The Perfect Wave | Surfing Themed Light Strategy Card Game | Custom Artwork | 2 to 4 Players and Ages 8 and Up

this is a fun one to play when the weather's not good for going to beach. instead simulate the beautiful scenery of the beach amd surfing lifestyle with this gorgeous and fun game. highly enjoyable to play.

Decent game! It's not hard to learn and has some basic strategy to it. Quite a range of ages can play this as well so it's a good game to have on hand. Can only be played with up to 4 players which is a shame. Would recommend this game.

This game is very much about deciding how to use your limited resources (especially the number of actions you will get to perform throughout the game) to maximize your score ("victory points" or "VP"). There are numerous ways to score VP and with lucky draws you could, in theory, combine them for huge point totals - but if your plans are too grand, the game may end while you're still just a little short of meeting each of your goals, yielding a much lower score instead. (In fact that was the mistake all of us made in our first play-through; at most each player will get 18 turns in which to build their "wave", set up any "tricks", and "paddle out" to position themselves to actually collect the resulting score.)The instructions can look a little overwhelming, but once you get going the mechanics flow pretty smoothly. You can greatly simplify the game (at least while people are still learning) by setting aside the "goal cards" and focusing on the core objectives of building a wave and playing "tricks". The instructions are reasonably clear (in spite of one or two oddities / apparent typos). Still, it's one of those game where learning may be easiest if you happen to have at least one player who knows the rules and can teach the others. It may not be for everyone - you have to enjoy a game with a bit of decision-making complexity - but once we got the hang of it we found it to be relatively unique and fun.The theming fits the mechanics nicely (even if it isn't essential), and the art is nicely done. The only quibble I have with the game materials is the "first player" standee; t's a 2-piece standee that basically has to be put together and taken apart each time (as there's not a good way to store it assembled), and we quickly found that the cardboard started to fray. That said, it's purpose is just to help you remember who took the first turn (so at the end of the game you can remember who should get the last turn so that all players have had the same number of turns), so it's easy to make a substitution if necessary.The box stores all of the components (with the exception of the standee) nicely, and all of the other components look good.

GAMEPLAYEach player has a 10-space board, where they'll construct their "perfect wave". There are two common decks (maneuver cards and wave cards) and a market of four of each is kept on the "pier" board. Each game will have four public goals (but only two will count at the end) and each player also gets one private goal and two starting maneuver cards.On your turn, you can take two actions. The main ones are:* Draw a card, either into your hand or to be played immediately (face down).* Play a card from your hand (face down).* Discard a wax token to draw a card from the discards.* Activate a public goal (counts as both actions).* Draw a wax token (counts as both actions).There are three kinds of cards. Wave cards are played on your board and must be played in equal or ascending order (e.g., if your rightmost card is a Wave 4, the next one you play must be Wave 4+). Maneuver cards are split between "trick" and "paddle out" cards. Trick cards are played above your board (matching one of your played wave cards) and give you extra points if you meet a certain requirement (like "10 VP if above an odd numbered wave").Everyone has a little surfer who starts at the left of the board (below it). Playing a "paddle out" card (face up), or discarding a wax token as a free action, moves the little surfer one space to the right. This is important because at the end of the game, you only score the cards to the left of your surfer!I mention "activating a public goal" because although there are four goals, none are actually active until someone takes that action and marks them with a surfboard. There are only two surfboards, so once two goals have been activated, the other two do nothing and can be discarded.At the end of the game, flip over your cards and score points! The number of cards in your wave give points (e.g., 40 VP for a 3-card wave or 100 VP for a 6-card wave). And you can also score sets of the same number (e.g., three 7s in a row) or a run (e.g., a "4 5 6 7") in your wave cards. Then there will be 0-2 public goals and your private goal to score (e.g., "50 VP if you end the game with 2+ wax tokens").MY THOUGHTSThe components are decent quality and the cards are easy to read. The gameplay is simple enough for this to be a good "gateway game" (something for folks only used to Monopoly, etc.) but also fills a nice semi-light role at a hardcore gaming table. I think a lot of your enjoyment will come from how much you like the theme; I admit that it was a bit lost on me as a non-surfer, and because of that this felt a bit dry (ironically). All in all this is a very solid game and worth giving a try.