More about Rococo

Rococo is awesome! 🥳 Check out our overview here! We wanted to talk a bit more about our impressions. The game is really engaging from beginning to end, and I am a fan of the theme too. 🥰

Each round you first have to decide what 3 employee cards you choose. If you want to recruit additional cards, you have to take at least a master, but you don’t have a lot of those. Apprentices also can’t sew dresses! Every card has some kind of ability too - maybe they could be more beneficial on a later turn? Another cool thing is how though you only have 3 actions in a round, recruited new employees go into your hand and you can use them in the same turn - so sometimes you will do 4-5 actions!

Timing is essential. Being the first player can be important if you see a garment or jewel tile you need, however employee cards and resource tiles cost less if there are less remaining - so sometimes going later is actually better. This can lead to interesting stand-off waiting games. 😅 With decorations you also have to be quick - funding will cost more money if you are late to the party.

The jeweler expansion adds some additional rules overhead, but it meaningfully expands the decision space, so it is definitely worth it and should be a must-include. You can match jewels to dresses for bonuses and they also provide additional income. There is also a “mini-game” that allows you to train your employees to a higher level one.

Then there is of course the area majority aspect in the halls. Garments you rent out can be placed on the board - you can claim bonuses you cover up, but it could be also vital to go for majority elsewhere. There are spaces in the halls where only dresses sewn by masters can be placed, which act as tiebreakers at the end. It’s of course pretty zero-sum in 2p, but is fun nonetheless.

The only negative is perhaps how humongous they made the game board - it could’ve been smaller. Another thing we dislike is the mechanic where you can do an action to claim the 1st player marker. That goes for every game that has this. 😄 It’s probably cooler in 4-5 player games, in 2p it’s either too weak or a must-do.

Everything else is top-notch though! 🤩