#chocolatl

Cacao is a tile laying game for 2-4 players where you’re in charge of raising the prosperity of your tribe by collecting and selling cacao. If you’ve played Carcassonne, a lot of this will feel familiar.

On your turn, you place a worker tile from you hand into the center board. Worker tiles can’t be placed next to other worker tiles. If two worker tiles share an empty space, you must fill that space with a jungle tile. Then you activate all the jungle tiles that your newly placed workers touch.

So as the board grows, it alternates between jungle and worker tiles. Jungle tiles let your worker tiles do things like collect cacao, sell cacao, and gain endgame points. The more workers touching that jungle tile, the more times you can do the action. Whoever has the most money at the end is the most prosperous and wins!

Cacao is a pretty simple game that’s really elevated when you add the expansion, Chocolatl. Chocolatl adds the ability to upgrade cacao into chocolate, which can be sold for a lot more money. Money is now more than just points. At the end of your turn you can buy a hut that gives you a cool upgrade power or way to score more points at the end. And with a lot of different huts, all double-sided, there are a ton of new strategies you can explore. It also give you the ability to pick from more available tiles, furthering your strategic choices when necessary. I think it’s a must-have if you like this game. It doesn’t add a ton of complexity, but it gives the game enough meat to enjoy playing over and over.