Whatever can make the whole table involved in an excited way is the most important to me. It seems the game play(how the game plays) usually wins out, but everybody is different, I suppose, so having a balance of theme or presentation can be a nice way to increase the chances of getting everyone really "into" the game.
I enjoyed your discussion, Darryl. Thank you for covering games like this in detail. Samurai is at the tippy top of my favorites, and yet I still purchased Pollen for a family-friendly option. Unfortunately, I was too deeply rooted in the "Why would I not simply play Samurai?" camp. I found Pollen to be a less elegant experience, with pretty art that had form overwhelming function. Those odd shaped cards should have been ditched altogether and Pollen could have become "Samurai, The Only-Tiles Game". That's when I realized that Phil Walker-Harding employed this concept much better with his Cacao (and Pollen was given away). Thank you!
Yup! And in my case I actually prefer a beige presentation with primary player colours. Call me old-fashioned. But as another commenter noted, our fellow players may care about presentation, even if we don't. 🙂
While the artwork is very good, I find it distracted me greatly and made it really hard for me to parse the game state on the table. It was played at a con where the lighting wasn't totally optimal, so perhaps I'd have an easier time at home with better lighting conditions. The other players said they didn't have much trouble with visualizing the game state, so maybe it's just me.
Yeah, I find the insect icons on the cards to be no-so-clear from far away (which becomes a problem in 3-4p games when the playfield becomes large). And on tokens with two insects, one of which is a butterfly, I need a moment to distinguish the other, between beetle and bee. I do find the strong player colours do a good job of drawing my focus and allowing me to ignore the flower art - green player colour notwithstanding.
The game is great, and I am looking for a copy of the original game. I didn't like the new cards, I don't see these cards lasting long even with sleeves. Thank you for this video.
That's true, the cards may not last well, and sleeving would be awkward with the round tokens; you'd have to slip the sleeved card under the token with every play. Someone else suggested they should have just been tiles, not cards, and although it might be awkward to have a hand of five tiles, I agree completely. And it'd take up much less table space, too.
Pollen is beautiful, but the multitude of colors confuses my eyes. I ended up with the Samurai card game (and the original Samurai, which is wonderful!).
