When you start discussions about board games, it’s quite easy to hear the usual words: dragon, wizard, city, worker, castle, Cthulhu, zombie, sword… In short, we all know the most popular themes, and they usually pass by the blade of a weapon, by a mason’s trowel, by an unusually lively cemetery or by the Old MacDonald farm, E-I-E-I-O.
It took time, a lot of time, to change the cards on the table. Way back in 2019, wandering around the board game Play in Modena fair that we never miss to attend, we came across gigantic murals praising ornithology. Intrigued, we approached and sat at a table laden with eggs, bird cards and bird food-shaped tokens. We started out wanting to play dice and manage empires, and ended up classifying birds.
We left that table with the answer to the question that has been plaguing us for some time: does the theme dress make the monk of the game? And the answer was no, not at all. Because when a game is wonderful, it doesn’t matter whether it’s about birds like in Wingspan, about scientific journeys like in Darwin’s Journey, about how to winter badgers like in Creature Comforts or about the best way to place salmon in California like in Cascadia. The only thing that matters is playing with it, a lot, and well.
And here those geniuses at AEG come up with the theme that perhaps can persuade even the most reluctant person to sit at a properly set table: cats! And if the most loved feline wasn’t enough, let’s also throw in some soft quilts.
This little great masterpiece that bears the name of Calico, located in Italy by the best friends of family games, namely Little Rocket Games, has now become the perfect bait to lure our unsuspecting victims, whatever genre they are: the lid with the cutest illustration ever created is like honey for bears.
After opening Calico, a battle begins with perfect quilt designs, as if we were at a crochet course, to win the favors of the cutest felines, hoping that they don’t tear them to shreds (but that won’t be the case, in Calico it seems have only soft fur, no sharp fangs).
After just a couple of rounds the very tender dress reveals a cruel optimization competition and one is massacred with arduous choices for the best button. For the immense satisfaction of the seducer, and for the victims, of course!
Of course, you have to be quick to start this game, you have to behave like true professionals whether you’re turning newbies into hard gamers or you’re starting the semi-final of the feline tournament. And so, without further ado, every cat in our organizer is well placed in its cage, every button in its space and every token where it rightfully belongs.
For a setup in just a few seconds, don’t let anyone start moving their tail a little too much!
Discover also the other games in our catalog and contact us for any request or question!
