Sunny Day Sardines Review

Sardines, man. I’m going to be honest – I didn’t expect any designer or publisher to choose sardines as a game theme. I suppose I can name a fair amount of games using a food-based theme, but individual ingredients? I’m not so sure. Perhaps this is because I have never had a sardine before, but I will try anything twice. So will playing this game help bring me closer to a new culinary experience for me? Well, no, but it also doesn’t turn me off trying sardines either.

Sunny Day Sardines is a set collection card drafting game for two to four players. In it players are employees at the sardine cannery working toward fulfilling sardine orders and winning the coveted Employee of the Month Award. Someone chime in if this is how it goes in the real world of sardine cannery, please.

DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This is a retail copy of the game, so what you see in these photos is exactly what would be received in your box. I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rulebook, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS.  -T

Setup is simple! The game contains two types of cards: Order cards and Sardine cards. Separate these into respective decks and shuffle them. Deal each player 2 Sardine cards to begin, reveal four Order cards near their deck and five Sardine cards near their deck. Easy peasy sardine greasy. They are packed in oil right?

On a turn the active player has a choice: Gather Sardines or Complete an Order. When a player chooses to Gather Sardines they choose one or two cards from the face up offer row. In either case, the player may only gather two fish per gather, so if a chosen card features two fish, the player may only select that one card. By collecting sardines players increase their chances of being able to then Complete an Order on a future turn.

The active player simply must discard the required Sardine cards in order to Complete an Order. Some Order cards feature the same color of sardines, while others will show different colors, or even combinations. Each Order card gained by the active player counts as victory points at the end of the game. The game ends when the final Order card is revealed and placed in the offer row. Players continue taking turns only until all players have had an equal amount of turns. The player with the most points wins, and they must also post a selfie holding the provided Employee of the Month card.

Components. This game is a bunch of fishy cards within a small tin. I’m definitely not a fan of games in tins, but this seems thematically appropriate. The cards all have nice art on them, and they are incredibly easy to read and understand. I really have only one bad thing to say about the components here: I wish the rule cards featured a font about 4 sizes larger for these old tired eyes. Everything else is great!

I have been lucky lately to come across so many quick, light, but terribly fun games. Many of these games I have planned to use as extremely fast fillers, or competitions to determine starting player of the next game to be played. With those parameters defined, Sunny Day Sardines sits squarely within that group. It is super light and quick, with an inevitable simultaneous real-time play house-rule to be applied.

I have very little more to say on this one. It is very light, and perhaps too light for some, but quick to play and features a fun and fresh theme. This will not be knocking at the door of anyone’s Top 10 lists, but I think it earns a spot in many collections as a light filler that is more interesting than Rock/Paper/Scissors. Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a fishy 8 / 12. Perhaps with some alternate rules or game modes I can see it earning a higher rating, but as it is presented now, this is quite a fine rating for what it is. Sunny Day Sardines is readily available now, so grab a copy to add to your fridge! I mean collection!! Are sardines stored in fridges? Hmm…