Salty Origami – Sea Salt & Paper Review

As I spoke about on Saturday, the word “filler” for a game is often seen as derogatory, when it really shouldn’t be.

Some fillers are really great!

Many card games are filler games, and one really juicy one (though it does feel a bit papery for some reason) is Sea Salt & Paper (oh, that’s why it feels that way!) published by Bombyx Games (and Pandasaurus Games over here in North America) in 2022.

The game was designed by Bruno Cathala and Théo Rivière with artwork by Lucien Derainne, Pierre-Yves Gallard and plays 2-4 players.

And it’s cute as hell, if you like origami.

Sea Salt & Paper is a simple set-collecting card game that adds a bit of a push your luck element.

Well, maybe not push your luck.

More like “do I declare now and risk the others being ahead of me? Or do I wait to see if I can score more points but they may jump ahead of me and I don’t know how many points anybody has right now?”

Ok, that was long-winded.

Let me catch my breath.

The rules of the game are simple to teach and you will be be done in 20-30 minutes.

The perfect filler!

All of the cards have beautiful origami undersea (or on the sea) shapes on them, and turns are simple.

On your turn, you’re either drawing two cards from the top of the deck or a card from the top of one of the discard piles.

If you draw from the top of the deck, you have to discard one of the two drawn cards into one of the discard piles.

You can also play any 2-card sets (the cards will show you the types of cards you need, like two crabs or two ships, or a shark and a swimmer (wow, that’s actually really dark)).

These will give you an action, maybe taking another turn, or looking through a discard pile (which you normally cannot do) and taking a card from there, or drawing a card from the top of the deck.

The shark/swimmer combination actually lets you take a random card from an opponent!

That’s…actually really really dark. Poor swimmer!

They’re also worth a point for each pair.

There are also cards that you will be keeping in your hand (and thus subject to being stolen) that are also set collection.

Octopi, lighthouses, sailors, cards that give you additional points for all of those, and mermaids.

Mermaids are awesome, because they can score you a bunch of points.

They can actually win you the game outright if you have all four!

As soon as somebody has 7 points (both on the table and in their hand, including the Mermaid colour bonus), they have the option of stopping the round.

They can just say “Stop” and everybody scores the points on their cards.

Or they can say “Last Chance,” which gives everybody else one last turn.

After that, if they have the highest point total, they win their bet and score both their card points and one point for each card of a colour they have the most of.

If they lose their bet, they just get the colour bonus.

Mermaids are special in that their card points are equal to the the number of cards of a colour they have the most of.

Two Mermaids, the second one will score the second-highest number of same-colour cards.

That’s it!

Count up the points, and see if anybody has reached the required number (dependent on player count).

If not, play another round.

There’s an elegant simplicity to Sea Salt & Paper that really stands out.

There’s not a lot of strategy since you’re just randomly drawing cards, but sometimes that’s what makes the perfect filler.

What are you trying to save? What are you going for?

Is it safe to discard that Octopus when you saw Tartan pick up the previous one?

OF COURSE NOT!

But if you drew an Octopus and a Mermaid, do you have a choice?

Random draws, a bit of memory since you can’t look through discard piles, and just basic set collection.

This is not for heavy gamers if that’s all you play.

But if you would like something where you can just turn off your brain a bit, have a few laughs, maybe luxuriate in the intricate artform of Origami, then Sea Salt & Paper may be just what the doctor ordered.

Even better, if everybody is a coward and refuses to actually say “Stop” or “Last Chance” before the deck runs out, then no points are scored and the game literally laughs at you.

I’m not sure if Bombyx put that in there or if Pandasaurus managed that technology when they got the rights to publish in North America, but I have to say I’m impressed!

Sea Salt & Paper is not an intricate game. It’s not a deep game.

But it’s a glorious way to fill up some time when you need something to fill up some time.

And it plays great at two players, so it’s also a perfect way to wind down after a long day at work.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find something to take care of laughing crabs.

(This review was written after 4 plays)