Year: 2018 | Players: 1-4 | Minutes: 20 | Ages: 7+
This Team Up! review was made after playing the game eight times. We were provided a copy of this game by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
What is Team Up?
Team Up! is a cooperative stacking game in which players attempt to put boxes on a pallet in the most compact way possible.
The game was designed by Hadi Barkat and Sébastien Pauchon and is published by Helvetiq.
Team Up! Gameplay
Team Up! is all about trying to figure out how to load a pallet with boxes of different sizes and hopefully ending up with a perfectly loaded pallet that goes five layers high. There are 27 total boxes that come in three different colors. There’s also a neutral box, which is the first box that goes on the pallet.
On your turn, you’ll simply draw one card and place that type of box on the pallet. Some of the cards will allow you to choose from one or two sizes of any color, while others will show you a color you need to place.
There are a couple of rules that you have to follow when stacking your boxes. The main one is that your box has to touch a box that is on the pallet. You also have to make sure that the entire box is on the pallet and not hanging off in any way. The boxes can’t hang over any empty space, making it impossible to place a new box in that space. The last rule is that two boxes of the same shape can’t be fully covering each other or have any of their sides in full contact.
If you ever draw a card and can’t place a box of that type on the pallet for any reason, you place that card face down in the discard pile.
The game ends in one of three ways:
- The last box is placed on the pallet.
- You can’t draw a card on your turn.
- Your team chooses not to draw more cards.
Once the game ends, you’ll figure out your score. You’ll get five points for every completed layer, and you’ll lose one point for boxes that weren’t placed and for face-down cards in the discard pile. The perfect score in Team Up! is 25, which you’ll get if you’re able to stack five complete layers of boxes.
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Pros and Cons
Pros
- The biggest compliment I can give Team Up! is that it is a cooperative puzzle unlike any other. There really aren’t many cooperative stacking games out there right now.
- It’s actually a very satisfying feeling when you’re able to work out the best way to place a box. Similarly, it feels great when you set the pallet up in a specific way and you draw the card you were hoping for.
- The game does have a decent amount of replayability since it’s very tough to build the perfect pallet. Plus, you will want to beat your high score!
- I think Team Up! can work really well as a kids board game. The rules are easy to understand and most kids love playing with blocks.
- Team Up! has a very short playing time, so you can easily get in two or three games at the beginning or end of your game night.
- The mini pallet is a pretty awesome game component.
Cons
- When playing cooperatively, Team Up! can be a frustrating or boring experience for players who have a tougher time with puzzles. If you have one player in your group who is better at these types of games than everyone else, chances are they’ll take over or you’ll just be waiting for them to tell you where to place your boxes.
- You can definitely draw terribly in this game. When that happens, you’re going to have a very tough time getting a good score.
- I do worry that the paint will come off of some of the boxes over time. A lot of mine have already started to chip.
- The boxes are pretty bland looking. I wish that they looked more like packages.
Final Thoughts
I really can’t recommend Team Up! as a cooperative game for adult gaming groups. Even if you do have 2-4 people who are equally skilled, it still feels like multiplayer solitaire, which most groups don’t enjoy. It can be fun the first couple of plays, but chances are most adult groups would want to move on to something a bit more exciting pretty quickly.
Even though I don’t think Team Up! will work for everyone, I do think some people will enjoy it. It could work as a family game, a kids game, a solo game, or maybe even as a team-building activity. It’s as simple as this: If you like the idea of trying to find the best way to stack boxes on a pallet, chances are you will enjoy this game.
I personally think Team Up! is a pretty good solo game and just an okay co-op puzzle. I’ll keep playing it until I get a perfect score, which means I’ll probably own it for the rest of my life.
Team Up! Links
BGG | Amazon | Helvetiq
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