Snackaroo has cute cards and a complex game

[Ad – Gifted Products] Every other Monday we have a board game afternoon at our local Geek Retreat, and this time, we played Snackaroo – which has really fantastic characters! I absolutely love claymation and clay art, I collect clay Pokemon Cards, so when I saw the box of Snackaroo, I really wanted to play the game itself. Robin and Amelia both agreed these were fantastic cards as well, so we were excited to play.

The game itself is over three different rounds, all of which feel like they have the same theme with memory being the main action that needs to be done. We all got our decks, which are divided by the colors of the backs of the cards, and then started round one by flipping over the two charater cards and then quickly racing through our cards, lifting one at a time from our personal deck and putting it down, until we found a card that matched the middle two pictures. Once someone had done that and slapped the deck, everyone else could stop searching and wait for the next reveal, after resetting their personal deck. There are some slight differences between the characters and the pictures, which is so fun and adds a little interest.

Each time we played this round, whoever got a few cards revealed soon had the rest, because they had less to look through. It did feel sort of imbalanced and Robin struggled to keep up. This round also then kind of decides how the next round is made. For round two of Snackaroo, you need to divide your remaining cards in two piles, as if you found a card that matched the start and were the first to do so, you will have your cards in that middle pile. The middle pile is mixed up. One of the top cards are revealed, then each player needs to select one of the two decks in front of them that they think that card is in. This is done after you’ve memorized one of your decks. We decided to give two minutes to memorize!

Then, you need to race through that deck and reveal the matching card. If you are first, you get +1 point. If you reveal it at all, you get a net zero points. If you selected the wrong deck, you get a negative point. Obviously, if this is your card from the first round, you will not have the matching card, so just get a net zero without needing to look. The third round is the same as this second round, but you split your remaining cards into three piles, and then need to memorize only one of them and take a gamble at the others.

Robin, Amelia, Dann and I felt that though these cards were very cute, the game itself felt a bit complex and imbalanced, especially as those who were super lucky in round one, weren’t able to really earn points in round two, but also didn’t end up with negative points. It just felt very complex for what is otherwise very cute characters!

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