Coatl: The Card Game

Have you seen Coatl? You know the one. The cool, colourful, pattern matching game where you are building 3D feathered serpents to celebrate the election of the latest Aztec big-boopah. The head bit gets connected to the bod bit…the bod bit gets connected to the…well, you get the idea.

Seeing those hyper colour plastic Coatl grow over the course of the game is very cool. But we have a doggy in our house and they think everything plastic belongs to them. By rights. They wholly ascribe to the notion of property being 9/10 of the law. So, if they pilfer something plastic then they think chewing it is fair game.

Coatl the Card Game is therefore our perfect solution. It has the beauty of the OG (in fact, I think the colours and designs on the cards are even prettier). It has the set collecting, pattern matching game play of the original. But here the feathered serpents are formed by snaking a long line of cards instead of canine chompworthy plastic segments.

Pretty As A Picture

Whilst pictures of snakes might seem less on-point, it makes sense. The Aztec temple to honour the religious big-boopah has walls crying out for some ancient graffiti. And feathered serpents seems to be the décor of the day. So we are playing Peruvian painters vying to be the artiste de jour.

A game lasts 5 rounds and we get to paint one Coatl using beautiful feathery cards showing two different colours. Every turn you play two feather cards to your Coatl. You can rotate your cards and you can overlap them (but you can never tuck them underneath).

Points are then awarded if sections of your developing snake match the configurations shown on your own Prophecy Card, one of your opponents’ Prophecy Cards, or ones shown on the Prophecy Cards face up in the available common pool. A cool twist is that, if the cards allow it, you can repeat score your own Prophecy cards. Not only does this increase their value (until they top out at level 3), but it also stop them from being pinched by another player!

Big points are also up for grabs if you can complete the Temple Card which contains a number of different objectives, all of which need to be fulfilled.

Once everyone has had 4 turns, the rest of your feather cards are discarded, and you place your head and tail cards in the final round. Then its time to tot up the scores and anoint the Aztecan Artist of the Year!

Final Thoughts

This game is gorgeous to look at, super-fast to play, and has some sneaky stealing (as you would expect from a game featuring snakes!). It’s a fun filler that shorter than the OG. With a game over in around 15 minutes, and only one Coatl to construct, it leaves us wanting to play another game to see if fortunes reverse.

The lack of physical building made little difference to me. This version ticks my card layering and pattern matching mech boxes, and the colours on all the cards really pop! And even though it is a colourful game, the use of unique patterns means that nobody is disadvantaged by colour vision issues.

The hatey-play preferences of my husband and I have been well documented in the past. And so I must admit to finding joy in taking his Prophecy card. It wasn’t all one way though. Even though there are only 4 turns in a game, he got his own back. Worse, he waited until I was almost at the level 3 of my own Prophecy card before claiming it for his own!

I also like the fact you can apply a multiplier effect to patterns, and that Temple objectives are more long term goals comprising a combination of different requirements.

As an avid solo gamer, I was very pleased to see a single player mode included in the box. Better than just standard BYOS, you must beat two variable computerised competitors (Carl and then Carl 2.0 – how very future forward!) to be declared the winner. I haven’t tried the solo mode yet (the rules are comprehensive for such a fast game!), but I am looking forward to flexing my feathery muscles against these slippery snakes-in-the-temple!

A really nice surprise inside the box was the inclusion of the Golden Feathers mini expansion- this brings a forced-trading element to the gameplay (i.e. paying golden 3D segments to steal other players’ feather cards) that adds an extra decision dilemma. You might get the perfect body segment by paying, but those little nuggets of nicety could flip reverse your opponents’ fortunes in a way you weren’t expecting. It also brings a little of the tactile pleasure of Coatl into the card based version. I just have to make triply sure that our plastic packing pooch doesn’t spy them!