Matthew BaileyAfter the amazing impulse purchase of canvas game 34 of the “Bailey family sorta Summer Board Game Bonanza” is a game I also bought at the same time as an impulse buy which is “Pinata Party”.
Firstly there are no Pinatas in Pinata Party. The game is essentially a “Candy Crush” style board game.
You lay the board out (which is a challenge in itself as you build the score track around the edge as a jigsaw) and then lay out the sweets on the grid.
You then choose a scoring card and 2 movement cards. These movement cards denote on your turn how you can move a piece.
This leads to one if the most hilarious “shuffle and select” ever as one movement card is more complicated and therefore significantly bigger than the other meaning its kinda hard to shuffle and hide (see pic)
And here in is my first big issue. You can only move 1 piece twice as opposed to 2 pieces. This is super frustrating an significantly cuts down what you can do on your turn. Equally unlike playing Candy Crush there are no mechanisms to force movement of other pieces so the board just gets progressively clearer with less options.
It is also pretty much impossible to set anything up in advance.
You get pieces by matching 2s or more (in the 2 games we played no one acheived above a 3). Some of the movement pieces allow you to make stacks that add to the strategy slghtly.
In the end you then score your pieces based on the chosen method to see who won.
Its super ok but I couldn’t help feeling it had the beginnings of a good game rather than being one.
Component quality is decent. All of the pieces are wood and well sprayed. Stickers seem sturdy and you get spares just in case.
Not the best this time I’m afraid but tbh having written the review I reckon with a few house rules you could improve it… this is almost something where i feel everyone having their own board would work better… but that’s a different game.
