Point Salad

Point Salad was one of last year's Gen Con hits, and I completely understand why. It was not especially easy to find in Greece, since a Greek edition is expected and Kaissa was not bringing in the English one, but it is the sort of small game I want readily available on the table. Quick, clever and, yes, an ideal accompaniment to increased Greek-salad consumption.

Everything starts with a deck of double-sided cards. One side shows one of six vegetables, while the other shows a scoring condition. On my turn, I draft either two vegetables or one scoring-condition card, and when the cards run out, we count up our VP salad.

That choice is easy to explain, but it is not entirely innocent. With up to three players, there is room for cutting people off and counter-drafting: I am not looking only at what suits my own goals, but also at what would be very convenient for the player next to me to take. The interaction is gentle, but it is there, in the choices you leave behind and the ones you snatch away.

For me, this is fifteen minutes of pure joy. It is quick enough not to demand a major commitment, yet its decisions are lively enough that it does not feel like mere card collecting. And even if it had not landed, it would probably still be preferable to Uno; thankfully, it lands much better than that.

Updated session

The later plays confirmed my positive vibes rather than softening them. With four players, the game flows just as nicely and the scoring balances shift slightly, which adds replayability. So I am correcting my initial reservation: it plays perfectly well at four too.