverse side of each tile is a bonus scoring condition, granting extra end-of-game points for things like having the most of a particular size of dinosaur, or even having the most uncovered tar pits among your tiles. At the start of each player’s turn there will be three face up and three face down tiles to choose from. Players can choose either on their turn, balancing the need for more layout tiles with the ability to score extra bonus points.

The game goes for eight rounds, after which each player has to check each of their herds to see if they are made extinct by an adjacent tar pit. Remaining herds must then be fed from an adjacent food source, with carnivores eating herbivore herds if no other prey is available. All adjacent dinosaurs of the same size and type, no matter how many, count as one herd. Each herd only requires one adjacent food source, so the challenge is to maximize the tile placement for large herds to take advantage of a single source of food. The bonus tiles provide some guidance for which types of dinosaur herds to go for and how best to try to lay out your tiles.

Any herds who can’t eat are made extinct, after which all the surviving dinosaurs are counted up for points. Larger dinosaurs count for more points than smaller ones, but also take up more space on their tiles and so are theoretically more difficult to place efficiently.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) Like most tile-laying games, Chomp has a fun puzzle-like quality to it, and I really like the idea that you can cover up some or all of your previously placed tiles if your strategy is moving in a new direction.