SEA SALT & PAPER
Sea Salt and Paper is the perfect travel-sized card game that you can easily pull out wherever you go. The beauty of its size is that it can even be played on small tables without sacrificing the experience, similar to many games that you can play with a regular deck of playing cards. My wife and I have played Sea Salt & Paper at breweries, coffee shops, restaurants, and plenty of stops in between. With each round taking less than 10 minutes, it is super easy to pull out while waiting for food or taking a quick coffee break before continuing to explore.
Growing up, I played a set collection card game called 1000 with my family, which is where my love for the mechanism began. Sea Salt & Paper reminds me of it a lot, as both games revolve around a central deck and a discard pile(s), creating constant player interaction as cards are drawn from the deck, strategically discarded, retrieved from the discard pile(s), and played in sets. Where in 1000, you start with 13 cards, in Sea Salt & Paper you start with nothing, forcing you to build your hand and adapt your strategy simultaneously. The pairs that you can play throughout the game unlock special actions: sailboats give you another turn, crabs let you search a discard pile, fish let you draw from the deck, and the shark and swimmer combo lets you steal a card from an opponent. These pair bonus actions remind me a lot of the different actions that are triggered by playing cards in Due Diligence.
The various scoring strategies in Sea Salt & Paper make the game very unpredictable, as you can build up massive points while giving your opponents the impression that you have a weak hand. Seashells, penguins, anchors, octopuses and multiplier cards can rack up points while staying quietly in your hand, since pairs are the only cards that are played face up on the table to trigger bonus actions. Mermaids add another layer of strategy by giving you additional points for cards that have matching background colours, forcing you to strategically balance between card actions from pairs, scoring combinations, and colour matching. Then there is the “legendary” four-mermaid instant victory. I’ve never seen it happen, but I’ve heard enough stories from friends to know the dream hand is possible.
One of my favourite parts of Sea Salt & Paper is how each round ends. Once you reach seven points, you can call “Stop”, resulting in the round ending immediately, and everyone scores the points they’ve accumulated. However, if you think you’re winning by a substantial amount, you can also take the risk of calling “Last Chance”, which gives your opponents one final turn. If you win the round, you count all your points, and your opponents only count their colour bonus. If you lose the round, the outcome is opposite, and you can only score your colour bonus, while your opponents count their entire score. This end condition makes the end of the round feel like a gamble, which can really create tension when determining the winner.
-Mark Krabben
Aug 31st, 2026