Paper World

• Designers: Alexandre Aguilar and Benoit Turpin 
• Publisher: Pandasaurus
• Players: 2-4 
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In Paper World, each player takes on the role of a traveler trying to recreate the landscapes they have seen during their journeys using layers of paper. Stack the various layers of paper you find to have the most victory points at the end of the game.

To start the game, each player gets a starting card – and the deck of Landscape cards is shuffled and a display of 5 roughly equal faceup piles is placed on the table.  Three of the 10 objective cards are chosen for this game, and score tokens are placed near each objective. 

On your turn, you can either:
TAKE one or more cards.
PLACE one or more cards in front of you, forming your landscape.

In both cases, the rule is the same: take / place cards of the same color or the same value.

When you take cards, it’s easiest to announce aloud what you are taking “I am taking yellow cards” or “I am taking all the 4s”.  You must take all of them visible on the five stacks.  You have a hand limit of 9 cards; if you draw above this limit, you discard excess cards into your personal discard pile (and each card here gives you a penalty at the end of the game).

When you place cards, you are building a 3×3 array of cards in front of you.  When you announce what you are playing, you are not obligated to play all the possible options from your hand that match your statement.  Stacks of cards in your area can be started orthogonally next to previously played cards, and you can always play cards on top of others.  You are building your stacks so that they are in ascending order and in the same color in each space.  Once during a placing turn – you can skip a card, that is place it in your discard pile – to skip a card in numerical order while playing.

If you have played a card with the scissors icon on it, you place the Scissors token on that card.  This token will freeze that particular stack (you cannot play any more cards on it), but while you have the Scissors token, you can skip without discarding each turn.  This pile remains frozen until someone (could be yourself) plays another Scissors card, therefore moving the token.

At the end of each placement, check to see if you have fulfilled an objective – if so, take the highest remaining token from that card.

When only 2 piles of cards remain in the center at the end of a player’s turn, the end game is triggered. Each player, including the one who triggered the end of the game, plays one more turn before the final scoring.

Players count their stars:

• Stars seen on the top card of each stack in their 3×3 array
• Stars from objective tokens collected
• 2 Stars for the Scissors token
• -1 Star for each card in your discard pile

The player with the most stars wins. In case of a tie, the player with the fewest cards in their discard pile wins.

My thoughts on the game

Though the theme doesn’t make any sense to me at all – the game in Paper World is an interesting combination of drafting, set collection and tactical card play.  The interesting restriction of only being able to use the same number or the same color forces you to make some decisions during the course of the game.

The requirement of sequential play into each of the stacks does make the 1 cards a bit more valuable at the start – though the ability to skip once per turn can allow players to proceed in the game without having a 1 card.

As you can hold up to nine cards in your hand, you actually have a fair amount of time at the start of the game to collect cards to allow for a good play to the board.  Ideally, you’d like to have efficient turns – on both your draws and your plays.

In general, cards score more points as the numbers get higher – so that’s a good initial goal.  The place where players will most likely move apart from their opponents is through the goal bonuses.  I would definitely not forsake the points available from the bonuses!  

Paper World plays quickly, with games usually ending within fifteen minutes. The game looks good on the table with the boldly colored cards.  I still don’t understand how the theme is supposed to be seen while playing the game – but no matter, the game is a fine filler, and it’s not on the table long enough for your mind to worry about why the theme makes no sense.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale 
• Neutral. John P
• Not for me…