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By: Kim and Devin
October 26, 2022
Overview
Welcome To… is a flip-and-write game for 1- any number of players. In Welcome To…, the game cards have numbers on one side, and action symbols on the other side. In setup, the cards are separated into 3 equal-sized decks, number side face-up. The top card of each deck is flipped and set beside the deck it came from, revealing the symbol side of the card and creating a number-action pair. The symbols correspond to one of several actions. Simultaneously, each player chooses a number and the associated action symbol. Each player can choose any action-number pair - other players’ choices don’t affect what you can do. When a player selects a pair, they will then select a house in one of their three rows to write in the number they chose. Next, they may perform the action they selected, if able. The actions are the main way that players will work to score points on their player sheet. After everyone is done, the next card in each deck is flipped, revealing 3 new number-action pairs. The main restriction is, in each row, a player’s houses must be numbered in ascending order. This can lead to some difficult choices!
The primary goal of the game is to fill in your neighborhoods as best as possible to score the most points. There are also 3 goal cards face-up, available to everyone. The first player to reach a goal will announce it and get the higher point value on the card. Everyone else can still score that goal, but they will get the lower point value. The end of the game is triggered when either: 1 person achieves all 3 of the goal cards, 1 person fills in all houses on their player sheet, or when someone takes 3 permit refusals (unable to write in any of the house numbers for the round). This game can play an infinite number of players, because at the end of the day, it is only limited by how many player sheets you have.
Thoughts
🔴Kim🔴
Flip-and-Writes, or Roll-and-Writes, are relatively new to Devin and I. We’d heard about this one a while ago, but we finally got to try it at a library games meetup and immediately bought it after! I will admit, at first I wasn’t sure about it because I thought, “it’s just numbering houses, how can this be fun?”. But there's so much strategy packed in this short game. We’ve played it a lot this year because it’s available on Board Game Arena. It’s pretty straightforward to teach to new players. We introduced this to family members who are newer gamers using BGA, and they love it!
The Halloween expansion is very simple and adds ghosts and candy to the neighborhood to collect, along with a few goal cards to shuffle in. The player sheets for this expansion are very cute and thematic. As far as gameplay goes though, it doesn't add that much to the game compared to the Ice Cream Truck expansion, but I would still play this expansion during Spooky season for the theme.
Overall, this is a great, quick game for new gamers, and game enthusiasts alike. Another plus is the box size. The box for this is pretty small, so it makes it a great game to take while traveling. I recommend giving this a try. If you don’t want to buy it right away, you can give it a try first on Board Game Arena or by checking out your local library’s board game section!
🟣Devin🟣
For someone unfamiliar with games like this (like me), the concept and rules can be a little difficult to adjust to, despite how simple they are. I needed to play through a whole game before I understood what all I was doing. Thankfully, the game is very short, averaging about 30 minutes for us, so I was able to dive right back in with a better understanding of the rules. Another plus is that player count shouldn’t affect the game length very much since play is simultaneous.
The game itself is very fun, and the entire game is filled with strategic decisions to make. One of my favorite aspects is that everyone is presented with the same information and the same choices every round - it makes the game feel very ‘fair’. Technically, everyone could make the exact same choices and end up with the same final sheets, but they won’t! Even if players start with similar choices, they will ultimately diverge and follow separate plans. We’ve played it plenty of times, and no one has ever ended up doing the exact same thing as another player.
Once everyone knows how to play, Welcome To… is a great game for large groups that want to play a competitive strategy game! I feel the complexity is just right for introducing it to a large group, though I could see core gamers wanting something more complex. In that case, I would definitely recommend some of the other games in this series (Welcome to New Las Vegas and Welcome to the Moon). They add a lot of new mechanics, decisions, and scoring pathways.
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