Threaded
- Board's Eye View
- Apr 28
- 3 min read
In Threaded, designed by Ellie Dix and published by Osprey Games, the 2-5 players are competing to fulfil commissions for embroidered tapestries. It's a worker placement and set collection game where players send their three 'assistants' (four in a two-player game) out to various locations to collect resources and commissions for the tapestries they are notionally making with needle and thread, tho' the 'threads' are actually wooden cubes and the 'needle' represents the position of the different colour thread cubes at the top of your player board.
Threaded is a resource management game where players have to work within strict limitations. You can only ever have six threads on your needle and when you use them to Finish a tapestry you need to take them in order from left to right. That's likely to mean some cube manipulation as you place thread cubes on your needle in order to push off threads that are no longer needed. That's the action taken at Darn Good Thread, where you acquire new threads. New threads can go into your basket or straight onto your needle, but threads that you push off your needle don't go back in your basket; instead they are discarded to the Ends & Odds bargain box as scraps.
The bargain box is essentially a dice tower into which scraps are dropped but not all will come out straightaway. Those that do emerge are divvied up among those players who sent assistants to the Ends & Odds location.
When you Finish a tapestry, your score for it will depend on the commissions it satisfies; for example, utilising specific colours. You can pick up commission cards by sending an assistant to the Custom Creations location, and ideally you'll try to have cards that synergise so that more than one commission can be satisfied with a single tapestry. Again tho' players need to manage commissions carefully because they can only hold a maximum of four commission cards.
The Bobbins & Baskets location lets you draw an equipment card which will give you a single-use benefit. If there is a particularly advantageous equipment card in the initially three-card market display, that can may make this a priority for sending your assistant as players select from the face-up cards according to their order in the queue at the location. You can hold onto an equipment card so you can use it to best advantage but again you're strictly limited as to how many cards you can hold (just two).
Finally, but actually first in the alphabetical order by which each of the locations has been cutely named, Awl You Want lets you add an assistant to the end of a queue at any other location even if it's full. You have to donate two threads to scraps when you send an assistant to this location, however, and the locations are resolved in alphabetical order so you don't know what's going to be left for you to take when you eventually get to the head of the queue at the location to which you transfer.
Threaded is a puzzle optimisation game as you prioritise and decide on the best use of your assistants. The theme involves pattern recognition and you'll need forward planning and just a modicum of luck to efficiently create scoring patterns. That said, it's a very accessible game and it's sure to appeal to any family members who are into needlepoint or embroidery but who otherwise eschew board games. Osprey have done an excellent job over the game's presentation and production, and with it's bright art from Maria Surducan it has great table presence. And as a rather nice thematic touch, the game comes with a little kit of boards, real thread and a plastic needle so you can embroider your own First Player marker to supplant the cardboard one that's also supplied.
