The little Sea Salt & Paper card game is surprising with its origami

Despite what the look of the cards suggests – they each represent a photograph of an origami of the marine world -, Sea Salt & Paper is not a game of tricks (do you have it?). Let’s quickly go over its theme, which does not exist, to take an interest in its operation.

At the start of the game, all the cards are shuffled into a pile, face down. The first two are turned over to form two separate discards. On your turn, you have the choice between two actions: either take the first card on top of one of these two discard piles, or draw two cards from the pile, keep one, and put the other back in one of the discard piles.

There are several types of cards, but they generally fall into two categories: point cards and effect cards. Those with points work on the principle of collection. A single octopus, for example, is worth nothing. Two octopuses are worth 3 points, 6 points if there are three, etc. Effect cards always work in pairs. It takes two boats to replay a trick, two fish to draw a random card, a shark and a swimmer to steal a card from an opponent, etc. Just put a pair in front of you in turn to trigger the effect.

There is no fixed end of the round in this game, it is up to the players to decide. As soon as you have at least 7 points in your hand (or in front of you, with the effect cards already placed), you can declare the end of the round.

You then have two options. Either it is an immediate end of the round, in which case everyone scores their points normally. Either, you trigger a last chance: everyone plays a last turn… except you. If no one else has more points than you, you score your points. Otherwise, it is the others who score their points, and you, nothing.

The rounds follow each other in this way, and the game ends as soon as someone reaches a certain number of points according to the number of participants. But that’s not all. There are four mermaid cards in the deck, which are worth points depending on the suits of the other cards. And, if you manage to collect all four… you immediately win the game!

Why play Sea Salt & Paper?

Attention, we prefer to warn you: Sea Salt & Paper is a game with high addictive potential. We are already at about thirty games, and we still can’t get enough of it.

The first leaves a slightly mixed taste. Yes, it’s nice, but it’s mostly very risky. We must admit that it is a bit painful to constantly return to the rulebook to check the effects of the cards (game aids would have been welcome). The different ways to score points are a bit confusing.

But, piqued by curiosity, we make a second one. We understand a little better how to play, when to trigger this or that effect, how to juggle between the different types of cards, etc. Comes the third, where we now recognize all the symbols, thus streamlining the course of the game.

And, from there, everything goes off the rails. We just want to play it again and again. Whether we lost or won the previous one. Especially since the games are fast, especially two, about ten minutes. Worse still, if you don’t have anyone to play it with, an online adaptation is available on Board Game Arena to satisfy your desire.

One could reproach him for the absence of a link between the mechanics and the theme. But, who cares, it’s just a little card game, which has no other claim than to make you have a good time, not to immerse you in any adventure. Or its particular design. We must leave it the challenge of its originality, whether we like it or not, and recognize the talent of the two origamists who created these foldings.

Icing on the cake, it is the first game, to our knowledge, to use ColorADD, a system of pictograms to identify colors, intended for color blind people. It does not eat bread and allows even more people to play it, and we hope that other publishers follow suit.

Sea Salt & Paper is a small card game, in a very small box, at a rikiki price, which does not look like much at first sight. Once you’ve tasted it, tamed its points system and its iconography, you just want to come back. It’s smart as anything, fluid, its games are fast, and it even has the luxury of offering “illustrations” never seen before in a board game. After Black District just recently, highly addictive card games are on the rise.

• Sea Salt & Paper is a game by Bruno Cathala and Théo Rivière
• Illustrated Origami by Pierre-Yves Gallard and Lucien Derainne
• Edited by Bombyx
• For 2 to 4 players from 8 years old
• For games of about 30 minutes
• Priced at €10.95 at Philibert

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