Patchwork Doodle

• Designer: Uwe Rosenberg
• Publisher: Lookout Games
• Players: 1-6+
• Age: 8+
• Time to play: 20 Minutes

Hey folks! Back again with another game review. This time, we’re rolling dice, picking the fabric piece, and making patchwork art, clothing, or quilts. Really, it’s up to your imagination what we’re crafting. I like to think it’s a quilt because the grid is shaped like one. Patchwork Doodle is another implementation of the Patchwork series. This time, Uwe Rosenberg has taken his polyomino shapes and applied it to a roll and draw format. What’s a polyomino? It’s basically making a shape out of squares that you place edge to edge. Like a tetris shape, but any number of squares.

Components

 

Patchwork Doodle comes with 30 Patch cards, 10 Start cards, 6 color pencils, 1 token, 1 wooden die, 1 pad of game sheets, and the rules.

Set Up

To set up, give each player a game sheet and pencil.

Shuffle and deal one start card to each player.

Players then draw this shape anywhere on their board. It doesn’t need to be on a edge. It has to be all inside the board, nothing on the outside to make the shape fit.

Shuffle the patch cards and place the deck in the center of the table.

Place the token Anywhere around the deck. This is the starting point for the round.

Draw 8 patch cards and place them around the deck in a oval type pattern.

Keep the die near by.

 

Game Play

The game is played over three rounds. At the end of each round you score your pattern.

During a turn, a player will roll the die and move the token clockwise that many spaces and place the token on the card.

• Players may draw this shape in their game board.
  • Shapes don’t need to be adjacent to a previously placed piece.
  • Shapes need to be placed on empty spaces. No overlapping.
  • Shapes can be rotated and flipped as you wish.
  • Shapes need to be outlined and shaded on your board. To tell what empty spaces are left at the end of the game.
• Players may use one of the special actions on the side of the game sheet. These can only be used once.

• • Instead – You can select the card to the right or left of the token instead of the one the token is on to draw.
  • 1 Piece – Let’s you shade a one spot on the game board.
  • Scissors – This lets you make a single cut on the shape being drawn. It can only split the shape in two pieces and you select one of those pieces.
  • Another Use – This lets you use anther action a second time.

 

A round goes until there have been 6 shapes to be selected. The it’s on to scoring.

To score, you first make a rectangle out of shaded spots on your game board. Inside that rectangle, you make a square and score one point for each spot in that square. Then, you score one point for every additional column or row in that rectangle.

The example is a 2×4 rectangle. The square, 2×2, scores 4 points. The two left over rows score you 2 more points.

When a round is finished, you slide the two left over cards next to each other and you draw 6 more cards to start the round. The token is placed before the left over cards. The player rolls the die, and game play continues. There is one exception to rolling the die and that’s the last turn in the 3^rd round. When there are three pieces left, the player gets to pick the very last piece they draw.

After you end the third round, you add your scores together and subtract points for every negative space you have. The player with the highest total wins.

Final Thoughts

Patchwork Doodle is a nice compact roll and draw. I’m a fan of doodling and rolling dice so this game sounded right up my alley.

Components wise, the cards are good, the pawn is good, and the die is nice in it’s wooden chunky glory. I’m a fan of dice, but for some reason I always enjoy a chunky wood one to the plastic dice. Artwork is subtle in this game, as you’re the one creating it. If you take a look at the patch cards, you’ll notice each card has different designs to them inside the shape. This is a nice touch. The color pencils aren’t the greatest. I almost rather use a mechanical pencil than the pencils provided. There is also a pad of 80 double sided game sheets. I typically like to laminate a few and use dry erase markers. I haven’t tried it with this game yet, but fear that with the drawing different shapes it might not work as well.

Game play is so simple. Roll the die, move the token, draw the shape. It’s the placement and use of special abilities that change this up. Since it’s everyone playing at once, the game play is fast. It’s when you’re actually coloring in the shape on your board it can take some time. I use just the outline and shade method. Some people like to outline, doodle a pattern, then add shading. That method can take a little longer than others. I like the scissors ability and being able to make one shape into two and picking the one you want. This has helped when you get that odd shape that needs to be filled on the board. It’s that puzzle aspect that I’m really enjoying. The spatial thinking and planning out your placement make this game shine for me.

Scoring seems a little confusing at first, but after a couple of times it’s not too bad. When playing, I’m trying to make a large square first rather than a long rectangle. I quickly learned that you don’t want empty spaces on the board when scoring. This shortens the rectangle you can create. So when I play, I try and build from one corner out and up. Not sure if this is a good strategy but seems to work for me.

If you’re a fan of Tetris, then I think you’ll be a fan of this game. This game is so enjoyable, my wife and I played it 4 times in a row when we first got it. It doesn’t take too long to play, so that’s not a crazy feat. It does show how much we liked it. It’s easy to explain easy to play. The game says 1-6+, but I’m not sure if I would go more than 6 players. It wouldn’t take longer, I just think it would be hard to fit everyone around the table to play. I recommend this to anyone looking for a roll and write/draw game and anyone that likes polyomino games.