Blooming Sea is a bright and colorful game where players put down tiles to fix up coral reefs. It was designed by Reiner Knizia. In the game, you act like an environmentalist trying to bring life back to the ocean. The goal is to place tiles with coral on them to build big reefs of the same color. You get points by making these reefs bigger and by trapping fish tokens with your coral.
Game Details
- Designer: Reiner Knizia
- Publisher: Korea Board Games
- Players: 2 to 4
- Age: 8 and up
- Time: 30 minutes
Setting Up the Game
To get started, you pick which side of the game board you want to use. Place the board on the table. Next, put one random fish token on every square that has a number on it. Mix all the tiles face down on the table. Each player takes one tile and holds it in their hand. You also need to pick a color to play. You will take the pieces that show your color, which matches the coral colors on the tiles.
How to Play
Play goes around the table in a circle. On your turn, you first place your tile onto the board. You must put it on three empty spaces. After you place the tile, you calculate your score for that turn. You score points based on the coral reefs you made and the fish tokens you affected.
If you create a new reef or make an existing one bigger, you score 1 point for every coral piece in that reef. A reef is a group of coral pieces of the same color that touch each other side-to-side. If you make or expand more than one reef with your tile, you score points for all of them.
Scoring Fish Tokens
Fish tokens are worth points when the four spaces right next to them are all filled with tiles. If the game ends and a fish is not completely surrounded, you still score it. To figure out who gets the points, you look at the four spots touching the fish. You count how many coral pieces of each color are touching those spots. The player with the most coral touching the fish wins that spot.
The fish tokens are worth either 5 or 7 points. If two or more players have the same amount of influence around a fish, nobody gets the points. The fish token is simply removed from the board.
Ending the Game
At the end of your turn, you draw a new tile so you always have one in your hand. Then play moves to the next player. The game stops right away when the last fish token is scored. The player with the most points at that moment is the winner.
My Thoughts on the Game
I usually like to try the puzzle-style games from Reiner Knizia. His designs are often interesting and make you think hard about your choices. Blooming Sea fits this description. It challenges you to balance two things: the desire to score points by making large coral reefs, and the fight to control the areas around the fish.
It takes some skill to grow your own coral reef so that it ends up next to a fish. A lot of the game feels like you are trying to score points from a big reef, but then you have to stop your opponents from getting their coral next to a fish.
The tiles have three of the four player colors on them. This means you are always trying to balance your own scoring with helping your opponents a little bit. If a tile has your color on it, you have to figure out the best spot to place it to help yourself.
I could say more about the strategy, but I think there is really only one way to play. This isn’t a bad thing. Blooming Sea is a nice, straightforward puzzle game. The ocean theme is nice and might attract more people to play it.
Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers
Ben B: The game is like a simple version of another game called Reef Encounter. You get a tile, put it down, and score. The game makes you feel like you can get about 4 points every time you play. The winners are the people who plan ahead to surround the fish. It wasn’t very exciting to me. The most interesting part was looking at my tile and staring at the board to find the best place to put it. This made me think for a long time on my turn. Also, you get your tile and stare at it, and sometimes you lose track of whose turn is next. It moves fast and doesn’t take too long, but there isn’t a lot of deep thinking. I think one play was enough for me. It needs more to keep it going or to add depth to the turns.
