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If you’ve ever wandered the streets of Lisbon, you’ve probably seen the swirling, black and white mosaics under your feet. That’s calçada portuguesa, Portugal’s iconic pavement art, and it’s the inspiration behind Calçada, a tile-laying board game where you step into the role of a mosaic designer.
At first glance, Calçada seems relaxed and breezy. It’s all about building colourful patterns with tiles, scoring points by completing matching districts, and maybe showing off a bit of flair with decorative motifs. But underneath the polished surface is a surprisingly thinky spatial puzzle that asks you to plan carefully, think a few steps ahead, and occasionally rethink everything when someone messes with your cobblestones.
👥 2-4 players, ages 10+
⌛ Playing time: 45 minutes
📝 Designers: Vangelis Bagiartakis & Konstantinos Karagiannis
🎨 Artwork: Felix Wermke
🏢 Publisher: Piatnik (review copy provided)
Gameplay Overview
Each player gets their own board, which represents a section of pavement they’re decorating. There’s also a central board where wooden cobblestones in five colours are placed in circular spaces, along with a scoreboard tracking how valuable each colour is as the game goes on. Five stacks of tiles are placed nearby, with three tiles from each stack revealed at the start of the game.
On your turn, you choose one of the cobblestone spaces on the central board and announce both the colour and how many stones are in that space. Then you move that chosen cobblestone one space clockwise. That announcement determines two things: which colour tile you’re allowed to pick, and which numbered square you have to place it in on your personal board. If the cobblestone pile you picked had six or more stones, you’re allowed to place your tile anywhere. Bit of a treat.
Tiles come in five colours and either show a motif, like a tram or plaza, or a bonus symbol. You can only place a tile in the numbered square you declared, and all tiles within a single district on your board must be the same colour. If your tile has a bonus symbol, you get two bonus tokens, little green tokens that let you move cobblestones extra spaces or refresh the face-up tiles of a specific colour. Quite handy when the display isn’t working in your favour.
Scoring happens when you complete a district, which means all the spaces of a single-coloured area are filled in. You take the number of tiles in the district and multiply it by the current value of that colour on the scoreboard. But there’s a twist: once a colour scores, its value goes down on the track. So it’s often a balancing act between scoring early while the value is high or holding out to build a bigger district.
Eventually, a colour will move off the bottom of the scoreboard entirely, making it unavailable for the rest of the game. When a second colour does the same, that triggers the final round. At the end, you also score points for motifs that are connected orthogonally, partial points for unfinished districts, and any bonus tokens you didn’t use.
Components and Visual Design
The first thing you’ll probably notice is that Calçada looks lovely on the table. The game captures that summery Portuguese pavement vibe, and the theme carries through the components really well.
The central board is neat and functional, with five patterned spaces for the wooden cobblestones to sit in. They come in white, red, yellow, brown and blue, and they’re easy to distinguish, even in dim lighting, which we appreciated. Player boards carry numbered squares and a circular track for scoring. The tiles themselves show motifs like fountains, palm trees and trams. The artwork is clean and clear, and the backgrounds help make each colour stand out, which is useful once your board starts filling up.
The scoreboard uses simple tracks to show the current value of each colour. When a district scores, that colour’s cube slides down a notch and eventually drops off the track entirely. The red indicators near the bottom help you see when the endgame is approaching.
Our Experience
We tried it with two, three and four players, and each count brought its own vibe. At two, things felt more open and deliberate. You could actually plan ahead a bit, watch what your opponent was going for, and steer things in your favour. It was a relaxed back and forth that still kept us thinking. At three, the pace was still comfortable, but competition over tiles and colours started to heat up. You couldn’t quite count on the tile you wanted being there on your next turn, but you could usually make a backup plan.
At four players, the game became a bit more unpredictable. Tiles cycled fast, colours scored more quickly, and it became harder to plan more than a turn or two ahead. That said, it added a nice bit of tension and made each decision feel more reactive, though some players preferred the calmer pace at lower counts.
The cobblestone mechanic stood out as a subtle form of interaction. You’re not actively blocking each other, but the timing of your choices can throw someone else off just enough to make a difference. We had more than a few moments where someone groaned because their perfect tile vanished, or someone else celebrated pulling off a bonus move just in time. Watching your board slowly fill in with neat patterns is just one of the quiet joys, and everyone around the table seemed to enjoy it.
That said, there was one consistent frustration: the tile size. Once tiles are placed on your board, they completely cover the outlines that show where each district begins and ends. That means that by mid-game, you often have to pause, squint, and try to remember whether a certain space belonged to your blue or yellow district. It slowed things down a bit and occasionally led to misplays. A small design tweak could have fixed it, maybe slightly smaller tiles or more visible borders.
Our Thoughts
Calçada fits nicely in that middle ground between casual and hobby gaming. It’s simple enough to bring out with non-gamers, but there’s just enough depth to keep experienced players engaged. It reminded us a bit of Azul or Sagrada, easy to teach, satisfying to play, and with a nice balance between strategy and accessibility.
The puzzle itself is surprisingly engaging. Figuring out when to place, when to score, and how to connect motifs can be more thinky than you’d expect. We had a few moments where someone stared at their board for longer than they meant to, trying to decide between two placements that would each trigger different point swings.
The bonus tile system gives you some flexibility when things don’t go your way, and using them at the right moment can really turn the tide. The fact that unused bonuses score points at the end also gives you a bit more to think about. Do you spend them now for a small benefit or save them for an extra few points later?
We enjoyed it most at two or three players. The pacing felt just right, and there was enough breathing room to plan without things dragging. At four, it’s still fun, but you’ll need to be a bit more comfortable with adapting on the fly.
Our biggest criticism, again, is that visibility issue with the districts. It’s not a game breaking problem, but it did affect how smooth the experience felt once boards got crowded.
Our Verdict
Calçada is a game that invites you in with its theme and artwork, and then keeps you there with its clever puzzle and subtle tension. It’s not a loud game, or one that tries to impress you with a million components. But it does what it sets out to do really well.
If you enjoy spatial games that reward careful planning and a bit of tactical flexibility, this one might be worth a look. Just be ready for a few pauses while someone checks if that square is part of their red or brown district.
📝 This review is based on a copy kindly provided by Piatnik.
