Sosig

Game 42 of the “Now & Then Summer Marathon 2024” – “Sosig played with Toby(6).

“Sosig” is an unbelievably small tile-laying game that quite literally fits in the palm of your hand. The game is played with a deck of tiles where your objective is to complete sausages, gain points, and fulfil orders.

You start by placing an award card, which acts as a universal scoring condition. You also lay out the orders, which are ways to earn points as you play and set up the mystery meat deck along with the body and head decks. Each player can choose from two body tiles and one head tile.

On your turn, you can take a head or body tile from the deck and place it in your grid, Carcassonne-style, either to continue a sausage or to start a new one. All tiles must be placed legally, meaning you can’t have a sausage being blocked. Thus, you either extend an existing sausage or start a new one.

As you complete orders by creating certain patterns, you earn points, which are added to your final score. You can also gain awards by achieving feats such as having the most sausages, the longest sausage, or the “bendiest” sausage.

Certain actions allow you to draw mystery meat cards, which let you hinder your opponent by burning a sausage (reducing their points), chomping a sausage (cutting it off and making it a partially completed sausage), or adding a baby sausage that gives you points at the end of the game.

There are also different types of sausages: meaty sausages give you extra points, pastry sausages are resistant to chomps and burns, saucy sausages give you a free turn, and spicy sausages give you an extra turn if they’re in a sausage with another spicy card.

At the end of the game, you add up all your completed sausages, deduct points for partials, and add your orders and awards to determine your final score.

“Sosig” is a fun little tile-laying game, and I’d be tempted to include a few more awards to increase the number of scoring conditions. It’s not my absolute favourite, and it can be a bit cutthroat, but the fact that the box literally fits in the palm of your hand is appealing. This could be a great game to add to your handbag rotation, especially while waiting at a restaurant.