Introduction

Kites, designed by Kevin Hamano and published by Floodgate Games, is a real time cooperative card game about keeping your kites in the sky, or rather, sand in the timers. Honestly, if a game has a real-time component, I’m instantly down to give it a shot, I love the pressure and delight in the stress that comes from having a real-time aspect. Also, it’s a great way to ensure a game moves at a decent clip. As a gamer who tends to act first and think later, it’s great for me.

How to Play

The game begins with the 5 coloured timers on their side. Everyone gets a hand of cards (6 cards each for 2 players, 4 cards each for 4 players, etc.) and play begins with the starting player flipping over the white timer to launch the game. From this point on, if any timer ever runs out of sand, the players collectively lose.

Each card has one or two colours on it. When you play a card, you must flip over the colours depicted on the card, then draw a new card. If the card you played only has one colour on it, you can choose to flip the white timer instead of the colour that was depicted on the card, which is important because no cards have white on them. When players exhaust the entire deck, the white timer becomes ‘locked’, it can no longer be flipped. If players manage to play all the cards from their hands before any timer runs out, then you’ve won!

It’s worth mentioning that if a timer runs out, players haven’t “lost”, but they can check how many cards are left in the deck and their hands, and call it their score, with the best score being 0. Personally, I don’t bother with counting cards at the end, Kites is a win or lose game for us.

Review

I love games that can be explained how to play in just two paragraphs. “Play cards, flip timers” is all players really need to know to get started playing Kites.

There are some advanced cards to challenge players once they clear the challenge of the base game, but we’ll leave those aside for now. The production of Kites is really simple and lovely. The cards feature lush illustrations of whimsical kites by the ever talented Beth Sobel. The cards feel like high quality card stock, and the final component is the timers, which are absolutely functional, if a bit prone to toppling over during the frenzied gameplay. I’m not sure if making the flared bases would have made them harder to top over, and keeping them slim was a deliberate design decision, but when playing with 4 players, it was a challenge to have the timers arranged in a way that each player could flip any of their timers without bowling over two other times at the same time. Maybe we have clumsy ham hands, but it was a component challenge we ran into.

It’s real hard to take photos of real-time games

The gameplay of Kites is straightforward, elegant, exciting, and kinetic. You’ll be anxiously looking at the red timer getting close to empty, play a card to flip it, then the next player will play a purple and red card. The anguish and stress that comes from trying to quickly parse what options your cards afford you, and which of the timers needs flipping, all while those timers are constantly draining, is simply delicious. Communication a short and to the point, you can’t have a calm and calculated discussion, detailing who has which cards and how best to approach the puzzle, because time is running out and every time a timer flips, everyone needs to reassess the situations.

At lower player counts, we found Kites to be quite easy. With 5 cards in each player’s hands, we had plenty of options each turn, and could even claim ownership over whole timers. “I’ve got red and blue”, letting the other player know that they can ignore those timers and focus on the remaining timers. With just two players, play feels even faster, as by the time you’ve finished flipping your timers and have drawn your next card, the next player is already halfway through flipping their timers, and the heat is right back onto you.

The final wrinkle in the basic game is the ‘grand finale’, where, when the deck runs out, the white timer can no longer be flipped. Players need to play out their hands to complete the game. This forces players to be aware of the deck running out, and when exactly should they flip that white timer. It’s not a major pain, but it’s one that caused a few ‘losses’ in my plays.

I’m not sure how much staying power Kites has, I imagine once your group figures out the ‘flow’, it’ll move from exciting to just an exercise in flipping timers. But this is where the challenge cards come in. The airplane halts communication for a round, the storm forces one player to flip every timer, and the crossed lines have players give one card to their left and one to their right. These challenge cards inject even more unpredictability and chaos into the game, which is an element of real-time games that I absolutely love. These challenge cards are not necessary to enjoy Kites, but they are a nice addition once you’ve mastered the basic game.

I think it’s clear just how much I enjoyed playing Kites. It’s frantic, a little chaotic, but if you can control your panic and find the flow, then the game just sings. The losses never sting, but the victories will have you cheering and shouting with joy. It’s fast, easy to pick up and play, the rules take 30 seconds to explain, allowing for players to leap in and out at gatherings. Kites feels thrilling and immersive, if a little crazy at times. It’s been a major hit for me, and it’s exactly the kind of game I would take on vacation to bust out at every family gathering.