I'm a huge fan of tile-laying games, and while I consider Carcassonne to be the pinnacle of tile-laying, its mechanics are a bit unique and therefore atypical. Cacao feels a bit more typical - there aren't really restrictions on tile placement, and you have some choice of the tile(s) you play - but it's about as streamlined as Carcassonne is.
Others have explained the gameplay, but the quick summary is that you place a worker tile from your hand next to one or more jungle tiles on the table. As holes begin to form, you additionally fill them in with more jungle tiles, forming a checkerboard pattern of alternating workers and jungles. Each worker tile has four workers, distributed (seemingly) randomly among the four edges. As soon as a worker touches a jungle, it takes that action - acquiring cacao, selling cacao, earning free money (points), moving up what is essentially a bonus-points track, stockpiling workers near temples that will score at the game's conclusion, and collecting tokens that let you replace tiles during the endgame.
Aside from the temples, everything is very immediate and straightforward. While it could be argued that Carcassonne has a very light worker placement/resource management mechanic to it, Cacao does not at all. You will have four workers at your disposal every turn, and unused workers can still be activated if a jungle tile is placed next to them; there is no shortage of workers. You have a limited capacity for cacao and you have to sell it in order to get points, but that's not a resource mechanic so much as a two-part scoring mechanic. There's some amount of 'well do I use this tile edge with three workers to sell three cacao for two gold each now or hope a better market opens up', but that's really the game - it's all about the tiles.
All in all a quick game, fun game, you end up with a small 'world' compared to Carcassonne, easy to grasp and score. Components are all nice, the little player mats are charming, and the wooden cacao bits are great. The box is awful - you will be removing the insert to mine for gold if you ever travel with it or store it vertically. I also kind of wish they had used a scoring track instead of gold to make it easier to see where you stand vs. other players, but these are the pettiest of complaints.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2016
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Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2019
Top reviews from other countries
"rucrem"
Fácil de explicar y ha visto mesa ya muchas veces
Reviewed in Mexico on July 10, 2019
Zahn
Jeu tres sympas et boite tres bien organisé
Reviewed in France on January 13, 2019