Taking a good panorama landscape with your phone or camera can be tricky. You have to get the angle just right, make sure the sun’s not blocking anything good, and try not to scare off any of the wildlife. But if you’re building your own panorama, you can put everything together just how you want and make the perfect picture! Ready to give it a shot? Let’s go!

What Is It?

A drafting game where players will choose a card each turn to place in the panorama to their right or left, which they are building with their neighbors. They’ll start with 2 panoramas for dusk, then build 2 for dawn. Players want to pay attention to the various score conditions on cards, to try and choose the best option of what to place next. There are also awards available each game for players to work toward, such as having the least foxes, or having the longest panorama. Once players build all 4 of their panoramas, they’ll score each one, and the player(s) with the highest score wins!

Who Is It For?

  • Ages 8+
  • 1 – 6 Players (Shines at 3+)
  • Fans of semi-cooperative elements (working with the player next to you; similar to Between Two Castles)
  • Fans of simultaneous selection

Variants

2-Player / Solo – These variants were very similar. Instead of having a hand of cards, there’s a market to choose from, which gets a little bit bigger each turn. There’s no shared panoramas, you’re just building them on your own, and there are no awards to achieve either. Both play until you have 10 cards in your panorama.

Both variants just felt bland to me. It wasn’t as interesting to play cards into a single panorama; the game benefits from the balance of choosing which card to play and where to play it so that you’re helping yourself more than your opponents who you’re only temporarily cooperating with. Solo also doesn’t have a win/loss condition, just “see how you did,” which is my least favorite way to play solo because I like to compete against a set goal or at least a ranking system, personally.

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Gorgeous artwork on cards and the box; the box also makes it’s own panorama with how it opens, which I loved!
  • Components – Nice quality cards and tiles
  • Rules – Well-written, easy to learn from
  • Smooth turns / gameplay – pick a card, play a card, pass your hand
  • Many ways to score points (various objectives on card + awards)
  • If you can’t place a card, because it doesn’t fit next to anything, you play it face down, which makes it a “wild” card that anything can be placed next to. I like that because it doesn’t make it feel like you wasted your turn, sometimes it’s actually beneficial

CONS

  • There’s only 1 reference card included for the symbols, beyond the rulebook itself. If a game plays 6 players, it should include 6 reference cards.
  • The box doesn’t store things super well due to the shape of it / the insert

Final Thoughts

Overall I thought this game was really pretty, of course, and pretty fun. I have been a fan of Between Two Castles for a while, which does that same shared tableau mechanism of building with your neighbors, trying to score based on various criteria. This felt much more simplified, which I like for playing with family, or those who don’t game as much as me. It also had really quick, smooth turns, that help keep the game flowing which I like.

I will say, though, that the game shines at 3+ players, and I really wouldn’t recommend it at 2 or solo, because it just felt really flat to me.

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10
Designer – Alex Wynnter
Artist – Dann May
Publisher – Sparkworks
MSRP – $19.99
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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