North Star Games - Paint The Roses Board Game - Alice in Wonderland Strategy Puzzle Board Game - 2 to 5 Players - Average Playtime 60 Minutes

Product Information

These cards represent the Red Queen’s whims regarding how she wants her garden arranged. Easy, Medium, and Hard cards.

In the lower left corner of each card is a number. This is the number of spaces you’ll move forward on a correct guess. With an Easy card you’ll move one or two spaces; Medium cards will move you ___ to ___ spaces; Hard cards will move you four to five spaces. I Am Not Crazy; My Reality is Just Different From Yours Final Score: 4.5 Stars – Beautifully produced deduction game that has some more depth than what you see on the surface.

Paint the Roses Expansion: Escape the Castle

Paint the Roses is a 2-5 player cooperative puzzle game set in the whimsical world of Alice in Wonderland. You and your teammates have been appointed the new Royal Gardeners for the Queen of Hearts but f ail to arrange the garden according to the Queen's changing whims and the last thing you hear will be, "Off With Their Heads!". Paint the Roses is a 2-5 player cooperative logic deduction game that automatically adapts to your skill during play. At the end of each turn, two things will happen: players must make a guess and The Red Queen will move. As in, move closer to you with her axe raised. What I like best about the Paint the Roses gameplay is how varied it can be. Each game feels different because you're drawing different tiles, placing them in different spots, and getting different cards. Plus adding on the character modules tweaks the game even farther, though we haven't tried many of those so far. I'm looking forward to digging deeper into these mini expansions to see which change the gameplay the most drastically.

North Star Games Paint the Roses is a 2-5 player cooperative logic deduction game that automatically adapts to your skill during play. Here’s a Medium card with a tile placed in the same position on the board. Remember, medium cards can either be color to color or shape to shape. Medium card example. Of course, for reasons (more mechanical than thematic) you can’t just say what those whims are. You have to secretly clue in your fellow gardeners to be able to complete the garden before the Queen loses her patience with you. Gameplay Overview:The group then has to make at least one guess, but may make more. However, be warned, if an incorrect guess is made, the Queen races at you at double speed. This is a co-operative game to beat the Queen and fill the garden before she catches up and beheads you all! In addition, most advertising networks offer you a way to opt out of targeted advertising. If you would like to find out more information, please visit http://www.aboutads.info/choices/or http://www.youronlinechoices.com.

And of course, if you master all this, the deluxe edition has some mini-expansions that can be added to add even more to keep in mind throughout the game. These have so far universally been great and add a nice change to the base game. Final Thoughts: The Queen's whims are shared via cards, secret instructions each player is given into how the garden should be arranged. Her whims are always changing, so as soon as you solve one, a new one is in your hand.

5. No Clue Tokens is a Great Clue!

Given the possible permutations, why would anyone want to choose anything other than an Easy or Medium card? “How Do You Like the Queen?” Said the Cat In a Low Voice. Here, the tile with the spade-shaped hedge and the red rose has been placed adjacent to two tiles: another spade hedge with a red rose and a heart-shaped hedge with a red rose. The player who placed this tile has placed two cubes on the tile to indicate that the tile they placed contains two matches with the adjacent tiles. Once the garden is full, the players win. If the Queen ever reaches the gardeners, their beheaded bodies are probably dragged into the bushes. All we’re told is that they didn’t win. When a new tile is placed you’ll add cubes for how many adjacent tiles match your whim card. Game Experience: That said, I do feel like the game moves fast. Just as I got into a really good groove, we would already be placing our last garden tile, which triggered the game ending. I do like that it means it'll always be a relatively short play (took us about 25 min each time) and that we can try to beat our previous records with each subsequent play.

Each player will also get a whim card that shows a particular pairing of tiles the Queen would like to see. There are also three difficulties of whims. Easy difficulty shows “color-to-color,” a red tile next to a yellow tile, for example. Medium can be color-to-color or shape-to-shape. And hard whims can be either of those but may also be color-to-shape. Players attempt to fill the garden before the Queen catches up to them. Everyone draws a new Whim card if they need one. Don’t forget, only ONE player can have an Easy Whim card at any one time. You and your teammates win if the royal garden is filled without the Gardeners being caught by the Queen.

I Am Not Crazy; My Reality is Just Different From Yours

The review copy NorthStar Games sent me is the deluxe edition which comes with the Escape the Castle expansion. Just take a look at the artwork: The six expansions (plus the Queen of Hearts cards) of the Deluxe Edition. Another key aspect of the game you will experience is its strong sense of escalation. The Queen starts very slow but she progressively moves faster and faster giving you a strong sense of urgency. You soon realize that the better you play the faster the Queen will move and that she will always be very close to you when you arrive at laying the last tiles. It is not infrequent to place the last tile just to realize the Queen’s last move will chop off your head. Escape The Castle