Decorum: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Deduction, Scenario, Cooperative, Variable Setup, Limited CommunicationPlayer Age: 13+Player Count: 2 - 4 PlayersTime to Play: 30 - 45 MinutesGame Designer: Charlie Mackin, Harry Mackin, Drew TenenbaumGame Artists: Michael Mateyko
Introduction:
Decorum is a scenario-based cooperative game about decorating a house together. Players are adding and removing furniture until both players' conditions are met. Every time an action is performed the other player (without giving too much away) will state if they like, dislike, or are indifferent to the change. There are changes to the game based on player count, however, this review will focus on the back-and-forth of a two-player game.
Game Anatomy:
House Board:
The house board contains four rooms of the house, two upper and two lower. Each room can contain one wall hanging, one lamp, one curios, and one wall colour. At the top of this board the round tracker will be displayed denoting the amount of rounds players have and when the heart-to-heart conversations will occur.
Object Board, Objects and Wall Colour:
The object board has space for each wall colour, lamp, hanging and curios. Each of these object will have a type, colour and style attached to it. There are four styles modern, antique, retro, and unusual which have unique symbols for ease of play. To clarify; wall colour is not considered an object.
Scenario and Conditions:
There are twenty scenarios for a 2-player game. Each scenario contains setup instructions that will add certain objects or wall colours into the house to begin with.
There will also be a condition card for each player which they will keep hidden.
Each card will contain 3-5 conditions that need to be met for a mutual victory. These conditions could include a range of possibilities as shown in the image below.
Setup:
General Setup:
- Place the house board and object board in the centre of play.
- Place the round track on the first space and place three heart tokens to the side to be used when having heart-to-hearts.
- Place all object tokens in their designated spot on the object board, including the wall colours located above the board.
Scenario Setup:
- Draw the scenario you are playing.
- Give each player their condition card face-down.
- Organise the house with wall colours and objects as per the setup card.
How to Play:
This game will contain a maximum of 30 rounds, where rounds are comprised of both players performing one action. The game can conclude when both players have met all their conditions cooperatively. This can occur in any round and objective fulfillment for each player is checked at the end of every turn.
A Turn:
On a turn, a player can perform one action:
- Add an object to an empty object allocation, remembering that each room can only hold one object of each type.
- Remove an object and place it back on the object board.
- Swap an object of the same type with another style.
- Swap a room's wall colour for a different wall colour.
- Pass; this action can only be done when all of your conditions are fufilled.
Heart to Heart:
When the players reach 15 rounds for the first time, the first heart-to-heart will occur. During a heart-to-heart, each player will share one of their conditions with the other player, removing one of the heart tokens. After this first instance, the round tracker will reset back to 0 and then a heart-to-heart will occur on round 5 (20, considering the first heart-to-heart was at 15), and round 10 (25). If you have leftover hearts at the end of the game because all collective conditions were met early, you will score 2 points per heart, as well as 3 points per condition met.
Final Thoughts:
- Interesting deduction puzzle where your main focus falls on how to achieve your conditions first.
- Heart-to-hearts create an interesting layer of removing frustration.
- Ongoing support for two-player games after running through all the included scenario cards, as a new scenario is released daily through the website. There is currently no way to access previously released scenarios.
Good deduction games are always welcomed in my collection, especially cooperative games like Hanabi and now Decorum. This game is an interesting puzzle because of the wide breadth of possible conditions needing to be met with little knowledge. Before the first heart-to-heart, players focus on trying to make their conditions possible , while not always noticing the clues their teammate's actions/reactions leave behind. After the first heart-to-heart, players begin to understand their housemate a little more and the house's decorum begins to make more sense. As players will normally share their most troublesome condition first, this seems mainly to provide understanding as to why certain objects need to change or stay the same. Some of these conditions feel like they contradict each other, but the game is well thought out and every scenario is possible to achieve. Later scenarios even add new gameplay elements. The game also has a continued existence through a website application, I simply wish you could gain access to past scenarios. If you enjoy cooperative deduction games with a sense of style then decorum is a great choice. It is quick, accessible and frustrating in the best way.
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