Seaside

• Designer: Bryan Burgoyne
• Publisher: Randolph
• Players: 1-5
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3SOzrPp

Seaside is a game that features only wooden tokens, and being lightweight and super portable, can be played everywhere. Bring it along on your next adventure!  The sun is shining, as a light, salty wind sends cottony clouds scudding across the sky. Sandpipers filling their bellies with strange insects, crabs hiding under piles of rocks, seashells washed up on the sand, curling waves that break along the beach. Nature in its simplest beauty. 

One token at a time, create your Seaside with the elements the sea sends your way. The goal of the game is to have the highest stack of tokens.

To set up, put all the tokens in the Bag and mix them up. If you play with fewer than 4 players, you will randomly remove some tokens from play before starting.   The Play area is divided into 2 spaces: The sea (central area) and the Seaside (area in front of each player)

On your turn, draw a token from the Bag, look at it secretly, choose the side that interests you most and apply its effect. Once you have chosen the side of the token you’d like to play, it will remain like that for the rest of the game. If you pick a token with a blue design and throw it into the sea, you immediately take another turn. Your turn ends when you pick a token with a white design and put it on your Seaside. Then pass the Bag to the player on your left.

There are two types of tokens: Tokens with a blue design are thrown into the sea. Tokens with a white design are placed on your Seaside.  For instance, the Shells, Crabs and Isopods are all blue tokens and they are placed into the Sea area if you choose them.  

The key to the game lies in the interaction among the various elements of Seaside’s ecosystem. The Sandpiper allows you to fetch Isopods from the Sea.

The more Beaches you have, the more Shells you can collect from the Sea.

Having one Rock does nothing, but the second one you place allows you to collect all the Crabs from the Sea… and even steal one from another player!

Finally, Waves wash across the Beach tiles and flip them over – and you then have to resolve the effect of whatever was on the other side of your flipped over Beach tile.

As soon as the bag is empty, the game is over. The player with the most Waves takes all the tokens left in the Sea.  Stack up all the tokens from your Seaside, and the player with the highest stack wins!

The game also includes a solo mode where you try to collect as many tokens as you can – but you may not ever have more than 7 tiles in the Sea at any time.  The game ends when you place the seventh white tile of a type on your beach (or you have 7 tiles in the Sea).  You simply try to collect the most tokens that you can.

My thoughts on the game

Seaside is a delightful set collection game that uses the two sided tokens to create lots of interesting decisions during the game. The scoring system is simple – each tile added to your beach counts the same – so you just have to try to get them any way you can.

Though you’re drawing a random tile out of the bag each turn, you are automatically faced with a choice as you have to decide which side of the tile to use.   Though most of the tiles have a blue side – you may eventually be faced with a tile that forces you to play to your beach.  (I would guess about 20-25% of the tiles are double white).  Otherwise, there is a bit of push your luck as you try to improve the sea area with the tiles you want the most and then hope to draw a tile that allows you to collect those things.  If you push your luck too hard, you’ll set up the next player for a good turn if you cannot collect the things you placed in the sea.

The game can definitely change with the wave tokens – you can use one to spring a surprising action (from the back side of one of your beaches); and at the end of the game, you can really get a nice bonus when you take whatever was left in the Sea at the end of the game.

The iconography on the tiles is well done.  The blue and white areas are clearly evident, and the icons in each area give an easy visual reminder of what the action of that tile is.  There is a nice player aid included with the game, but I have yet to see anyone need to use it.  The wooden tiles have a feel to them, and in addition to their beautiful appearance – they have a wonderful feel to them in your hand.  The canvas bag is also quite sturdy and also looks quite nice.

The game plays quickly, and each person’s turn tends to be short – even when multiple tokens are placed into the sea.  I have played the game at almost every player count, and it seems to scale just fine for all counts.  I have only tried to solo game once, but it proved to be a challenging push-your-luck puzzle.  I look forward to playing this more over the summer, and I think this will make a great addition to the lake house game collection (where we often keep aquatic/nautical themed games).

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3SOzrPp

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y, Talia R
• Neutral. 
• Not for me…