Floodgate Games Decorum (Deluxe Edition)

My extremely competitive family didnt think theyd enjoy a cooperative game, but it quickly became our favorite of the year. Its extremely easy to learn, but theres a unique and fun layer of strategy to it.

During the summer months I play a lot of board games with the kids, 9 &13. I read the instructions, and then re-read them just in case, to pickup on the mechanics, but there is a free video floating around on a famous site that hosts countless videos that a couple made that is a fantastic walkthrough for the game. From that point I was easily able to teach my daughter 9 and son 13 the gist of the game which they easily picked up on. The key in this game is to have everyone playing going in the same direction ruleswise and it will go much more smoother. Overall, a fantastic was to spend a hot summer afternoon in the house.

this is a greatly fun game to play with two people up to four people. it tests your cooperative, negotiation, communication, comprehension, and other general people skills. I highly recommend this game for teens or pre-teen children, just to teach them those important interpeople skills early on in life. Had a blast playing this with my adult friends and kids alike!

I really wanted this game. I think I’d like it, but I can’t recommend ordering it from Amazon. When I received it, it was clearly used. So, I contacted Amazon and they sent a replacement. The second game they sent was ALSO CLEARLY USED WITH MISSING PIECES. After the second time, I gave up. It just cost me two trips to the UPS store to return it. So, while I’d still like this game, it’s not worth the hassle to mess with the incompetence.

The game was used.

This review has no reflection on the game play itself. Unfortunately, the game received had already been used or opened. It was missing the card dividers & the envelopes were roughed up. I noticed another review with the same issue, wonder if we got the same box! Can’t wait to get a new one to play the game!

My partner and I play a lot of two-player games. Some games state that theyre for two or more players, but really, you need more than two for them to be fun. Decorum isnt like that. Weve been able to constantly play and replay this game, just the two of us, and its fun each and every time. Were stoked to have this game, and excited to play it for months, if not years, to come.

In Decorum, you and up to 3 friends are housemates who are trying to decorate your house to satisfy everyones unique tastes. Unfortunately, nobody is able to clearly say what they like. Instead, you can only respond positively, negatively, or neutrally to the design choices that everyone else makes. So, for example, if someone paints a room green, but you really need the room color to match the color of the lamp, then you can only say that you dislike the green and hope the group can infer what it is you really want! With the right group, this kind of limited communication game can be a ton of fun! Theres a puzzle aspect to figuring out why people are changing things, and theres a silliness aspect to only being able to say That red is terrible when you really mean to say that the upstairs cant be red when the downstairs is already red. A lot of groups will appreciate that its a cooperative game (even if it sometimes feels like youre pushing and pulling against each other). The game comes with two campaigns — one for a 2-player game, and one for a 3/4-player game. There are 20 scenarios for the 2 player campaign, and 10 scenarios for the 3/4 player campaign. It wouldnt surprise me if the publisher released more scenarios later, or if player-created scenarios crop up online at Board Game Geek. But even if not, theres a LOT of replayability packed in the box. The instructions are well written and helpfully illustrated, and best of all theres a link to a how to play video on the publishers website, so you should be able to get up and running pretty quickly. The retail version of this game comes with cardboard tokens to represent all the design choices you can put into a room. The deluxe version comes with the cardboard tokens AND with really beautiful acrylic pieces you can use instead. Right now, the deluxe version is only $5 more than the standard version, so it seems like a good value to me. (To compare, the upgraded tokens cost $15 when bought separately from the manufacturer.) The only bummer about the acrylic tokens is that they come covered with a protective film thats a pain to remove. I worked at them with a hobby knife for TOO LONG to get them all off. The result looks spectacular, but it was a pain. If I had to compare this game to something else thats well known, Id say it feels a little like Dixit and a little like Pandemic. Its like Dixit because its lightweight and youll have some laughs and emotional outbursts while you play, and its like Pandemic because youll all enjoy that sense of accomplishment at the end. Decorum is probably not a must own classic game like Dixit or Pandemic, but it IS both beautiful and fun!

If youve ever lived with anyone in your life youve likely faced a confrontation at some point where your aesthetic tastes are under fire and before you know it your prized singing bass wall hanging is on its way to the trash bin. Beauty is after all in the eye of the beholder and if youve ever tried decorating a home with your significant other, let your kids pick out paint colors for their rooms as they got older, or just shared an apartment with friends you know sometimes finding a harmonious blend of everyones styles that everyone can tolerate is hard. Décorum allows us to tackle the hidden frustration of a velvet painting of dogs playing poker being considered retro art and an antique lamp with a hideous tasseled lampshade being a cherished family heirloom that just cannot be parted with. The perfect blend of everyones style and preferences does exist but it is a puzzle that can only be solved by passive aggression and limited communication by players. Décorum is playable at 2-4 players but does set up slightly different scenarios and play styles according to player count. Out of the box two players will go through a set of twenty numbered story games that start slowly and build in both difficulty and intensity as you play. With 3-4 players the layout of the house changes ever so slightly and there minor rule changes to the separate game packets included for those player counts. So far weve played exclusively at two players and are into the last five of our twenty contained scenarios to play through. An initial question of replayability comes up with this game and I could say that even with the best of memories you could replay the original twenty scenarios just by switching character cards. Floodgate is working on an App though in the future that will later randomly generate plenty of randomly setup scenarios and combinations to continue playing well beyond what is included in the box. The game itself is one of limited communication and a simple set of actions. In decorating the perfect home each member of the home has conditions for what must or must not be present in the home for them to be fulfilled, other players have similar wants and dislikes, the combined conditions may overlap slightly or be in direct opposition at times, but within the opposition there is still room to negotiate. All of the homes different items, lamps, curios, and wall hangings exist in four different categories; antique, modern, retro, and unusual, so while Susan may want an antique wall hanging in the bedroom, Jill might find a compromise because they only needed the wall hanging to be a specific color. Décorum is a puzzle, in the end all the pieces fit together and form a solution, each player must work backwards from what they require fulfill their conditions and each turn you will make one change somewhere in the home. You will either add and object remove and object swap an object or paint a room and by combing this simple set of limited combinations each player makes a slight change each round, once a certain number of rounds has passed, 15, 20, or 25 with two players or every 5 rounds with 3-4 players the house occupants break their usual silent participation in the game and are allowed to read aloud one of the set conditions that is required for their card. If the person Im playing with has been adding green items to the home for several rounds and Ive been removing them each time remarking that I dislike or hate that move, then I might choose to share my condition that the home have zero green objects in it. In reaction that player may wish to tell me that they require at least two green objects or wall colors to be met on their card. Right there we collectively have solved that part of the puzzle set before us; we know have shared some hidden information and know that green walls are okay, green objects are not. Deciding what to share with the other player(s) on these meeting times is vital to finding a solution. What Im most loving about this is the silent playing; you make simple moves and then get either a positive, negative, or neutral reaction from that player. Examples are I like that I hate that or I dont mind that, as you play more and more and especially with the same player those affirmations sometimes devolve into simpler grunts of annoyance or whoops of joy when things go a certain way. I find this limited communication both funny and frustrating, you arent given much to go on but thinking out of the box and playing with all the options available can turn up interesting results. The rulebook is really good and has a great quick start setup page that lets you jump easily into your first games with only a minute or two of reading. Lastly, I found the flavor text on the character cards to be quite interesting, there are some ongoing story elements that you can follow along with and it chains together a loose narrative as you go along with some branching stories and couplings. I know some may skip over flavor text as unnecessary to read but in this case please dont pass it up, there are occasionally very subtle hints hidden in the text that can help with games. They are not huge hints but gentle nods to incorporate some immersion between story and gameplay that I enjoy. Whats not great are just a few smaller things, unlike most Floodgate games Im not really drawn into this one at all as a cohesive colorful world that I want to explore. The art and colors are simple and static, there isnt much to draw the eye in and keep you visually entertained which I miss while playing, you are pretty focused on the tasks at hand though so a simple and clean board with limited distractions is probably to your advantage but I found it lacking nonetheless. Beyond that, the complexity level isnt particularly challenging, after getting the hang of the flow we found the conditions easy to achieve with so few possibilities and repeated plays with the same person really clues you into which condition(s) you should reveal during heart to heart sessions. Our games fall well below the suggested playing time and have seemed a bit too easy to achieve, perhaps some of the future app generated ones can increase the difficulty or hopefully as we dive into the 3-4 player modes well find more challenge there. Weve had a good time with this one, Décorum set up a campaign type of feel with its numbered scenarios to complete so instead of just playing a few games of it and adding it back to the shelf we kept it nearby on the table and brought it our often to progress through the remaining scenarios pretty regularly, and we are still excited to finish up the last ones, even the simplicity and initial dislike for that is easily brushed away when we found we could play several games in a row and get an enjoyable game night out of them. For now were excited to finish up, explore other player counts, and see what the app has to offer. Décorum has been a puzzle weve enjoyed solving together, and being able to say fiercely and determinedly that I really hate that you just did that on your turn is a pleasing part of the game that just feels good.

The deluxe edition was a great choice and has some fantastic acrylic tiles in the box.