Piñata Pictorial Preview!

Pinata from Rio Grande Games is the reprint of Balloon Cup, but with the original theme from its designer,
Stephen Glenn, as well as some rule changes.

In Pinata there are four tiles in play that either have an arrow pointing up or an arrow pointing down. The goal is to play numbered cards to either get the highest or lowest score depending on the arrow. If you win, you get to collect the candies on that tile.

To win the game you must earn three trophies and to earn a trophy you have to acquire a specific number of colored candies. To get the yellow trophy you need to have three yellow candies. To get the pink trophy you need four pink candies and so forth.

At it’s core, Pinata is a basic take a card & play a card kind of game that is super simple to pick up. The box says it’s for ages thirteen and up, but it could easily be played by someone a lot younger.

However, just because it’s simple doesn’t meant it isn’t deep. There is a lot of strategy in the game and other than being based off Balloon Cup it has that same head to head feel you get from playing other great two player games like Jaipur.

The biggest difference in Pinata over Balloon Cup is that there is now a white suite of cards that are wild and can be used to bid on any color candy. It really helps the keep the game moving and offers a few more choices and strategy to the players.

All in all we really enjoyed Pinata. It’s a terrific two player game, easy to learn, and its small box size makes it awesome for travel. If you don’t already own Balloon Cup, you should definitely give it a try.