Tile laying when my brain isn’t working

 As life and work have become increasingly hectic, I have found myself revisiting Potato Carrot Tomato as a quick, lunchtime game. 

I have written about Alexander Shen and how they have a real genius for creating games and puzzles that can be played in a coffee cup’s worth of time. And I’ve written about the need for brain fog games, games you can play and enjoy without concentrating on them. And Potato Carrot Tomato is a game where those two ideas come together.

It’s a solitaire tile-laying game consisting of fifteen tiles, plus some scoring tiles. Each tile has one to three sections. Each edge will always be a potato or a carrot or a tomato so the divisions are in the rest of my life, instructor hands-on environment, always diagonal. Edges don’t have to match, but you only get points if they do.

At the end, you will score each of your largest groups. The twist is that their values will be randomly determined. At the start, you will randomly determine which vegetable will be worth one point per symbol. At about the 2/3 mark, you then randomly figure out which one of the remaining two will be worth two points and three points.

Potato Carrot Tomato is, frankly, not a good game. In fact, it is easily the weakest Shen game that I will play on a semi-regular basis. I have found that my scores end up almost always being in the same general range, high fifties to low sixties. In fact, I feel that the game doesn’t actually offer real choices, more pattern recognition with the variation in scoring being luck-based.

There are a couple of other games I’ve found myself thinking about in regards to Potato Carrot Tomato as a brain fog game. Shen also has Blankout, which is also more pattern recognition than strategy. However, I think the patterns are prettier. And there is Dice Fishing D6, which is my ultimate brain fog game. There’s no real decision making but it’s a chill process tied up in a nice package.

Apparently, I’m in the mood for a tile-laying mindless activity. (For the record, I think Ambagibus requires some actual decisions and doesn’t count. It is a very chill game though) And I’m sure Potato Carrot Tomato will fade away again but it is helpful right now.