Oddland

• Designer: Dan Schumacher
• Publisher: Allplay
• Players: 1-5
• Age: 11+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Eureka! The fascinating flora and fauna on this strange island are unlike any you’ve ever seen! How… odd!  As an intrepid investigator of all things idiosyncratic, your job is to explore the island and document these fantastic creatures. On your turn, explore by placing a terrain card somewhere on the island (with the ability to cover up previous terrain!). Then, place one of your seven flora or fauna tokens on the card you’ve just played. These tokens score based on their surroundings–for example, the pigehorse scores better adjacent to a longer coastline.

To setup the game, flip the six species cards however you like and place them face up on the table.  Each card has a unique scoring criterion on it which will be in effect for the game.  Shuffle the map cards and deal two to each player.  Also deal two face up to the table and randomly arrange them so that they are next to each other.  Map cards are 2×2 grids of spaces, each square being one of 4 different landscape types.  Each player chooses a color, takes the player air and all the species tokens for that color.

On a turn, the player plays a map card from their hand – it must have at least one space adjacent to a previously played card.  The new card can also cover one or two empty spaces on the map (i.e. cannot cover a species token).  

Once the card is played, the player must then place one of their species tokens onto their newly played card, but they cannot place their species in a territory where there is already a token.  (Though like Carcassonne, you can play a card which combines two previously separated territories – in this case, the tokens in the newly joined territory can co-exist).  A territory is any conglomeration of orthogonally connected squares of the same type.  If you cannot play a token legally, then you must start your turn over and place your card in a new location so that you can legally play a token.

Finally, the player draws a new map card to bring their hand size back to two cards.  

Play continues clockwise until all players have played all their species tokens.  Now, each species type is scored based on the rule found on the species card.  There is a nifty dry erase board and marker provided to calculate the scores.  The player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of the player with a token in the largest territory.

My thoughts on the game

Oddland is a game that is reminiscent of Honshu as a card layer.  In this game, players simply play cards from their hand to build a common landscape.  The game does not take very long as you have to play one of your scoring markers each turn – and there are interesting decisions on each turn as a result.

Most likely, the first two markers you place will not fare as well as those placed later in the game – as the map constantly changes, and at the start of the game, it is much more likely that areas close to your scoring marker will be affected by the other players’ cards.  You can make some clever blocking plays using the scoring marker itself – as it’s an important rule to remember that a card can never cover a marker.

Each game plays out a little differently as there are two scoring options for each species (as well as a few extra species if you have the expansion) – so you’ll have to come up with new strategies each game.  Turns are fairly simple; just play a card and then play a scoring piece on that card – but… there is a lot to consider, and some turns can definitely take awhile.

I wish that the scoring cards were a bit easier to read – the graphics on those cards are a bit busy, and the actual text that you need to play the game is small.  It might have been more useful to use one side of the player aid to give each player their own reference for the possible scoring options for each species.   As it stands, there is a lot of cross referencing of the scoring rules on each turn as players constantly remind themselves of how their pieces score (as well as their opponents’).

Turn order clearly matters in this game, and I find it weird that there is no starting bonus nor advantage to those earlier in turn order – because there is a huge advantage in the final round.  The later you are in turn order, the less chance there is for someone to play a card that will negate your scoring opportunities.  In reality, this advantage holds true over every placement – and it just feels like players later in turn order have an unmitigated advantage.  This issue feels worse at higher player counts because of the number of opponent plays that occur between each of yours.  Of course I haven’t played enough to know for sure if this is really a problem in every game, but it certainly has played a role in most of the games that I’ve played in thus far.

That aside, Oddland provides an interesting decision on each turn.  Trying to figure out how to best play your cards and scoring pieces is not an easy thing, and it is certainly not a solvable problem.  You’ll have to really do your best to adapt to the ever changing landscape and take advantage of the opportunities as they come up.   The game plays a bit differently based on player count; due to the size of the board and number of intervening actions between your plays.  Another surprisingly deep game in a small package – and one that I want to explore a bit more.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

I love it!

I like it. Dale Y

Neutral. John P

Not for me…