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Welcome to a post office like you’ve never seen before! Picture mermaid managers and talking pets working alongside postmen, turning the daily grind of mail sorting into a magical adventure. These fantastical helpers stack packages and tape similar ones together, making the post office a place where imagination and efficiency go hand in hand.
👥 2-4 players, ages 8+
⌛ Playing time: 30-45 minutes
📝 Designer: Evgeny Petrov
🎨 Artwork: Natalya Kondratyuk
🏢 Publisher: Hobby World (Review copy provided)
How to Play
In Post Office, you and your friends become mailmen, each accompanied by a quirky talking animal sidekick. The game starts with each player receiving 16 polyominoes in four colors. These colorful pieces represent the tape used to secure packages, each symbolizing different types of items, from delicate glassware to delicious sweets.
The game is played simultaneously. Each player takes two packages per round, keeps one, and passes the other to their left. Then, it’s time to move your trusty animal assistant forward. If they reach a fully filled column or row, they keep moving until they find an open spot. Need to move further? Spend a post stamp for each extra step.
Once your assistant lands, you place your package into an available space in their row or column. Players can then opt to place a tape token on the package, matching the color and shape of the packet with the tape token.
Taping packages has its perks! Covering up stamps earns you more stamp tokens, which can be used for extra moves. Other symbols on the packages reward points at the end of the game. Twice each round, you’ll move your assistant, place packages, and decide whether to tape them for optimal scoring.
When the last space in the post office is filled, it’s time to tally scores. Leftover stamp tokens convert to points, and green packing slips on packages give three points for each adjacent tape token. Points are also multiplied based on matching symbols on the tapes and packages. An extra opportunity to score points is by forming square packages of the same color without tape, which grants a five-point bonus.
To keep things exciting, you can introduce challenge tokens, which set specific goals. The first player to achieve these goals earns an extra eight stamps.
Game Info
Post Office is a puzzly family game designed by Evgeny Petrov. It’s perfect for 2-4 players aged 8 and up, and it takes about 30-45 minutes to play. Thanks to its simultaneous phases, the playing time remains fairly consistent regardless of the number of players. The publisher, Hobby World, kindly provided us with this review copy.
Components, Production, and Artwork
The game comes with a well-written rulebook that makes it easy to explain and grasp, even for younger kids. It’s highly accessible and family-friendly. The components are solid and functional, including animal standees, stamp tokens, package tokens, and tape tokens. While nothing is exceptionally flashy, everything does its job well. Personally, we find the artwork by Natalya Kondratyuk very appealing. The whimsical theme drew me in immediately, especially since I’m a mailman in real life—talk about job inspiration!
Gameplay and Difficulty
Just because Post Office is easy to grasp doesn’t mean it lacks depth. The difficulty varies based on players’ puzzle skills. Some adults might find it challenging, while kids could breeze through it without breaking a sweat. Keeping track of all scoring possibilities to maximize them isn’t as easy as it looks. The game offers a strategic challenge, balancing the placement of tape tokens while forming square packages and avoiding covering them with tape.
For those who master the basic game, challenge tokens bring extra difficulty and motivation to the game. At the start of the game, four challenge tokens come into play. Players check if they’ve fulfilled any after each round, placing completed tokens next to their board. Each completed challenge token is worth 8 stamps, which can be used during the game to move extra steps or converted to points at the end.
Player Interaction
Player interaction in Post Office is relatively low since actions are taken simultaneously. However, you can still play strategically by choosing tokens that might be less favorable for your opponents. When both drawn tokens work for you, passing the less useful one to your opponent can add a subtle competitive edge.
Our Experience
As puzzle game enthusiasts, we were excited to try Post Office. Although our kids are not yet as experienced as us, they managed their games impressively well. With time, they might even become our toughest competitors! We had a blast playing Post Office. It’s a fun theme combined with puzzly and straightforward gameplay. So, if that’s what you like in games, this one is definitely worth a try.
One thing’s for sure—our family game nights just got a lot more interesting. Now, if only real post offices were this magical. Who knows, maybe I’ll start expecting my coworkers to be mermaids and talking pets!
📝 Disclaimer: We received a copy of the game from the publisher, Hobby World.
