I think The Daily Weather was designed with me in mind.
The Daily Weather is a solitaire tile-laying game where the really clever bit is that it generates a different goal for every day on the calendar. It's also short enough that, in theory, you could easily play it over a cup of coffee. The designer specifically mentions the New York Times daily puzzles as an inspiration and I can clearly see where they were coming from.
The cards are chibi as all get out. The cards you actually play with are two-by-three grids with what I'm going to call emoji weather symbols because if I call them that, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I almost never worry about color printing or getting a published copy of a game but I am sorely tempted to do that just because the cards would look so cute.
There are double-sided cards for the months and days of the year. Using ones for your current date (or another date, there's no reason why not), you use them as a base for the game. Using six double-sided cards, you try to cover all the months and days except for the date you're playing for. The placement rules are that you have to cover at least matching symbol when you place the card. In addition, you have to complete a designated pattern of symbols. If you do all that, you win the game and can figure out if you get any points.
But here's where it gets cool. There is a separate set of cards for the days of the week, which week of the month and what season it is. (Since this is a game you can play anywhere, it works whether or not you are in the northern hemisphere or the southern hemisphere) They will determine how you set up the month and day cards for your game base, what pattern you have to create to win, and what the scoring conditions are if you win.
There are plenty of rule details I skipped over but I think I've given you enough of an idea to know if this would even interest you.
I was part of the large playtesting crew for the Daily Weather and it still boggles my mind how much development had to go into making the game work for every possible date. I try not to go into my play testing experiences in any kind of detail but I will say the Daily Weather was one the few games that I fit into testing during my lunch breaks. Part of that is because it is short and part of that is because I enjoyed that much.
Experience helps but some dates are definitely harder than others to beat. When I first started playing the Daily Weather, I was happy if I could get the month and the date. I still usually have to play a setup at least a couple times to beat it. And actually scoring points if I win, that's just taunting me at this point. Which isn't to say that the game is frustrating but that it is properly challenging. And that I'm probably very bad at it but it's a solitaire so it's all good.
The Daily Weather is a very puzzly game but you are only using six of the twelve possible card faces (the cards are double-sided but you don't flip them) and they come out in a random order. For me, that lets the Daily Weather cross the line from puzzle to game. And it is possible to get the wrong cards in the wrong order to create an impossible combination but you never know until you try. And you usually have time to try again.
I have tried a lot of coffee break style of games since I got into PnP. And a number of them have ended up in my regular rotation. And the Daily Weather is one of the best I have found. It offers a wide variety of challenges and, at least for me, they are challenging. It manages to make placing six cards interesting and that is not an easy thing. And I can fail three times in a row in one cup of coffee.
The Daily Weather is worth daily play.
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