Home > Categories > Games & Puzzles > Board Games > Patchwork Doodle review
Patchwork Doodle is a roll-and-write version of Patchwork, with each player having their own 9x9 grid to fill in over the course of the game. Each player sets up by drawing a unique polyomino card from the starting deck, then drawing that on their sheet.
In each round, players lay out a number of polyomino cards in a circle, then place the rabbit between two cards. On a turn, someone rolls the die, moves the rabbit forward, then removes the card indicated by the rabbit. Each player must draw the polyomino indicated on this card in their grid. Once a certain number of cards have been played, the round ends, players score points, then you lay out more cards for the next round.
Each player has four special actions available to them during the game: You can choose to draw the card before or after the chosen card, you can cut a polyomino into two pieces before adding one piece to your grid, you can fill in a 1x1 space in your grid, and you can do one of the above actions a second time. When you take one of these actions, you mark it off as each can be used only once (except for the one you use a second time, if you know what I mean).
You lose a point for each space that you don't cover, so try to pack everything in as tightly as possible!
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I really enjoy playing Patchwork, but my biggest gripe with it has always been the fact that it is a two player only game, which means that I have to try and wrangle just one of my kids to play a game with me, which isn't always that easy. Happily enough, I came across this version of the popular game, and this one allows multiple players! Yay! There is a pad of playing boards inside, happily each one is double sided which increases how often you can play and should you need more this should be easy enough to scan and print more off. This time, there are no buttons for currency, everyone uses the same 'tile' unless they use one of their special actions.
This does come with a small pack of 6 different coloured pencils, but I find they are too faint, so I've started using my own gel pens for a bolder colour and design. Everyone gets dealt a card which has a shape on it that they fit onto their board, after this, everyone uses the same tile. The roll of the dice determines which card will be used next. You want to try and fit the pieces as well as you can, so you don't end up with any gaps by the end of the third round, however... At the end of each round you score according to your biggest rectangle (and the biggest square inside that rectangle), so a decent amount of strategy and forward thinking needed here.
While I still adore the original, this keeps the fun and strategy whilst opening it up to more players, well worth having in my collection.
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