Let’s get the pro out of the way. Everything stores neatly in a pouch. That’s it. That’s the pro.
Now onto the real review. well, there are 50 game boards available, they are on a disposable paper pad through which are very thin. Because there are no game pieces for roads, settlements and cities, everything is drawn directly onto the board. The provided pens leak through the game board rendering the board on the other side useless. Which that means there’s actually only about 25 game boards that are usable. There are no refills available for the game board pad so once you’re done with the boards that come with a game, you basically have to buy the game again.
The tile racks that come with the game have very poor instructions for constructing them. They are made of cheap cardboard and we’re already peeling apart before we even started using the game.
The pieces that come with the game are supposed to go in cardboard boxes that you construct. There are poor quality and tour almost immediately. and unlike everything else in this game, there is no box to contain them, which means they get jostled around and will fall apart even easier.
The cards for this game are basically tiles. They are made of cardboard, the same cheap cardboard that the tile racks are made from. There is no way to shuffle the development cards easily. They are very small and hard to manipulate. This is an accessibility issue for people with any type of arthritis or any other disabilities with their hands. Also, the development cards have no instructions on them so if you were first time player or fairly new to the game, you’re not going to know what each card is for.
The dice are basically microscopic, and because they are red on yellow and yellow on red they are not visible to those with any type of vision issues. The contrast is horrible. The size makes them impossible to read even for those with decent vision. Also, because you have to shake the dice in the container, the clear top is eventually going to be scratched up and render it useless because it will be see-through anymore. I know that this is true because I have another travel version of Catan that has the same type of dice and the plastic was easily scratched after a few games.
Unlike other versions of Catan, there is no way to adapt this for a two player game. This is sad for a travel version of a game.
The only reason this gets one star is because everything is contained in a bag. If I could give it zero stars I would.
