Capsule Collector

• Designer: Joohyun
• Publisher: Korea Board Games
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 7+
• Time: 15 min
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Capsule Collector is a set-collection game for 2–4 players in which players compete to gather and open colourful toy capsules. Players draw cards from a deck and add them to a communal queue, then choose a colour and take all available cards of that colour to fill a 4×4 personal collection grid. Because cards are initially collected “capsule-side” up, players must strategically activate Action Tiles to flip them to their “toy-side” to score points. The game features a dynamic action system where the number of cards collected in a turn determines which tile is activated, and tiles are shifted after use to change the available actions for future turns. The game concludes when a player fills their 16-card grid, leading to a final scoring phase. To maximize points, players must use “Open” actions to flip connected groups of the same colour or spend Open Tokens for individual reveal. 

To set up the game, assemble the game board and then put the 5 action tiles on top of the five spaced, making sure the yellow action is on top of the rightmost 5+ slot.  Shuffle the deck of capsule cards and deal 4 to the table.  The backs of these cards tell you how many toys there are in that color – with each set having three high-value “5-star” toys, five “3-star” toys, and the rest are “1-star” toys.  This varying rarity shifts the probability of a big score depending on the colour’s total card count. 

On a turn, players go through the same four phases:

1] Add 2 cards from the deck to the Queue – making sure to stack cards of the same color on top of each other

2] Choose all the cards of a color – Choose any stack of cards in the Queue and then add them to your player area – this is a 4×4 grid, and it is filled from left to right, top to bottom.  The cards remain capsule side up (so that no one, including the owning player) knows what is on the card.  Note that you may never have more than 16 cards, if you choose a stack which would give you too many, only take the cards you need to complete your 4×4 grid.

3] Activate the Action Tile effect – check how many cards you took this turn (1, 2, 3, 4, or 5+) and then bump up the action tile associated with that number and then resolve the action of that tile.  Alternatively, if you do not want the designated action, you can skip it and take an Open Token instead.  The different actions are:

• Red – pick any capsule card and flip it over as well as any orthogonally connected cards of the same color
• Blue – take a card from the Queue and place it capsule side up in your collection
• Purple – choose any two cards in your collection and swap their position
• Yellow – take another turn

4] Move the action tile used this turn to the rightmost position and push all the others to the left to fill in the gap. The player turn is over and the next player goes.

The game end is triggered when a player completes their entire 4×4 grid.  Play continues until the end of the current round so that all players have the same number of turns.  Then each player gets to do the Red action once (flipping up a card and then all the orthogonally connected cards of the same color).  Finally, players use their collected Open Tokens to flip up one card per Open Token.   Each player then counts their score – scoring for every card which is toy-side up in their array.  The player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of the player with the most 5-star toys.

My thoughts on the game

Capsule Collector is a little filler game where players try to have the best luck at drawing cards.  Sure, it’s not just luck – players can try to modify their chances using the odds of the different suits as well as trying to be clever with the placement of their colors.

The suits have numbers from 8 to 18, and there is a much higher chance of getting a valuable card with the lower numbered suits – in fact, every purple is guaranteed to be either 3 points or 5 points. That being said, they’re not worth anything if you can’t get them flipped over in your array.  

Those lower numbered cards tend to be more desired (given the higher proportion of good scoring cards), but that generally means that players will take fewer cards on their turn.  If they do this too much, a player who takes humongous stacks might be able to fill up their player area and end the game earlier.  As they will also likely have lots of cards in a blob, a single Red action will likely flip them over, so while each card is lower value on average, they’ll more likely be face up and actually award you points.

Sometimes you’ll end up having to pick a color you don’t necessarily want because you really want the action that is associated with that specific number of cards drawn.  That’s the biggest dilemma in the game.  That being said, it still helps to be lucky when you draw.  Draw the right cards, find the actions or Open Tokens to flip them over, and then see who wins.  It’s fine for a filler to start or close the game night.  It does remind me of my friends who go to Japan and chase down rare toys by jamming coins into Gachupon machines over and over again – they will probably love this one.

Until your next appointment, 

The Gaming Doctor