Best Treehouse Ever

Designer: Scott Almes

Artist: Adam P. McIver
Publisher: Green Couch Games
Number of Players: 2 – 4
Playing Time: 20 minutes

This past weekend, I had the pleasure to break out Best Tree House Ever by Scott Almes with my six year old son, Ari. When I cracked open the box, I was instantly captivated by the wonderful art and vibrant colors printed on the cards. As we tore through the plastic wrap for the card packs, the quality of the cards were excellent as well. As my son looked through the different cards, I read the easy to read rules on how to play the game. After the first pass of the rules, Ari and I played a game. I helped him with his overall decision making mainly to remind him of the balancing rules and the color contact rules. We played with the two-player variant and in the end he wound up winning with a huge plot of water rooms in the dead center of his treehouse. I asked him what he thought of the game and he said it was fun.

My overall impression of the Best Treehouse Ever is that for a light card game it was indeed fun and quick. The game uses a combination of two key mechanisms — card drafting and set collection. Each turn, players will choose a card from a diminishing hand and pass the remaining cards to the other player. The card chosen is placed in the treehouse in a way that the tree does not become too unbalanced (too many cards on one side of the tree) and the colors played must touch each other (if a color is cut off, you cannot play the card).

Scoring occurs three times in the game after the second to last card is played. The last card is discarded and scoring is triggered. Score is based on the color distribution in the tree house. In the two player variant, the players will each select a color that is not scored. Selection order is dictated by the number of points each player has with the low player selecting first. With more players, there is double-points choice added to the canceling of points choice. Selection of which option is done from high score to low score, but the application of the selection to a color is reversed from low score to high score.

In closing, we both enjoyed the game and look forward to playing again. I hope to rope my wife into the game to see how the game feels with more players.

 

Rating: 7 out of 10

Availability
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CoolStuffInc: http://www.coolstuffinc.com/p/219425
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