Aqua review — Surprising depth in this art!

Aqua is a mechanically simple 2-player card placement game, where your goal is to create sets of matching icons and numbers within either the rows or columns of the shared grid. On your turn, all you have to do is place one of the three cards in hand, then draw back up. Repeat until every card has been placed. Cards are played face-up if next to a face-down card and vice-versa. Face-down cards are only flipped after they’ve been surrounded. If you place a Ship card, both players get to add Visitor Tokens that will score extra whenever the card they’re on scores. Sounds easy enough, right? Not exactly

Each row and column will only score if the numerical value of each card adds up to be within 10-20. This means you can’t just stack all your Ships in one row to stifle your opponent’s columns and you have to be wary of your opponent placing something that makes your high-value Turtles bust. Should I add another card to this column and risk flipping that face-down card my opponent played? It’s a little thing that really helps the game get a bit more meat on its bones.

As a short filler for two, I enjoyed it. Especially since the art is quite pretty to look at while I’m waiting for my turn. However, there isn’t quite enough to draw me back to the game over anything else. Every card gets played each game with only the order changed, so it’s lacking variety between plays once you get the hang of scoring.

Included is a separate sheet, about the same size as the rules, with example scorings for both the Row and Column players to help. Repacking both foldouts into the box can be annoying if the cubes aren’t sitting right. The scoring also requires you to constantly reevaluate the totals of the rows/columns whenever a card is played or flipped. While this didn’t bother me, it may be a bit too “thinky” for players that dislike doing constant addition. I mentioned enjoying the art while waiting for my turn because near the end of the game, a single placement can flip a card, adding two new numbers to already crowded rows/columns that the opponent needs to assess before considering their own turn.

I think this game is fun and well made. Most of my complaints are really just nitpicks. It’s short and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. That being said, it isn’t exactly special either. There are a lot of other light and small two player games that fill the same niche. Aqua doesn’t stand out from them beyond the art and loosely-applied theme.

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