My 7 year old has become known for his love of games and so occasionally receives birthday or Christmas gifts to reflect this pastime he shares with his old man. Randy Flynn’s 2021 hex and tile laying game Cascadia was one such gift and as a good father, I have frequently yoinked it for games nights when folks request a game that’s got some substance but isn’t too complex
Cascadia falls into what we call the point salad category of games where players compete to earn the most points through a variety of means – in this case by placing hexes that create large contiguous biomes and by placing animal tiles in advantageous positions. Every turn players are given a limited option of 4 paired hexes and tiles and choose which to take and which to leave for their rivals to snap up. You only ever play hexes and tiles to your own play area so that snapping up is the only friction and interaction between players but it’s a doozy.
In any given round you are eyeing this small selection of tiles, sweating when a coveted bear or salmon pops its head out of the hefty bag of animals and you can feel both the elation when you get just what you need and the crushing despair when the player just to your right takes exactly what you needed like an avenging harpy. Luckily, because there are other routes to points, no turn feels wasted. This is aided by the speed of play which is beautifully quick as you only have a limited set of choices before you.
The game offers a few quirks to keep you on your toes. One is that if ever you are faced with three out of the four tiles being the same animal, you can wipe them away and draw three new ones. This is blessedly helpful when no-one wants foxes so the invisible hand of the free market clogs up the board with them. If ever there are four of the same animal, the wiping is automatic which helps speed things up. Another quirk are these cute little pinecones you’ll collect for putting animals on special hexes. These pinecones are worth points by themselves at the end of the game but they can also be spent to give you more flexibility when choosing tiles and hexes.
Cascadia is fast, breezy, and lovely to look at. Scoring takes a bit of time to work out and calculate but isn’t too much of a head scratcher and because there are so many paths to victory, you don’t have the frustration of seeing a clear winner early on and feeling left behind. Replayability is helped by the animal victory conditions being variable and players can choose from a selection of four victory options per animal or they can shuffle and trust fate. It’s a delightful game and I’m grateful my son has earned the ludological reputation he has and that I get to benefit from it.