I’ve written a lot about expansions over the years and am generally a fan of them.  Sure, some of them might over-complicate a game but for the most part, the ones I’ve purchased become a staple for all future plays of the base game.  One type of expansion that I haven’t come in contact with a ton of, the “stand alone” expansion, is what I’m concentrating on today when speaking about Formaggio, the latest expansion for the cheese-making, worker-placement game Fromage.

An expansion like this is one where you don’t even have to own the base game to play.  A brand-new player to the game of Fromage could forego it completely and enter the market only owning Formaggio.  But, for players who already own Fromage, Formaggio can be added to it, bringing a new level of variety and gameplay to the base game.

Since the core gameplay loop is going to be the same, and I’ve already covered that in my earlier review of Fromage, I ask that you go check that review out to get those details.  Here I’m going to just focus on what Formaggio adds so that both new and returning players can see all the great extras in the box!

When making cheese in Formaggio, the quality of cheese is going to be determined by how many rotations of the board it takes for a player to get their Worker back.  In the original Fromage, there were three different quality options: Bronze, which took a single turn; Silver, which took two turns; and Gold, which took three turns.  Formaggio adds Platinum to the list, giving players a new option but they’ll have to wait a full rotation, or four turns, before they can pick that Worker back up and deploy her for more cheese making.  This might seem like a steep cost but the Platinum spaces in the new Venues are going to award the players for their efforts.  Speaking of the new boards…

New Venues 

The Fromage board was made up of four separated quadrants (or Venues) that were placed together in random order.  These Venues had inserts that needed to be used in conjunction with varying player counts, to add some variety to each game though all games were going to include the same four Venues every time.  Formaggio brings four brand-new Venues to the table, allowing players to mix-and-match all eight for a whopping 70 different combinations.  Where the original Venues were all French themed, these new boards are of the Italian variety.  Let’s take a look at each one and how they play. 

Banca

The first quadrant is themed after an Italian cheese bank (which the rulebook promises is a real endeavor), utilizing rows and columns to award points to the players.  Rows will only score points if a player has two cheese slices in it at the end of the game.   These rows are color coded, meaning that the bottom row only awards two Victory Points, with row increasing slightly as you move upwards.  Columns will also score points, but unlike the rows, all columns score the same based on the quantity of cheese slices in it.  Banca utilizes the new Platinum quality cheese in a unique way, placing two of them as overarching spaces, counting towards a cheese in three columns at once. 

Venezia

The next venue is for all of those players who’ve always dreamed of riding down the Venetian canals in their famed gondolas.  Ok, it’s not that fancy, but there is the addition of some nice Gondola Tokens you get to use in this venue.  As players make cheese in this venue, they will grab a Gondola Token from the supply and place it I any of the available spaces.  When the game is over, players will count each Gondola adjacent to the restaurants selling their cheese.  Players get a multiplier effect for any Gondola that is adjacent to two, or even three, cheeses from a player.  But be careful as multiple players can use the same Gondola so don’t place it somewhere that is going to help your opponent!

Vigneto

Gondola Tokens aren’t the only supplemental components players will receive in Formaggio.  Wine Tiles, printed with a combination of Wine Bottles (Red, White, and Rose),and Resources, including the Wild Resource icon, will be utilized in the Vigneto venue.  These tiles will be randomly placed in the required spaces during game setup, ensuring that each tile’s color matches the appropriate table color that it is placed at.  When a player puts a worker down at the venue, they will take the tile corresponding to that space and place it in their row of collected tiles.  They can put a tile down to the far left or the far right of the tiles already placed, but never put them in between tiles that are already down.  The challenge is that some of these tiles only have a half of a Wine Bottle, or half of a Wild Resource, printed on them.  Without the ability to shift tiles around, a player can get stuck with two tiles next to each other, one showing the left side of a White Wine Bottle and the other displaying the right side of a Red Wine Bottle.  While the game is being played, if a player matches two sides of Wild Resource, they cash it in immediately.  Then at the end of the game, players will count the quantity of completed Wine Bottles on their tiles and use it against the scoring rubric to see how many points they will be awarded.

I really like how the Platinum Quality is used in this venue with it only being assigned to a small table of two spaces.  But the tiles that inhabit this table are chock-full of Wine Bottles, some that are already completed.  Players will have to determine if giving up a worker for four turns is worth it to jump ahead the crowd in the Wine Bottle collecting business.

Regioni

The last new venue in Formaggio looks similar to one from Fromage (Villes) but plays differently.  In Regioni, players will be making cheeses across a map of Italy.  The map is divided into six regions and each city (cheese space) is printed with a number of Italian flags, from zero to two.  Points will be awarded to each player by multiplying the number of regions they have at least one cheese by the total sum of flags on their cities.  This reminds me a lot of how the Fruit Token scoring works, where if you only concentrate on one side of the equation, you’ll be leaving a lot of points on the table.

More Structure Tiles 

The last new venue in Formaggio looks similar to one from Fromage (Villes) but plays differently.  In Regioni, players will be making cheeses across a map of Italy.  The map is divided into six regions and each city (cheese space) is printed with a number of Italian flags, from zero to two.  Points will be awarded to each player by multiplying the number of regions they have at least one cheese by the total sum of flags on their cities.  This reminds me a lot of how the Fruit Token scoring works, where if you only concentrate on one side of the equation, you’ll be leaving a lot of points on the table.

If you own Fromage and you love it, then I highly recommend Formaggio, as you’ll only benefit from being able to mix-and-match the two games.  If you don’t own Fromage and have been intrigued by it, but can only grab one of the games, I’d say go with Formaggio as I think the venues here have more to them and I just find them to be more fun.  Lastly, if you’ve played Fromage and didn’t care for it, Formaggio probably isn’t going to change your mind so feel free to skip it, though I know that everyone I’ve shown it to has had a lovely, and cheesy, time!

Ratings are based on 5 main criteria: rulebook, setup, components, art & graphic design, and gameplay.  The first 4 criteria are rated 1 to 5 and the gameplay is rated 1 to 10.  These scores culminate in an “overall satisfaction” score that is rated from 1 to 10.  If the reviewed game has both a solo and multiplayer mode, I have assigned scores separately to give context to which mode we enjoy more.