Every winter, the lake freezes over. It won’t last long, so we have to play as soon as possible, trying to dominate the frozen parts of the lake before everything unfreezes and we lose everything. In order to win, choose key spaces wisely before your rival does, and control them. Show that the cold never bothered you.
In Winter, two players compete to be the player with the most chips of their color on the lake at the end of the game. The game is divided into two phases. In the first, the freezing phase, players will create the frozen lake in a contiguous form using their snowflake cards. They’ll also attempt to secure zones in which they’ve managed to group four snowflakes of their color using chips. In the second phase, the unfreezing, they’ll undo the creation by moving and retrieving their cards and chips of their color. At the end of the game, the player with the most chips on the table is declared the winner.
Winter is an abstract game for 2 players ages 8 and up. Games last 10 minutes in which good decisions are everything. This is a reissue of the 2016 edition with all new mechanics.
Winter was the winner of the 2021 Cardboard Edison Award. It’s the first of a series of the 4 Seasons series that will continue later with Autumn, Summer, and Spring.
- Very on-theme winter vibe
- Compact and easy-to-learn
- Winter vibes and survival
- Winter-themed gameplay
- tactical, set-collection-like with seasonal flavor
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Pattern/set collection and map interaction — Build patterns or sets with winter motifs to gain advantage
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- winter is coming okay winter is oh shoot
- there's a game called winter this one's perfect good God
References (from this video)
- compact, quick play
- clever take-that interaction
- presents a neat duel feel
- tight player count may limit replay value
- snow, competition, take-that drafting
- winter landscapes with snowflakes
- abstract two-player duel
- Parks
- Cascadia
- Earth
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- token manipulation — On each turn players manipulate tokens and cards to disrupt opponents.
- two-player drafting — Two players draft cards to create clusters of colored snowflakes.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Be kind to others who love the same things or want to explore those different things.
- Design games and refine games as much as possible; practice makes you better.
- There’s almost no downtime in Earth; you’re always doing something.
References (from this video)
- tight, tactical two-player puzzle with meaningful choices on every turn
- short playtime (roughly 10 minutes per round) and compact footprint, great for fillers
- elegant melt/freezing mechanic that creates momentum shifts
- high interaction and momentum swings; very satisfying when you set up a win
- portable, small-box presentation with accessible rules
- can require a larger table area to visualize the lattice as it grows
- melt phase can be brutal; early outer-building mistakes can be punished harshly
- the luck of the draw in the freezing phase can influence early setup
- Snowflake placement and strategic melting; competitive control of a shared evolving structure
- A wintery lattice of snowflakes on a table, where players construct and then watch their lattice melt away.
- abstract/technical with a light thematic frame
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- blocker_strategies — Players can place or relocate cards to block opponents and prevent forming new squares; bridges can become locked and melt later.
- counter_tokens — On your turn you either place a counter on a completed square or place/move a card to extend your lattice; counters are how you win when the freezing phase ends.
- end_condition — The winner is the last player with any counters on the board after all others’ counters have melted away.
- freezing_thawing_phases — The game has a freezing phase (placing cards) and a thawing phase (moving/removing cards and placing tokens) that drives the endgame.
- move_or_remove — In the thawing phase you may move or remove cards, or remove your own counters if no other legal move exists.
- tile_placement (card placement) — Players place cards to form a lattice; cards must be oriented vertically and can be staggered to create adjacent connections.
- two_by_two_lattice — The objective is to form squares of your color (2x2 blocks) on the lattice.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's quick playing and how strategic and mean it can be
- we're basically going to be building out a lattice formation of these snowflakes
- the last counter token on the board remaining is going to be the winner
- I love this game so much
- the second phase is where the true game is
- it's so tactical
- I didn't know what to expect
- if this game isn't already out it will be out soon
- it's a cute little game
- it's a very small box line
- the end of my snowflake game I can see the writing on the walls
- the second phase is where the true game is