SNAP Review – Strato

Have you ever played a game all about the weather?

Well, there was Subastral… but that was more about biomes. And we’ve played the seasonal games Winter and Autumn… but even those weren’t really about the weather.

Well, there’s the solo game I’ve been trying recently, called Strato. It’s all about the movement of the air… which is, the weather.

Game

This is a SNAP review for Strato.

Strato is a solo card game with ten different puzzling scenarios, designed by Sophia Wagner and published by Helvetiq. The box says it’s best for ages 8 and up and plays in about 15 minutes.

And, let’s face it, since it’s a solo game, I’ll leave the next part up to you.

Art

The art in Strato is appropriately atmospheric. These illustrated cards represent lots of different kinds of weather with layers of color.

There are three other kinds of cards besides the weather cards, though. There’s also ten challenge cards, player aids that show what each weather type does, and a tornado card matching each weather type.

Instead of a central board, there is a set of 16 small tiles that fit together to make a long line, which shows just how large the game can get.

Since this is a game about weather and climate change, the publisher sought to make this game as eco-friendly as possible, with no plastic and responsible sourcing of all the materials.

Mechanics

Let’s move on to the mechanics. Strato is not exactly a single game, it’s more like nine puzzle games that share a common rule-set.

In every puzzle, you’ll be playing cards to make a specific arrangement around one or more central tornados.

Start by choosing a puzzle; they’re numbered 0-9, with number 0 being a training puzzle to help you understand how the game works.

Make the play area by connecting the numbered tiles to make a board showing the maximum card limit on each side of the center: this could be as few as 6 tiles or as many as 8.

Then collect all the cards with the weather types needed for this puzzle, and place the tornado cards in the center spots (the number 1s on the board). If there are more than two types of weather, assemble the tornado cards in random pairs to allow for multiple rows of cards above the tiles.

Shuffle all the weather cards you’ll need into a deck, then place two cards next to each tornado. During this setup phase, no two adjacent cards should show the same weather type.

Take any cards you couldn’t place in the setup, and re-shuffle them into the deck. Then draw three cards for your starting hand.

Each time you play a card, place it at the end of a row. Then, do its effect:

• WIND: Take any card from this same row and move it away from the wind, in a way that definitely changes the layout of the row.
• RAIN: Take the card from the opposite end of this same row. Insert it next to ANY tornado card.
• SUN: Take a card from the same row and discard it.
• FOG: Swap two cards that are in the same column – or a card and an empty space in the same column. The cards you swap don’t have to be anywhere near the Fog card.
• CLOUD: Copy the action of the card you played on your last turn.
• STORM: Swap a card at the end of any row with any other card that’s at the end of a row.

After completing the card effect, draw a new card to bring your hand back up to three.

You win the game by matching the goal on the challenge card: a specific puzzle pattern on a specified number of rows.

You lose by overflowing the number of card slots shown on the board, or running out of cards to play.

There’s also a way to play Strato with more than one player, by giving each player a hand of two cards and taking turns playing a card. If you play this way, you can talk about what you are doing, but cannot tell others which cards you have in hand.

Expectations

Hey Andrew, you’re back! So let’s talk about what we expected with this game.

I know you like solo games, and this looked like it could be, potentially, a good cooperative game too. That was pretty much all I expected.

Anyone who has followed us for a while probably knows that I like solo games, as long as they’re compact and fast. Strato seemed to be right up my alley, and the weather theme is unusual. That, plus the art, did really catch my attention.

Surprises

But let’s dive in to what surprised us.

Yeah. So first, we tried to learn Strato together as a cooperative game before playing it solo. Frankly, that was a bad idea: you really need to understand how these puzzles work before you can try to play them cooperatively. There’s enough different kinds of stuff going on, that if you have two people who learn differently, it’s actually really challenging to put the pieces together right away.

Second, it definitely was not anywhere near as easy to learn as I had hoped. The game rules are set up to try to explain everything you could do, but the first two puzzles are way simpler and they set up with a lot less randomness. If I was teaching it to someone, I would start there instead of trying to explain what everything does right away. This is the kind of game where layering rules on, over progressive plays, would have helped a lot.

I found that I had to play each puzzle at least once, just to understand how it worked, before I could try to understand how to solve it. That’s not a bad thing necessarily, but it’s not what I expected from a solo game.

And it felt harder than I really wanted, because the set up is kind of a pain. These tiles that make up the main board are very small, and if you care about the art and matching them up, you have to closely examine them to make sure you’re matching them up correctly. Doing that for 12 or more tiles? That feels like a lot.

And then I have to make sure that I’m using only the appropriate types of weather for each puzzle. At this point, I start to ask myself why I’m doing all this setup for a game that takes 15 minutes or less.

Recommended?

So Anitra, do we recommend Strato?

While I don’t absolutely love it, I would tentatively recommend Strato, for folks who want a challenging solo game that’s still pretty fast. It’s a really interesting series of puzzles, and after the third one, the randomization of the setup and the deck, means there’s a good amount of variation every time you play.

Despite the small box, this is not a compact game – the width of the cardline setup alone means you’re going to need a decent sized desk or table to play.

We’re going to give Strato 3 clouds in a stormy sky.

And that’s Strato – in a SNAP!

Find it on Amazon or from Asmodee in the USA.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Strato from Helvetiq via Asmodee for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?