Paint the Roses Review - with Tom Vasel

Tom Vasel takes a look at Paint the Roses!

Intro 0:00
Overview 1:00
Final Thoughts 7:37

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[bigaleka]

This has been a hit with us. I like the way everything is information. I also like the fact that everyone is involved in every turn, even the clue giver, often in a deduction game you have to sit and do nothing while every one else talks. This one however is different. We liked that a lot. Can’t think of another example of this, that I’ve played at least.

[jartree]

We have been loving this one. We haven't found it difficult. In fact we haven't lost yet, though we have had plenty of very close games. I should note that is playing the normal game (not hard mode, no added modules). My advice to anyone finding it hard would be to make sure you always have a broad range of cards, and never take a chance with a guess unless you absolutely must.

[BTWalrus]

Sorry to hear it didn't do it for you Tom, thanks for taking a look.

(as for my credit on the White Rabbit module... I DID design the base game, and the structure for the expansion, as well as heavy work on every other module... all the others had a name on it, it would be weird for one to not have a name, so we put mine. I hope that adds some clarity.)

[SarahHadley]

I'd love to see this game reevaluated in a group review. While I think everything Tom brings up is valid, I think it will hit different people very differently. In addition, it *feels* like Tom got annoyed by the imperfect information in the game and once he decided he didn't like it, he started finding reasons to pick at other aspects of the game (including the minis!). I basically knew he didn't like it once he rolled his eyes about the Wonderland theme.

[riccardospadini]

Paint the Roses has been an amazing game for me and my girlfriend, and for our friend group to play.

I like the forcing of guessing because it makes the game more interesting, you are trying to minimize the possibile combinations of your cards and simultaneously getting more information about your friends' cards as well.

Actually, the first time we played it, we did not see the "force a guess" rule, and without that the game was actually quite simple. With that instead, all the games have been super close, we either lost in the last round or won by a slight margin.
I found this game very well balanced and enjoyable to play, looking forward for the expansions now!

[bonmacp]

It was a difficult puzzle, but my group enjoyed it. We lost our first game, but won the second. Haven’t played with any modules yet. PS - the components are top notch!

[SharkOnBoard]

I feel like I missed a few things in this review that might have been left out intentionally but might help some struggling players who missed out on them (especially point 2):
1. In a 2 player game you get 6 cubes to skip having to guess which prevents the queen from moving
2. If you guessed a card correctly you have the opportunity to IMMEDIATELY guess again before the queen moves you can do this until you fail (which means she moves her speed twice) OR forgo an extra guess (which means she only moves her speed once), this means you can get A LOT more points in a single guessing round than a single card worth of points.


In essence the easy cards fulfill a similar role to these skip cubes in creating some room early game to work up to those 50/50 guesses if you can't get there immediately.
In my experience the best thing is to create as much room between the queen and you early on, yes this speeds the queen up but gives you the breathing room to take the misses on those forced guesses or rather the 50/50's since with higher players counts you can afford to have someone always have an easy card which are generally speaking fairly easy to get.

That being said I can understand the game is not for everyone, especially if you are used to being able to get the deductions down to 100% which this game does not give you the time to do a lot of the time (at least not before failing a 50/50 generally speaking).

[dianebusby]

My retail copy has a single-layer board, cardboard tiles (albeit good quality), and no expansion, BUT great artwork and fun to play with.

[bruceulrich]

My friends like this one. I like solving the problem as a team. I was very surprised by this review. Equally surprised by the comments overwhelming disagreement with Tom. Sort of validated my personal opinion.

[littlgrim]

3:43 wouldn't the purple player place 3 cubes since their pattern shows up 3 times? purple spade next to purple spade makes the pattern twice with those two tiles

[carlodechiro]

I really like it, good game for a group and I think the more you play the more you see how clever you can be with tile placement and also what you don't play. Only played Alice module but looking forward to trying them all. I think you need the forced guess because you can get very far ahead with an easy card and two mediums. I want going to laminate pads so they can be used over and over.

[kahadin]

Good review. I was eyeballing this game, but I don't like the sandbagging aspect to it. I think Tom's right, you want to focus down easy cards to keep the queen slow to give yourself a lot of time to place tiles out. Then I guess you can start doing mediums if she is getting close and has some roses. You have a fixed amount of tiles to place, but a variable speed, so you want to sandbag as much as possible.
I don't like that because it feels good to guess a hard, but for most of the game it only hurts you to do it.

[Why-Ron]

Such a good review. Thank you..

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[michaelhagerman]

This game worked well for my family. My wife and I played with our two sons (14 & 8). I was worried it would be too much, but it really clicked for everyone. We had one "forced" guess and failed that but it setup a sure guess the next round. We ended up winning narrowly and look forward to playing again. I do think this game will be group dependent as everyone needs to be on the same page.

[Skarpo]

Also, I believe you have the exclusive deluxe edition with the acrylic tiles and double layered board

[riddlesphinxx]

Totally respect your opinion! But first time I've totally disagreed. Bound to happen some time, right? Love the reviews thanks

[gregorio]

Only played it twice but I never felt we were forced to make a long shot guess, it was always at worst a 50/50. I could see you getting bad draws on the tiles which could making the guessing a lot harder. Maybe having a limited number of passes on the guessing during the game could ease that "forced to guess" part

[MarkBuschhaus]

Wow, i would have bet you would like it. Its a huge hit in our groups and havent yet found one person to not like it. Normally, Tom, we have quite the same taste but here we really are on opposit sides of the spectrum. We never had the problem that guessing was that bad. And i think the scoring is kinda clever. But hey to everybody their own. Nobody can like everything. What really surprised me is, that nobody at the Dice Tower liked it??? Really??? Sorry, thats hard to believe.

[madnes]

Star of GenCon with our group. We are still winless

[radioactiveali]

Um you know you can guess anyones card on any turn right? Opens up more options especially in higher player counts