Let’s Go to the Beach!

It’s a relaxing day at the beach – not a care in the world! … Oh, you want to have a sandcastle building competition? Well, let’s do it! We’ll add windows, and starfish, and seashells, and more! Let’s see who can build the best sandcastle on the beach!

---

What Is It?

✨Theme – Beach / Sandcastles
🎯The Goal of the game is to have the most points
⚙️Drafting / Push Your Luck – Each round the start player will take a stack of tiles equal to the number of players. They will look at 1 tile and decide to keep it and add it to their castle, or pass it to the next player, who will do the same until someone chooses to keep it, or is stuck with it. Each player will get 1 tile per round
⚙️Tile Placement – Players will put tiles into their sandcastle, which is a max 5×5 grid. They must place via rules of gravity, aside from sky tiles, which can float until the end of the game
⚙️Set Collection – Players will score points for sets or starfish, windows, shells, and more

Who Is It For?

👥2 to 6 Players – Fine at any count. The draft is a bit more exciting with 4 or more
👥Ages 8 & Up – Approachable rules and gameplay, but younger players may need assistance with scoring
👥Fans of drafting with a little risk, tile placement, and lots of ways to score

PROS

🟢Aesthetics – Cute look and fun to see everyone’s castles at the end
🟢Components – Nice quality tiles
🟢Easy set-up and clean-up
🟢Gameplay is approachable to a wide audience

CONS

🔴There is a lot of scoring with increasing scales – reference cards for all players would have been so nice
🔴Scoring also felt clunky and long when you got to it
🔴The rulebook wasn’t terrible to learn from, but it did have a few contradictions that were confusing – the reference page mentioned a bonus of window scoring which wasn’t mentioned in the rules themselves; the starfish bonus in the rules wasn’t mentioned in the reference; the starfish are referred to by the wrong colors

---

Final Thoughts

This is a cute little tile placement game. I thought it had a fun theme and the tiles look cool as you build out your castles. This style of drafting, as opposed to laying out the tiles and having players choose in turn, is maybe not “necessary,” but I do find it a little more exciting and it seems to keep players more engaged throughout everyone’s turns. I did think scoring could have been cleaner, especially for such a light, family-style game, but otherwise, I think it will appeal to a wide audience!

---

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10

Designer – Alex Cutler
Artist – Gica Tam
Publisher – Pandasaurus Games
MSRP – $19.95
Website