Calico: How to Play
Cats, they’re fickle, ornery creatures but with the right motivation, a human can trick even the most stubborn of them onto a comfy blanket for chin scratches and headbutts. Today I’m going to teach you how to play, Calico, a game about cat manipulation and quilting!
In Calico players are competing to sew the most perfect quilt. This gorgeous game is illustrated by the fabulous Beth Sobel and designed by the brilliant Kevin Russ with development from the magnificent Flatout Games team, you might know them from a little game called Point Salad. Now before we get started I want to state clearly that this is a prototype that was made by hand and the final product will be even nicer!
To set up the game, each player should have a player board and 6 Design Goal Tiles! Players will pick 3 of these goal tiles and put them into the cat head spaces on their board.
Each player is then given 2 random Patch Tiles to start the game and the first player is whoever last held my cat, Dax.
On their turn, each player is going to place a Patch Tile onto their quilt and then check to see if they’ve qualified to sew on a button or if they’ve attracted one of the many adorable cats! Finally, they will simply draft one of three face-up available Patch tiles. That’s all there is to it!
There are 3 ways that players score points in Calico.
If the player has 3 of the same color quilt tiles connecting, then they get to sew a button onto their quilt. There are a total of 6 different colored buttons and each one correlates to a color of Patch Tile! If a player manages to get all 6 buttons then they’ll also be given the illustrious rainbow button! When adding these buttons onto the quilt, the players also get to factor in the border tiles on their quilt player board. This would count as 3 total tiles for yellow, for example, and the player would get to sew on a moon/banana button to their quilt.
Now, as many of us know and some of us don’t, cats are color blind and they don’t care at all what colorful nonsense you’re sewing onto your quilt. All they care about is the patterns and each cat has their own fickle preferences. Queenie over here wants to see at least 5 fern (or 5 polka dot) patterns touching, and if she does, she will come lay down on your quilt and stay a while. Each of these cats is worth a number of points at the end of the game, pictured on the top left corner of the corresponding cat scoring card.
Now, let’s go over the end-of-quilt scoring aspect, the Design Goal Tiles. There are 6 unique goal tiles for each player, but players will only be selecting 3 to use per game from a random draw of 4 of them.
Each of the Design Goal Tiles has a specific requirement for the 6 hex spaces surrounding the goal tile. For example, this tile requires the players to have 6 unique colors or patterns in every single tile surrounding the objective. If the player achieves one of these, either the unique colors or the unique patterns, then they’ll score 10 points total for the tile. However, if they have 6 unique tiles, both in color and pattern, they’ll score 15 total points for this Design Goal Tile.
The other Design Goal Tiles are similar but they are listed out using letters to represent different designs of quilt patterns or colors. As you can see here, this one wants the players to have 2 of one color or pattern, 2 of another and then 1 of an entirely different one and finally a fourth color or pattern that’s entirely different from the others! To score this for color, the player would have, for example, two dark blues, two yellows, a pink and light blue. They would then score 5 points. If they were also able to complete the design with patterns, they’d score 8 points! The other 4 tiles follow similar rules as you can see here.
At the start of the game the players select 3 of these and then do their best to quilt into them! The game ends after each player has sewn a completed their gorgeous and satisfying quilt placing down that final piece of their puzzle! There’s no better feeling!
What I haven’t covered yet, however is how scalable this game is. If you’re playing with children, those new to games, or just want a relaxing color- and pattern-matching experience, you can flip over the Design Goal Tiles and simply do your best to sew on buttons and attract cats. If you’re playing with an old gaming expert like me, you can even flip over your cat scoring cards to reveal the most discerning of cats. To attract these lovelies, you will have to place your patterns in specific spatial arrangements so that they will be enticed to spend some time on your quilt! Calico is stunning and it’s serene yet challenging! There’s also a bonus super simple solo mode for when your friends can’t make it to game night!
If you have any questions about the game, leave them below and we’ll be happy to answer them! In the comments please tell us the name of your favorite cat! Be Bold, play games, be you! Happy gaming!