Board game burnout has come up as a topic of conversation within my circles lately. A friend who has been out of the hobby for a few years recently asked, “What have been the new, fresh, must play games over the last 5 years? Games that are different and really do something that thing else has really done before?”
Honestly, I had a fairly hard time answering that question. For me, Bullet❤️ has been a break-out hit, Beyond the Sun is one that feels fresh, but beyond that, everything kind of feels like it’s treading old ground. A tweak here, a twist there, and a bam, the hot new game feels like something we’ve already played.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit our biases, we generally play midweight euro games, and don’t really deviate from that genre, but still. Even my favourite games that were new to me just felt like twists on games I’ve already played. Akropolis is NMBR 9 crossed with Kingdomino. Cat in the Box is a trick taking game with a twist. It’s a super cool twist, but a trick taking game, nevertheless.
This conversation inspired me to pull out some of the games on my shelf of shame that I felt could be unique. One of which is Picture Perfect, designed by Anthony Nouveau and published by Arcane Wonders in 2020.
In Picture Perfect, a party has already happened and everyone had a great time. Now, your goal is to commemorate the party by taking the perfect picture. Every guest has preferences, some want to be in the centre, others have friends they simply must stand by, and others have a slight vendetta against others and their preference is that someone else’s face is hidden. All of these preferences are achieved by putting preference cards into little envelopes for each character. The whole game is taking a small subset of preference cards, arranging your characters as you see fit, then flipping over a card to determine how the character envelops will shuffle around the table.
Each round, hopefully you’ll get access to more characters so you can try and accommodate as many preferences as you can. There’s a strong memory element in play here, as once you’ve passed a characters’ envelope on, you may never see it again. Hopefully you’ll remember that the dog really didn’t want to be next to any man, or that the fern really wanted to be next to the table, no matter how inconvenient that may be for the other characters.
There’s no limit to how often or when you want to move the characters on your board. If you find that you’ve completely forgotten everything about a specific person, you can just take them off the board. Everyone has a player shield, so you can’t copy what your opponents are scheming, but you can choose to rearrange your entire party at a moment’s notice.
Scoring at the end of the game has an exciting reveal element to it. Once all 6 rounds have concluded, all players lay down their player shields, and one by one, each character has their preferences revealed, and each player scores points based on how many of those preferences were achieved. If all 3 preferences were met, a big 6 points. 2 out of the 3 will net you 3 points, a single preference met is 1 point, and missing all 3 preferences will lose you 3 points. The saving grace here is that you don’t score any characters that you chose not to place on your board.
Picture Perfect plays like a parlour game. The mechanics are light, and if you aren’t playing the bidding variant, there’s no way to really interact with your opponents, other than to just be better than them. You can try to do sneaky things, like keep a specific character’s envelope for an entire game, but players don’t have to place every character. The game mechanics are really just about getting more information, there are no systems in your way, handcuffing your ability to shuffle characters, and I really like that aspect.
The game comes with an auction variant built in, which you can play with right from the start. It shuffles a couple of action cards into the information swapping deck, so instead of swapping directly, each player can choose one of the envelopes they have in their possession to auction. You spend the items on your table, which are worth points in the end.
One of the biggest critiques I have for Picture Perfect, is that you can feel like you have no control, or that some of your decisions are arbitrary. Maybe you’ll get access to a character you need, and maybe you won’t. Maybe the characters in your possession will have conflicting preferences, so you can’t actually fully satisfy them. That’s the luck of the draw, as the preferences are randomized every game. I do like the envelope system where you stuff each character full of preferences for every game, that does give it a little bit of replayability, or at the very least, prevents me from memorizing what that little doggie wants.
So if mastery is not an option, I would really like for some more variability, however. Some variety in the preferences and more ways to swap information would give Picture Perfect some replayability. I know there have been a few expansions added, each one throwing in a new wrinkle, such as burglars, Sherlock and Watson trying to solve a murder, and movie stars showing up to steal the spotlight. I haven’t played with any of the expansions, but they don’t seem to mess with the core of the game at all. You are still swapping envelopes and arranging people, these expansions would just add another layer of considerations into the mix.
Picture Perfect isn’t a game where you can strategize your way to victory. At best, you can improve your memory and take calculated risks. It’s not meant to be a grand strategic experience; instead, it’s a light-hearted game about shifting friends around a table. The gameplay is light and lends itself to conversation and laughter, making it a delightful way to spend 30 minutes with friends. While it’s not a must-buy, I’d happily play Picture Perfect again if someone suggested it. There are definitely worse ways to spend your time.
