For many people, the beach is the epidemy of rest and relaxation. The sun, sand, and ocean waves can wash away the stress of our everyday life. I’m not in that group of people. Sand and myself are mortal enemies that have been in a battle since my teenage years. Thankfully, games like Beach Day from CakePie Games exist so I don’t have to actually be on a beach to enjoy this atmosphere.
Beach Day is a tile placement game for 1 to 5 players that’s illustrated by Ammon Anderson (Gnome Hollow) and designed by Brennan Smith and Josh Bowman. This small box game brings all the joy of the beach as you chase victory points and stay away from pesky sand.
Fun in the Sun
Each player is adding cards to their own beach tableau on their turn, chasing five global goals and their own unique goal. You’ll receive two crab cards at the start of the game, discarding one and keeping the other. This is a personal scoring goal that is unique to just you.
Everyone starts with a single tile 2×2 card that is marked with a sea turtle in one of the corners. This sea turtle is important and can never be covered by another card.
On your turn, you can take two cards from the top of the draw pile, placing one and discarding the other to one of the two discard piles. OR, you can take and place one of the top cards on either of the discard piles. In adding a new card to your beach, you can place it adjacent to another card or overlap another previously placed card. Overlapping is generous in this game since you can cover one or more of the four squares on a card. You can never place a card diagonally adjacent or tuck a card under another previously placed card.
Beach Activities
On the cards in Beach Day, you’ll find beachballs, sand castles, pools of water, shells, sand dollars, and even trash. Each item on the beach has a different method of scoring based on the goal cards that were chosen at the start of the game. Beachball halves need to be paired with another half in order to be scored. Sea shells score the most when grouped in contiguous paths.
Don’t forget about your crab card! That secret scoring criteria can be helpful in outscoring your opponent. Players will watch how each beach is being built at the table. In many of our games, the score has been tight and competitive which is exactly how we like our games.
Since the goal cards in the game are double-sided, players can pick their favorite scoring cards each and every game. Once you get a couple games under your belt, you’ll start to enjoy some goals more than others. The game gives you the agency to just pick your favorites and run with it.
After the draw pile is empty, players score based on the goal cards and crab card that each player has. The highest score wins.
Final Thoughts
Like a day at the beach, Beach Day is a relaxing and breezy time at the game table. The small box makes this a great game to throw into a bag or to play over a meal. It’s easy to understand how everything is scored and the placement rules are straight-forward.
Beach Day is a filler game that is going to check a lot of boxes for anyone looking for a quick game that you can take on the go. The gameplay and theme absolutely go hand-in-hand with this release.
Beach Day is being funded through Kickstarter starting in June from CakePie Games. Check out the campaign today.
A prototype of the game was provided for this coverage. Components and rules covered in this preview are not finalized. Read more about our preview policies at One Board Family.
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