Oddland Board Game Review
When it comes to tile laying – card laying – games, I’m generally pretty intrigued. I love the idea of building out a tableau to score points. What sets Oddland apart from those games is that the tableau you are building is being built by everyone, so you might be setting yourself up for a big score, but that doesn’t mean it won’t get ruined by someone else. There is a lot of interaction in Oddland, for better or for worse, and it really depends on how you like to play games whether you will like this one or not.
In Oddland, players will be placing cards into a central area to create biomes and place out animals. Cards played must be connected by at least one side to the central board, and card can also partially be placed on top of other cards as long as a animal token isn’t occupying a space that you want to cover. Animal tokens are placed to score points at the end of the game, with each animal having a unique way that it scores. When the game ends, the player with the most points from their animals wins!
Check out this how to play before reading the rest of our review!
On the surface, Oddland is a giant puzzle game. There are a number of different animals you can play out onto the central board , and they all score differently. One might give you points for the number of adjacent tiles with a specific biome, or perhaps score you points based on the size of the biome you placed the animal in. If this was just happening in front of you without other player interactions, I would argue this is a really good puzzle experience. But that isn’t how it works. The central area is always changing with players putting down cards and altering the look of the island you are all creating. While it rarely makes sense to screw another player over on purpose, there are times when that is the best strategy, and you really need to be in the right mindset to be OK with that.
I generally don’t enjoy games that can devolve into being really mean to other players, but I find that happens very rarely in Oddlands. Generally, the cards I’m playing to create unique biomes are meant to score me points, as opposed to making others lose points. With so many animals to place down on the board, you cannot be wasting turns trying to screw other players over – that generally isn’t the path to victory. And thankfully, I don’t have people in my friend group who like to cause chaos for the sake of causing chaos. That said, “mean” moments definitely happen in Oddland, generally not on purpose, and that could make this a very frustrating experience for some players.
If you enjoy having to think on your feet, and play with what’s in front of you, this is one of the more enjoyable, quick experiences currently available. With only two cards to work with each turn, how you play them is a much bigger decision than you might think. It could be the difference between a lot of points, or only a few points. There are no wasted turns in Oddland, which I really appreciate.
Oddland has fantastic production and a really strong price, and with easy to teach rules, it’s one that can be tabled relatively quickly. This will not be for everyone though, so if you don’t like having to make snap decisions on an ever changing central board, this is one you should probably pass on. If you love a challenge with games feeling different each time, than snap this up and enjoy!
Article By Adam
