Coloma Review - with Tom Vasel

Tom Vasel takes a look at western themes worker placement game with a magnetic board!

00:00 - Introduction
01:26 - Overview
09:18 - Final Thoughts

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[jonnypac]

Thank you, Tom! This review means a lot to me. 🤠

[JayBee]

Tom, you might be interested in knowing that this game wasn’t originally developed by Final Frontier Games. It’s actually a reimplementation of one of JonnyPac’s older designs, a euro game called Hangtown. Either way, I love what was done with it and am glad you did too! Definitely on my top 10 of 2019 for sure. Between this, Sierra West, and A Fistful of Meeples, it looks like JonnyPac had quite a year.

[daleygamer]

Tom, just an FYI, since you didn't mention it in your review, so you may not realize this, but looks like you played a deluxe version. The retail version does not have gold nuggets, just yellow wood cubes, amongst some other differences.

[mullaert]

I played Coloma last month with six players. Noone of us knew anything about the game and it turned out to be a winner for us all.

[JobraKai]

Definitely want to try this one after seeing this. I live near Coloma between Folsom and Placerville, CA so the fact that this got such a good review really intrigues me! Thanks Tom!

[marcosseven]

Played this game last night. WOW! Loved it! and I'm so happy that I could find the Delux version to get it for myself! finding a game that scales well and up to 6 players, and that it delivers a great amount of strategy, tactical and crunchyness, is not easy. Well, this game does that!

[andrewv]

Didn't you play Sierra West? Another one of his designs. Love the card play, I need to table it more.

[wbeytel]

Great review Tom, Coloma is now very high on my to-buy list.

[JosephFlemming]

Another game I was hesitant to pass up on Kickstarter and Maybe I should have bitten the bullet lol. Oh well I'll be spending enough soon on the new "west Kingdom" kickstarter lol

[crawf]

Why is the text on the back of the cards backwards? I saw it in the component drop, and then again in the rules overview...very strange.

[Drewkas]

Is a review of Coloma called a colomoscopy?

[kchorst]

For you or anyone, do you talk about where you're going... and bluff? I think I'd be a talker and try to psych out others for fun.

[christoperstovell]

Sounds very similar to Tiny Epic Western. Am I wrong?

[Gai-jin]

It's a shame that this version of game is Deluxe with those gold pieces and not as good looking as retail version..

[tmon]

Also a lot going on with your tie Tom.

[TheBrokenMeeple]

Yeah I think there's an "agree to disagree" here. :P The game so far is good, don't get me wrong, certainly I agree on most of the components. It's a great board, great art, decent even in retail version but I also don't like that minimap at all.

But I was shocked when you said it scaled well - this doesn't scale well at all. The 2 player version and 3 players isn't fun to do. Solo I've yet to try, but that doesn't count as "scaling". But one thing I've noticed is that you solve one problem but unlock another with each extreme of player count. With 3 players, the outlaws become hard to take out and there's no tension for busting. But with 5-6 players, the outlaws are a complete joke as every single row gets filled up on the board and they get mullered, so it's literally a race to see who is first to put 5 dudes out for 1st place. But then the tension of busting is better, though if you have the mindset of "i'll use this action and maybe I'll get a bonus", you will lose the game. You need those extra boom actions so it's more frustrating than fun when you get busted multiple times because frankly it's pretty hard to gauge where players will go each round.

We've also noticed that to win you need to do rivers and bridges. The frontiers require too much messing around to get tents, move the wagon AND place them down. And only for 25 points max. In our games especially 6 player games the focus on bridges/rivers always wins. Doesn't matter what bridges as it's easy to max at least 3 out of 4 by just playing the game, but you're looking at 75 points plus for a full rack of bridges and you just can't top that.

I like it overall, but it's fighting for a seal of approval, I cannot fathom the seal of excellence though! To each their own though which is a good thing :-)

[phpFreNZy]

Coloma is great at 4+ players. at 3 or less the competition for spots are loose and makes the meat of the game less interesting

[Fighterfan]

I liked it a lot but my wife didn't care for it so it wouldn't get too much time on the table even with the solo variant. Traded it away for some great games that my wife really enjoys. (Everdell and Shakespeare).

[delorean-]

Disagree on this one. Rules are convoluted. Symbology often unclear. Do not care about busting mechanic.

[MrJadude]

Hangtown is one of the worst games ive ever palyed ... sure this is a step up but after 1 play i never have to play this again.... its the same win or lose based 100% luck of busting or not its not as harsh as it was in hangtown but still stupid