Board With Each Other
A podcast that looks at Board Games / Tabletop Gaming through the lens of playing as a couple or with a regular gaming partner. Hosted by Al & Hannah, We review a game each episode.
Board With Each Other
Board with Each Other Bite Size: Episode 4 - Sea Salt & Paper
Thanks for joining us for this edition of Board With Each Other Bitesize!
On this episode we give our quick run through and thoughts of the magnificent Sea Salt & Paper and how well it works as a 2 player game. This is a great one folks, find out why within!
As always, if you like what you hear please check out the main podcast where we do much longer form deep dives monthly.
Music
Al:Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Bored With Each Other Bite Size, the spin-off podcast from Bored With Each Other that looks at lighter, smaller games and expansions in a much more compact format compared to our usual monthly deep dive reviews. Today, we are looking at Sea Salt and Paper.
Hannah:Do you want to introduce me?
Al:I am joined, as ever, by my co-host, my player two, my lovely wife, Hannah Kelly.
Hannah:Ahoy!
Al:Nice. So, Sea Salt and Paper is a single-deck card game. It fits in a very, very small box. And the basic premise of the game is that you are collecting... sets of various marine-related origami things. So, for example, fish. Oh, yes, crabs too, Hannah. She's just making frantic crab notions at me. Which were represented in a beautiful origami style, which I first thought were drawings or digital art, but are actually photographs. which is absolutely astounding. Really, really cool. The aim of each round of the game is to be the first player to get seven or more points. And those points are either out on the table where you put down pairs from your hand to take an effect. So for example, if you put down two boats, you take another turn immediately. If you put down two fish, you draw the top card from the deck, et cetera, et cetera. And the cards within your hand. So you don't have to put things down. You can keep them hidden. When you've reached seven or more points, and that's the sort of tactical key here, you can either say stop, at which point play stops and all players count all the points they have out on the table and in their hand and get those points, or you can say last chance, in which case the Other player or players get another turn and then you show your hands. If the person that called last chance wins, they get all of their points plus points for the most common color. All the cards are color coded. The most common color that they have out. The other players just get the color. The color bonus is called. They don't get their points. So, and vice versa, if you lose the bet, the other players get all their points and you just get your color bonus. So it's a bit of a gamble, but it's how you sort of stretch into the lead. To win the game depends on how many players you're playing with. At two players, you need to reach 40 points, which usually goes roughly for four rounds, if you will. The game starts without any cards in your hand whatsoever. You have a deck out in the middle of the table, and you have two discard piles. When you take a turn, you draw either two cards from the deck and discard one to a discard pile of your choice, or you can take the top card from one of the discard piles. So far, so gin rummy, basically. The The other secret sauce within this game is there are four mermaids within the deck. Mermaids on their own give you a color bonus when you score them. So you get the number of points of your most common color. If you have multiple ones, then that goes down, your second most common color, et cetera. But if at any point you manage to accumulate all four mermaids, you win the game entirely. So regardless of where the scores are at, the game is over and you win. And that is pretty much all there is to sea salt and paper. Very, very easy to pick up, very easy to learn.
Hannah:Yeah. What I want to say straight out the bat is this is probably the most beautiful game I think I've come across.
Al:Yeah, it's stunning. The
Hannah:artwork is stunning.
Al:Yeah.
Hannah:So everything is, think about your typical pastel beach hut kind of colour scheme. Yeah. But it's still really vibrant. The origami pictures on it are absolutely breathtaking. It's just really beautiful.
Al:Yeah. No, I have to. degree art style wise it is utterly unique and it looks stunning yeah and I was literally bowled over when I found out that there were photographs of I cannot believe that they're actually on these
Hannah:and it's not gimmicky at all no it's just really really pretty and really really lovely to play and I really enjoy looking at my cards
Al:yes indeed
Hannah:But also on that note, the box doesn't have a divot.
Al:Oh, God, yes. Yeah, such a small thing, but the box is a massive pain in the ass. You have to sit
Hannah:there and shake
Al:it to get it open. Yeah, it's really tight and it's really difficult to get open. Divot, guys! Divot! Divot! Serpentine! Yeah, it's such a minor thing, but I really hope in future editions they've got a little divot on the box because it's a real pain. It's like, come on!
Hannah:But, yeah, in terms of that, in terms of the package... No complaints aside from obviously the
Al:divot. Yeah. So, yeah, the core gameplay, this is a classic example of very easy to pick up, very hard to master.
Hannah:Well,
Al:you
Hannah:say that, but yet our six-year-old kicks our arse
Al:every single time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not hard to master. It's harder to master quicker than us. But, yes, kids can play it. Absolutely. But there is a really impressive tactical depth to this game, which even after over 10 games of it, I don't think I've begun to scratch the surface of. It's one of those forever games that I think you could just keep going back to. It's reasonably quick, probably about 20 minutes-ish, I'd say. And I've never had a bad time.
Hannah:No.
Al:Never, ever had a bad time. It is just a joy to play. I
Hannah:think what's really lovely about it as well is there's a real flow in the dance. So you don't have to talk. There isn't necessarily a huge amount of interaction. But yet, actually, there's a lot of trash talk in this.
Al:Oh, yes, there can be. And when you get a shark and a sumo, you get to nick one of your opponent's cards. And I... I managed to make Hannah the angriest I made her outside of Scythe in this game, which I love.
Hannah:You stole my mermaid! I'm never going to forgive you, sir.
Al:Yeah, again, it's that lovely bit of interactivity, spice on top, where you can nick other people's cards, which I love. I think that's brilliant. And you can really wreck their turn.
Hannah:Yeah. But there is this lovely flow and a lovely dance to it. I think it's, yeah, it's just got a really nice rhythm to it.
Al:Yeah, it does, yeah.
Hannah:And the turns are really quick, and I think because you're constantly changing your playing cards, so you're playing pairs and streets to be able to get, like, different, to take additional turns and things like that, there's no... There's no analysis paralysis. There's no thinking. It's just quite reactionary. But also it's not because you have to be really strategic about what you're doing. You have to think about it, whether you're going to build this set. Oh, look, you're not collecting those. Maybe I should switch and start collecting them. Oh, no, you've got the same idea as me. Or
Al:you can start bluffing. You can start pretending to collect things that you're not. There's just so much there. Right. There's the whole mechanic about when you call a stop to things. There's the gambling because it's a part of my brain to it where I'm like, do I push further? Do you call stop or do you call last chance?
Hannah:You also have some quite powerful cards, I guess. So, for example, there is a card like the ruler of the fish and so it means that you get additional points for every fish card you have but sometimes you just want to take those so you stop your opponent from
Al:having them and
Hannah:again it's that kind of
Al:and sometimes the luck of the draw says no I know for quite a few times I've taken those and I've just ended up not seeing a fish for the rest of the game you don't know so there is quite a lot of luck in it to that extent but yeah and one of the mechanics that I love is the mermaids because there is something it's like getting a royal plush and poker like I haven't seen it happen yet We've come very close. We've come very, very close. We've got one table. Yeah, we've had four hours at times, but I know you've come close, a couple of times you've had three. But it's one of those things like, oh, that'd be awesome to get. So that kind of keeps you coming back to it more and more and more. How do you feel about player counts? Because in an unusual twist of a board with each other, we've actually played at three quite a lot because we played with our daughter. I
Hannah:do think it changes the game.
Al:Yeah.
Unknown:Yeah.
Hannah:I think there's a lot more luck with more players than there are with two because you obviously can choose where you put your discard. Yeah. So... it becomes, you have to be a lot more strategic about where you're discarding your card and what you think your opponent's building. So you have to do an awful lot of guessing at what they're trying to do. Yeah. That becomes less relevant when you've got three players because- And
Al:even less so at four, I imagine. Yeah, because the board set changes so
Hannah:quickly that it doesn't become quite so relevant, I don't think.
Al:Yeah, I would agree with you. And as a result, I think it is a slightly better game at two. I don't think it's a bad game at three. I think it's wonderful. Really enjoy it. But I think two is the optimum- Yeah. player count for this, because it just makes it a much more strategic affair. And it's easier to keep tabs on what the other player's doing and trying to counter them and all that. So I do think it's a better two-player game than it is three.
Hannah:Also where you discard cards, because again, I've discarded cards specifically to one pile in the hope that I can draw that card again next turn, for example.
Al:Yeah. But again, that's where crabs come in. We haven't mentioned crabs yet, but they let you basically look through one of the discard piles and pull a card out of there. Which, come back five, if you haven't been paying attention, you choose the wrong one, which I think we both have on several occasions. But yeah, I think it is a better two-player game.
Hannah:Yeah, but
Al:only slightly. Yeah, only slightly. This isn't great at three. It's great at three as well, and probably at four. So I wouldn't let that put you off. And it's a wonderful coffee shop slash pub game.
Hannah:Yeah.
Al:Fits in your pocket and you can crack it out anywhere. It doesn't take much space to play at all. Suitable
Hannah:for all age ranges. Again, once you've explained the core rules, there's no language requirement for it. Yeah, like I say, we play with our six-year-old and she's fine with that. She's grasped the concepts really well. So again, it's a bit generational in terms of its appeal as well.
Al:Cross-generational, yeah. Again, I imagine you could play this with my dad, who's perhaps played Gin Rummy in some of the the concepts will come back very, very quickly. Well, sort of cross-pollinate as such. It's one of those games that feels like it's always been around. Yeah. That's how you know you've got a classic on your hands because it's that good. It's that good out the gate. I am very curious about the expansion, soon to be expansions. I am curious because it looks cool, but I'm also slightly trepidatious that it might upset the balance. I don't know. Because it is such a well-formed gave out box such I worry that adding more to it is going to take
Hannah:away from
Al:it yeah you're going to add and then subtract as a result yeah the dilute um but I don't know that's that's just a feeling I will obviously try it out because I love it but um yeah the TBC I'm not sure how that's going to work it's it's it's always a bit of you always have a bit of caution like messing around with something that's so excellently formed. You think back to Radland, a similar kind of thing.
Hannah:You
Al:don't want to mess with the delicate balance that's there.
Hannah:But I think this should be an absolute must-have on any board game and shelf.
Al:Yes. And in fact, any board shelf, to be honest. Go buy this. It's cheap. I think it retails for about £13. It's an absolute no-brainer if you're into board games. And again, you can introduce this to most people. So even for those non-capital B board gamers, this would be a real hit. So
Hannah:how would you score it then?
Al:nine
Hannah:yeah
Al:it's a nine i think it's uh it would be 10
Hannah:if it had a divot in the box
Al:yeah put a divot in the box and yeah you'll get our first 10 um which seems bonkers to me in a way of such a small slight thing but it's it's so close to perfect that i just wouldn't change
Hannah:so stunningly beautiful
Al:yeah
Hannah:so beautiful
Al:yeah it's an absolute it's an absolute joy it's an absolute gem and i think it's going to go down as a classic
Hannah:So
Al:thank you for joining us on that quick voyage. Yeah, good night, folks. But if you like what you heard today and want some more deep dive content on deeper and larger games, then our monthly podcast is there for you to explore. But until next time, be good to each other, have fun, and play lots of board games.
