Get your peppers in Scoville!
Wilbur Scoville in 1912 developed the Scoville test, which is still used today to measure the heat of chili peppers. And according to the Scoville board game, the town of Scoville was founded in honor of Wilbur Scoville. Each year the residents gather to host the Chili Pepper Festival, and the grower who plants and breeds the most heat from their peppers will win the trophy.
Scoville is a 2-6 player game that plays for about 60 to 90 minutes. I first saw buzz about the game some time at the end of last year on social media. What really drew me in was the great looking components from the game. It comes with 134 pepper pieces in 10 different colors! Yes, I’m a total sucker for cute thematic pieces in well-developed board game. In addition to the peppers, the game also comes with 6 farmer meeples (also very cool), auction cards, market cards, recipe cards, plaques, coins, bonus action tiles and breeding charts.
The game board assembles from four sturdy cardboard pieces, and in each corner, it’s clearly marked which cards sit where and how many are played depending on the total number of players. I really enjoyed that detail, as we don’t have to go fish into the rulebook for setup variations. The middle of the board has pepper farming plots, which are cut out to fit the pepper tokens. Players all receive coins; a red, blue and yellow pepper; and three bonus-action tiles. These tiles offer bonus actions, but if they’re unused, they are worth four victory points each in the end. Players are also given a shield so that your opponents can’t see what peppers you have in your supply.
Game play has five phases: auction, planting, harvesting, fulfillment and time check. In the auction phase, players will bid for turn order and claim auction cards. The player who wins the bid chooses his or her spot on the turn-order track. The interesting thing in this game is that each phase resolves in a different order for players. Planting resolves from left to right on the turn-order track, harvesting resolves from right to left, and then fulfillment resolves left to right again. Choosing the correct turn spot is crucial to game strategy. After the new turn order, each player chooses one of the auction cards that are face up. The player then receives the pepper or peppers shown on the card chosen.
In the planting phase, players in turn order from left to right must plant one pepper on an empty plot on the field. A pepper may only be placed horizontally or vertically from a pepper that’s already been planted. A player may then claim an award plaque if he or she plants a pepper corresponding to the same colored pepper on the plaque. The plaques have victory points on it; the more rare the pepper, the higher the value of the plaque.
The next phase is harvesting, which resolves from right to left in turn order. Players may move their farmer up to three steps, but must move at least one step. Where the farmer stops in between two peppers, players receive a pepper based on the breeding chart. Farmers may not pass through nor stop on an opponent’s farmer, which again highlights the importance of bidding on the right turn order. Farmers may not turn around once they start moving from their spot, unless a bonus-action tile is used.
After harvesting comes the fulfillment phase, which includes a visiting the farmers’ market, competing at the chili cookoff or selling a batch of peppers. Players may do all three things one time but aren’t required to. When you visit the farmers’ market, players can exchange peppers for rewards shown on a card, which include cash, other peppers and victory points. For the chili cookoff, you can turn in various combinations of peppers to claim a recipe card, which includes victory points as well. Lastly, player can sell up to five peppers of one color to the supply. The peppers’ price will be $1 for every two of the same color pepper already planted in the fields.
Lastly, the time-check phase determines if afternoon cards come into play, or if there’s one round left before the end of the game. If it’s still morning and if there are fewer recipe cards than there are players, then the afternoon is skipped and the game ends after one more round. If there are enough recipe cards, then count the market cards. If there fewer market cards then there are players, then the game progresses to the afternoon. This means the afternoon market cards and auction cards come into play.
If it’s afternoon and there are fewer cards than there are players in either the farmers’ market or chili cookoff, then one more round is played and the game ends after the fulfillment phase. If there are fewer cards in both locations, then the game ends immediately after the fulfillment phase.
The player with the most victory points through market cards, plaques, recipe cards and unplayed bonus tiles wins the game. The game itself isn’t hard to learn, but my friends and I figured out that if you don’t plant your peppers wisely where your farmer can get to it, it definitely puts you at a big disadvantage. Also, I totally messed up and didn’t realize that while I was collecting white peppers to claim a high-value recipe card, the card actually had the clear peppers on it. Darn you, phantom peppers!!
Anyway, I’ll still need a couple more plays under my belt so that I can get familiar with all the cards (and not make a rookie mistake again!) and learn the best strategy. The game is definitely a lot of fun, and I’m glad I purchased it.