Seaside is a clever little game you can take to the beach.
What Is Seaside?
Seaside is a press-your-luck game for 1 to 5 players, ages 8 and up, and takes about 20 minutes to play. It retails for $29.99 and is available in stores and from Hachette Boardgames USA.
Seaside was designed by Bryan Burgoyne and published by Randolph, with illustrations by Fanny Saulnier. It is distributed in the US by Hachette Boardgames, who provided the review copy.
Seaside components. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Seaside Components
Inside the box you’ll find:
— Cloth bag
— 70 Wooden disks
— Player Aid
The box (which you can see in the image at the very top of the post) has a little cut-out so you can see the bag inside — you’re intended to pitch the box and just use the bag both as storage and for playing the game. It’s a nice, sturdy canvas bag with a drawstring (with a wooden disk strung on it). The only downside is that if you store the player aid and rulesheet in the bag with the tokens, it can get a bit beat up, as you see in the photo above.
Seven possibilities: isopod, crab, shell, sandpiper, beach, wave, and rocks. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
The wooden disks are nice and chunky, and about as big around as a 50-cent piece. (Does anyone still use those?) There are seven different illustrations on the disks, and each disk has two different illustrations on the front and back. Each disk also has a little wavy shape on the edge with an icon as a reminder of what action that particular disk does.
The game is both about the seaside and intended to be played at the seaside. Since it’s just wooden disks in a canvas bag, you really can take this just about anywhere including the beach.
How to Play Seaside
You can download a copy of the rulesheet here.
The Goal
The goal of the game is to collect the most disks by the time the bag runs out.
Seaside setup. Really! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Setup
Setup is incredibly simple: put the bag on the table.
Okay, if you’re playing with fewer players, you remove some number of tokens from the bag first and set them aside, but it’s meant to be a rough number rather than something you have to spend a lot of time counting. With two players, you remove about half of them. With three players, you remove 15 to 20, about two handfuls.
The player who most recently put their feet in the sea goes first and takes the bag.
Look at both sides of the disk and decide which side you want to use for your turn. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Gameplay
On your turn, you draw a disk from the bag, look at both sides secretly, and decide which side to play. Each of the illustrations has a particular effect. Disks you collect are placed in front of you, and disks that are put into the “sea” are placed in the center of the playing area.
The isopod, shell, and crab all have a blue border with a circular arrow — if you choose one of these, you put it in the sea and draw a new disk.
Choosing this sandpiper would only get 2 isopods from the sea. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Sandpipers eat isopods: if you choose a sandpiper, you may collect any number of isopods from the sea, put them in a stack, and put the sandpiper on top. However, sandpipers don’t like to share! You may only keep a stack of sandpipers if it’s the largest stack you have, and any smaller stacks are discarded from the game.
For example, in the photo above, there are only 2 isopods in the sea. However, I already have a sandpiper stack with 3 isopods in it. If I play this new sandpiper on my turn, it and any isopods I collect will be discarded because it’s less than 3 isopods. You may, however, keep stacks of the same size.
Adding this beach would give me two beaches, which lets me take two shells. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Beaches are where you find shells. Each time you play a beach, you may take shells from the sea equal to your total number of beaches. In the photo above, I already had one beach and one shell. When I play a second beach, I can take two more shells from the sea.
Waves flip your beaches over. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
If you play a wave, you choose one of your beaches to flip over. (You may look at them before deciding.) Whatever the back is, you play it as if you had drawn and chosen it. In the photo above, this beach flips over to reveal a crab — which means I throw it into the sea and draw another disk.
Stacking two rocks lets you collect crabs. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Rocks make homes for the crabs. Each time you collect a pair of rocks, you take all of the crabs from the sea, plus one crab from another player of your choice. In the photo above, there were 4 crabs in the sea and I stole one from another player, giving me 5 crabs total.
After you’ve finished resolving actions, pass the bag to the next player.
Stack them up to compare scores! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Game End
The game ends immediately when the bag is empty.
The player with the most waves collects all the rest of the disks in the sea. (If tied, split them as evenly as possible and discard any remainders.)
Scoring is easy: Stack up your disks and compare your stack to everyone else: the tallest stack wins! (Ties are shared.)
Solo Mode
The solo game is pretty easy: you use all of the disks and play as normal. However, the game ends immediately if either of the following happens:
— You add the 7th disk to the sea.
— You collect a 7th beach, wave, sandpiper, or rock — do not resolve the ability.
When the game ends, collect all the tokens in the sea if you have at least one wave.
Compare your score to the chart to see how you did!
Seaside is GeekDad Approved!
Why You Should Play Seaside
I first got to try out Seaside last year, when Hachette Games was still making decisions about games to add to their 2024 lineup, and I really enjoyed it. With a very simple set of components — just some wooden disks in a bag — Seaside provided a quick but compelling press-your-luck game. Although games without boxes always make for some tricky storage issues on my regular shelves, I do appreciate the way that the canvas bag and wooden tokens really allow for a game that can be played anywhere, and it seems particularly appropriate that you can play this game about the beach at the beach. (That’s not true of many other games with outdoor themes!)
The mechanics are very simple — pull out a disk and decide which side you want to use. In many cases, you’ll get multiple draws per turn, because some of the disks go into the sea and you draw again. But there’s always a trick to what you put into the sea, because there’s no guarantee that you’re the one who will get to collect them.
If you’re building up beaches, you want a lot of shells in the sea, because those start to snowball. If there are enough shells, you’ll collect one with your first beach, two more for your second beach, and three for your third beach (assuming you don’t sacrifice any beaches to waves). But if other players see that you’re building up beaches, they may avoid putting shells into the sea.
The sandpipers and isopods are another tricky pair. Each sandpiper can take any number of isopods from the sea, and at first you might think there’s no downside to just collecting all of them. However, you only get to keep stacks of the same size — if you get a really big sandpiper stack, you may never get to add any more because all the others just go away as soon as you collect them. Is it worth it to take a smaller stack so you may be able to get a second stack later? It’s a gamble either way.
Every time you draw a disk that includes a “put in the sea” option, you get to ask yourself: is the other side the best I can do, or should I throw this into the sea and take another chance? If you’ve got one rock already and you draw a rock, do you just finish your crab house and collect what’s there, or do you hope you’ll get a few more crabs into the sea and still find another rock? I love that each disk only offers two options, but those options can still feel consequential.
The ease of scoring at the end — stack all your disks and slide them to the center — is great, and the fact that every disk has the same value is intuitive when learning the game. (Solo mode is slightly more involved since you have to count your score.) The stacks then make for easy cleanup because you just toss everything back into the bag, ready to pack it up … or play again!
The French name for the game is “Littoral.” Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
One funny side note is that the French name for the game is Littoral, which is also an English word with the same meaning: related to a seashore or lake shore. It is at once both a perfectly appropriate word that encapsulates the theme exactly, and also one that most American audiences would not appreciate at all, particularly since it’s pronounced the same way as “literal.” Fortunately, the folks at Hachette were able to convince Randolph that Seaside was the better name for the US version, or else we’d have a lot of confused game store employees trying to look for a word game … about the beach?
If you enjoy press-your-luck games and especially if you’re looking for a game that can travel with you to the beach, on camping trips, or picnics, Seaside is an excellent choice!
Visit the Hachette Boardgames website to order a copy.
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Disclosure: GeekDad was loaned a copy of this game for review purposes.
