Mr. Postmouse’s Picnic

Mr. Postmouse is delivering invitations to a picnic today instead of packages. Can he get invitations to all five of his friends before it gets dark?

Marianne Dubuc has created several picture books following Mr. Postmouse, and now it’s time for a children’s game for this delightful character. Designed by Xavier Violeau and published by Oka Luda Editions in France, Mr. Postmouse’s Picnic is for 1-4 players, ages 4 and up. We got our copy from Hachette Boardgames, the USA distributor of the game.

Gameplay

Mr. Postmouse’s Picnic is a cooperative game, and can also be played solo. Everyone shares in the goal: get Mr. Postmouse and at least four of his friends to the picnic site before nightfall.

The game begins with a mostly empty forest board. For your first time playing, start by trying the easier, “sparse forest” side. Mr. Postmouse starts at his house, and his five friends have starting spaces marked in the forest. All 43 basic tiles go in the box lid, face-down.

Each player takes turns, choosing a face-down tile from the box, and then revealing the tile and doing its effect.

Types of Tiles

Path tiles extend the path that starts at Mr. Postmouse’s house. These must connect to at least one existing path. They cannot be placed on top of another tile, on top of a rock (indicated with red outline), or in the lake. If you place a path tile where an animal Friend is standing, place the Friend onto the Path.

Mr. Postmouse tiles move our friend Mr. Postmouse along the path. If he enters a space with a Friend, he delivers their invitation and they immediately move to the picnic spot.

Path tiles and Mr. Postmouse tiles do not have to be used immediately – but you can only reserve one unused tile in front of you. If you already have a tile in front of you when you draw a new tile, you must use or discard one immediately.

Tent tiles are easy to spot in the box – they have an envelope on the back. Take one of these to immediately place (or move) the Tent token onto Mr. Postmouse’s current space. This will give him a place to retreat in case of rain.

Friends tiles allow Friends to move around the forest! Move a Friend of your choice, to any adjacent tile, ignoring any obstacles. If they meet Mr. Postmouse on the path, they immediately move to the picnic site.

Bad Stuff

Rain causes Mr. Postmouse to seek shelter! If you draw a Rain tile, move Mr. Postmouse back to his house – or to the Tent if he built it. Then you must place the Rain tile back in the box, face-down. Try not to draw it again!

As Night begins to fall, the wind blows! If you draw a Night tile, place it at the top of the board, then gently shake the box lid to mix the remaining tiles.

Winning and Losing

If you fill all six Night squares on the board, the picnic is cancelled, and you’ve lost the game.

But if you can get Mr. Postmouse to the picnic site with four of his friends before nightfall, they’ll have a lovely time. If you can get all five friends there, along with Mr. Postmouse of course, you have triumphed with a perfect picnic!

Increase the Challenge

In the box, Mr. Postmouse’s Picnic provides three ways to make the game more challenging.

You can flip the board to the “dense forest” side; this contains five obstacles, and only three exit spaces to get to the picnic.

You could also add the sneaky Rain tile that has an envelope on the back – since all the other envelope tiles contain a Tent to protect Mr. Postmouse from the rain, this is quite a trap!

Lastly, there’s a variant of the game that adds a sniffly dragon, who chases Mr. Postmouse and will (accidentally) burn up all the invitations if he catches up!

Impressions

Mr. Postmouse’s Picnic was my introduction to this cozy world illustrated by Marianne Dubuc. The characters are all very friendly and it’s not hard to root for them as they attempt to gather for a picnic.

The graphic design is simple and effective – it’s obvious even to a young child where to place the Friends, where tiles go, and how to move Mr. Postmouse down the path. The Night tiles will slowly cover the bright blue sky, and it’s easy to understand that the game ends when the Night track is full.

However, this easiness does not carry over to winning the game, which was a big surprise.

Friendly? or Fiendishly Difficult?

Some of this difficulty is due to luck. Pick up Night tiles too quickly, and you’ll have no chance to even get Mr. Postmouse to the other side of the board, never mind meet up with the Friends. You have to pull the right balance of path, movement, and friend tiles, in order to bring everything together at the right moments.

The Rain tiles complicate this further by pushing our intrepid deliveryman back without giving a way to catch up again – unless you had enough foresight to place the Tent.

As an experienced gamer, making all the “right” choices, I only manage to win 25% of our games.

Smoothing the Path

This could be extremely frustrating to children, especially the young children who are the main audience for Mr. Postmouse’s Picnic. Of course, some children won’t be fazed by failure. They’re immersed in the pretend world of Mr. Postmouse. And as the rules say:

“Mr. Postmouse is brave. He’ll try again soon!”

But for the rest, a few tips to tilt the scale in their favor:

Remove the Rain tiles. Especially when learning the game, Rain just feels punishing for no reason. Take these two tiles out of the box lid before playing. For more experienced players, add the Rain tiles back in, but discard them after one use instead of returning them to the pile to be found again.

Return reserved tiles to the box lid instead of discarding. If you really can’t use a tile (e.g. Mr. Postmouse needs to move but has no path), go ahead and return it to the pile. Don’t lose the ability to do that action forever just because you can’t use it now.

Remove some Night tiles – or at least sneakily place them into the bottom layer when “shuffling” the tiles. Yes, I’m telling you to stack the deck for your child’s success.

Final Thoughts

I’m disappointed that Mr. Postmouse’s Picnic is so hard to win. It’s fine to have lots of luck in a game for young children – but when it’s a cooperative game, that luck should always point towards winning, not towards losing.

I also wish the design of the board and tiles allowed for the cutaway interior illustrations that are the best part of the books.

For most families, I think Mr. Postmouse’s Picnic is going to be frustrating – unless you modify it to make it easier (detailed above). But for fans of the series, it can still be a fertile ground for imaginative play.

Find Mr. Postmouse’s Picnic at your local source for toys and books, directly from Gigamic (Hachette), or on Amazon.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Mr. Postmouse’s Picnic from Hachette Boardgames for this review.

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