Seasoned Expansions – Sea Salt & Paper Expansions Review

Sea Salt & Paper is a fun little card game for 2-4 players with beautiful origami artwork and interesting mechanics that make for a great filler game.

Since it’s just a card game, you know that any expansions are going to be just, well, cards, and that’s what Bombyx has released.

Two mini-expansions (almost considered booster packs) have come out for the game, and both add a little bit of variety though one does more of that than the other.

New cards can really change a game, though sometimes just adding new cards rather than cards that have new mechanics don’t really get the job done.

Both packs were designed by the original game’s designers, Bruno Cathala and Théo Rivière and released by Bombyx (and Pandasaurus Games in North America)

The first pack, Sea Salt & Paper: Extra Salt, came out in 2023 and had cute origami artwork by the original artists, Lucien Derainne and Pierre-Yves Gallard.

This 8-card pack adds a new point-scoring card for having other cards out, in this case crabs (the only one of the base game basic cards that didn’t have a point-scoring card.

In addition, there are jellyfish cards that can be played with a human instead of playing a shark.

This effect, instead of stealing a card from an opponent, will cause an opponent to only be able to take the top card of the deck on their turn instead of their normal action.

The lobster modifies the Crab action.

In this case, instead of looking through one of the two discard piles and taking a card, you get to draw the top 5 cards of the deck and take one.

The Seahorse can count as an extra of any set card, though you do have to have at least one of the set and you can’t go above the maximum.

That part is pretty cool and makes set collection a bit easier.

Finally, the starfish can be played with a normal pair (ships, fish, crabs, etc) and cancels the action of that pair, but gives you 2 extra points.

So in essence the “pair” (really three cards) will be worth 3 points instead of one.

This card isn’t commonly used, though it could have some uses as you are about to end the round by calling Stop or Last Chance.

Overall, this set doesn’t add a whole lot to the game, but there are some pluses.

The seahorse is cool because set collection can be pretty hard in this game. It adds a bit of an option to it.

Points for crabs? Yeah, I can see that, since that was the only paired card that didn’t have one originally.

Couldn’t that have been in the base game?

Overall, the 8 cards in this one add to the game but don’t really make it that much better (except the seahorse).

Extra Pepper was released in 2025 (last year! Oh my god, it’s 2026!).

It was also designed by the original designers but this time the art is by Anicé Claudéon.

Since these 12 cards don’t have to blend in with the others, having a different artist makes sense (though they also have really nice origami art)

That’s because these 12 cards don’t get mixed in with the rest of the deck.

Instead, one is revealed each round and it’s the event for that round.

Both players have to follow that new rule, whether it’s to draw two cards instead of one when playing a Fish pair, or you only need 3 Mermaids to win instead of 4.

The cool thing about these, though, is that at the end of the round, they go to either the person with the highest score or the lowest score (depending on whether it has a plus sign or a minus sign on them).

That player will have that effect in the next round but the other player won’t.

The ones that go to the player with the lowest score typically help them (like being able to play a Shell card as a shield against the other player affecting them (no Sharks or Jellyfish), or if (after discarding) the two discard piles have the same colour of card on them, you can draw one of them.

If it has a plus sign, then it goes to the player with the highest score and it’s typically a penalty.

This could be an Octopi set getting you fewer points, or mermaids actually not scoring for you, or even not being able to end the round until you have at least 10 points (the normal is 7).

In other words, these events are a nice catch-up mechanism with the added bonus of, when they are in play for the round, both players have to adhere to them.

While Extra Salt adds some stuff but is otherwise kind of unnecessary, Extra Pepper is a really great addition to the game.

Whether I play with Extra Salt or not, I don’t really care.

But now that I have Extra Pepper, it’s always going to be in my plays.

It doesn’t add any rules overhead, since you just have to look at the event and what it does.

Both expansions are good and if you can get both of them, great!

But if you can only get one, definitely go for Extra Pepper

It’s just the spice needed for an already salty game.