Designer: Randy Flynn
Publisher: Flatout Games, Alderac Entertainment Group
Cascadia invites players to explore the various biomes of the Pacific Northwest in a puzzley abstract strategy game of tile and token placement. Each game, new cards are revealed, dictating how animal tokens score relative to other animal tokens. The tiles, on the other hand, always score the same: the larger the habitat, the more points you score, with a bonus for players with the largest habitat of each type.
Cascadia once again has Beth Sobel’s incredible art backing up impeccable strategic gameplay, as players draft tiles and tokens to complete a variety of interesting objectives. A careful eye for planning ahead can lead to large returns in Cascadia, but even a new player can quickly pick up the strategy required to do well. This approachable title has been extremely popular with the Committee this year, and we’re very pleased to name Cascadia our Strategy Games award winner.
What Our Committee Is Saying
I instantly fell in love with this game. … I like the double tile laying … [and] there are so many different ways to score. It plays quickly. It’s easily one of my top three games of the year. It’s easy to teach and there are surprising layers of strategy underneath.
Ruel Gaviola
I really like the fact that it’s a game that I can play with my daughter and my adult friends together. … The terrain-wildlife combinations of Cascadia make for a nice puzzle that works in two separate layers, so that you’re forced to make trade-offs and can’t always optimize both at the same time.
Jonathan Liu
It is such a simple game to setup and start playing. I loved it so much, we immediately played another game right afterwards.
Annette Villa
Photos courtesy of What’s Eric Playing?. All rights reserved.
The American Tabletop Awards 