Creature Comforts
⭐ 10 / 10
👥 1-5 players
🕗45 minutes
👨👩👧👦8+
Gameplay
In Creature Comforts you play a forest animal that is going to prepare it’s house for the winter. The game is played over eight months (rounds). In these months you are going to collect resources by the river, in the meadow and forest. These resources can be trade at the market or by the villager that visits each month. You can also exchange resources to make your house more comfortable by building book shelfs, fire places, rocking chairs etc. You can also make cloths, like a shawl, a blanket or warm socks. These upgrades will score you points at the end of the game.
You can also improve the outside of your house, for example by placing an umbrella or wheelbarrow that can influence the thrown dice or collect you extra resources. These improvements also score you points at the end of the game.
You can execute those actions by placing your workers in the right spot. Every player does this at the same time and you can place your meeple on a spot together with other players. Each player has two family dice, just for yourself, and there are four common dice that are available for everybody.
When all the meeples are on the board, the starting player starts with placing the dice on the chosen spots. If the number matches you may perform the action, collect resources, cards, build upgrades etc. When all the players are done, the next month (round) starts.
The player with the most points after eight rounds wins the game.
Review
First; Wauw! What a beautiful game! The comparism with Everdell is easily (and frequently) made. Same theme (forest animals), both amazing artwork and a strong worker placement mechanism.
In our opinion, Creature Comforts is more accessible than Everdell. The fun thing for Creature Comforts is that every player places their meeple at the same time. You can also place your meeple on a spot where an other meeple already stands. Creature Comforts also comes with a good dice placement mechanism, that is very strong executed in our opinion.
Each month (round) you first throw your two family dice, so you have an idea of the numbers you have to play with, and which spots might be interesting for you. Next every player places their meeples on the board and when everybody is finished the starting player throws the common, village dice. Then, starting with the first player, each player is going to resolve the actions of the meeples. You choose which die you want to add to which meeple and you can resolve the action that comes with it, like collection resources. This plays very smoothly and balanced. We really like the combination of strategy (overthinking your actions) and luck (the dice that are thrown), this feels very balanced and fun.
The game is very much fun with 2-5 players. We have not yet tried the solo play.
We already made the comparism with Everdell, but have not yet reviewed the quality of the game. The artwork is outstanding and very consistent. The compontens (we played the Kickstarter version) are of high quality and the insert finishes the look and feel.
So, in short; this is a great game! We really understand the hype and can highly recommend this game with a strong worker- and diceplacement. It plays smoothly and fast and you can make lot’s of strategic choices, but it is also playable with less experienced players or children with age 8+.
End Score
✔️ Amazing artwork
✔️ Well executed worker- en diceplacement
✔️ Smooth and balanced gameplay ➖ It has a luck factor, with the dice. If you do not like that, it is a minor for the game
