Umbrella Review – All the Broadway Flash, None of the Improv

Disclaimer: Umbrella was provided for free by Pandasaurus Games, although the writing and opinions of this article are my own.

When I first laid eyes on the box for Umbrella I was thrown into the world of musicals. The bright and colourful umbrellas felt straight out of Singing in the Rain.

Soon after, I found this was intentional.

Not only is the tagline Sliding in the Rain, but the back of every player’s board carries the silhouette of the famous dance scene.

Given this connection, I expected Umbrella to be upbeat, focusing on family-friendly fun with a slight hint of surrealism. So does it meet this expectation? Or is this another musical that never makes it to Broadway?

Let’s find out.

How to play

In Umbrella, you control a bustling street corner filled with possibility. People on their way to the first day of their dream job, children leaving school for holidays, or maybe an actor who’s just landed their first big role.

Whoever they are and whatever they’re doing is all up to your imagination. Looking down, all you see is a 4 x 4 grid of colourful (and very pretty) umbrella tokens. Above and below your board and to your left and right are Waiting Zones, people waiting and wanting to come to your street corner.

On your turn, you’ll grab one lucky person from one of these Waiting Zones and slide it onto your grid. In turn, this will pop another person out on the opposite side, who will continue their journey until they arrive at the next Waiting Zone.

A concrete example would be if I selected an umbrella token from the right, I could slide it into any row from the right. This would push an umbrella token out the left side of the grid and onto the Waiting Zone left of my player board.

In sliding people across your board, you’re trying to create the patterns on your Figure Tiles. To complete these, you must place four umbrella tokens of the same colour in the pattern shown.

Doing this rewards you with two points, and lets you place a score token on your Scoreboard.

You’ll also find groupings of umbrella icons on your Scoreboard. Such as a group needing a yellow, red, and green pattern complete. Much harder to do, but they reward you with many more points.

Additionally, each time you complete a pattern you give another player the Figure Tile you completed. And a friendly jibe while you’re at it.

Otherwise, keep playing until you run out of scoring tokens to place, a player completes all Figure Tiles in front of them, or a player has filled up their Scoreboard (hopefully that’s you!).

At that point, tally all the points you’ve gained, subtract any umbrella tokens still in the Personal Waiting Zone below your board and find out who won.

Getting your galoshes wet

The older I get, the more I enjoy the small moments. Bringing me a lot of happiness these days is the NYT Games app, which contains Wordle, Crosswords and more. It’s a fun 10-15 minute distraction.

The puzzles in the app delight through their uncomplicated nature while still challenging you to come up with creative solutions. This is the same feeling I got from playing Umbrella; an uncomplicated board game that presents an interesting puzzle to play.

Like all board games though, there’s more to it than meets the eye.

For instance, I lost my second game because although I efficiently put together Figure Tile patterns, I did so in a way that didn’t clear my Personal Waiting Zone. So even though I scored the most points, I lost enough to put me in second place… out of two people.

Then there’s the Scoreboards.

You’ll find it easy to score Figure Tiles of the same colour. Once you’ve completed one figure tile, you’ll have at least four umbrellas of the same colour on your board already.

However, that’s not where the big points are. It’s better to use your Figure Tiles to score different colours and complete the groupings on your Scoreboard. This is significantly harder, as you must also think about the umbrellas coming and going from your player board.

I found a lot of enjoyment in managing these umbrellas and setting up my board for future success. But after a couple of games of Umbrella, I felt I didn’t have much more to uncover.

A vivid and enchanting board game

Like a good musical the first time you watch it you’re blown away with the pageantry, singing and showmanship. However, once you’ve seen it a few times, and they inevitably produce the less-than-stellar associated movie, it loses something.

That’s what happened with Umbrella.

After I found my groove, I didn’t deviate much from applying similar patterns of thought to different patterns of tokens. So at times, it felt like I was a background dancer on the stage following pre-rehearsed steps.

Once I hit that point, Umbrella was enjoyable but not exciting. There weren’t any new challenges or puzzles to stretch my mind. Including when we added the advanced Scoreboards, which only changed how I played very slightly.

And that’s OK.

As a board game, it was perfectly serviceable if not a little dry. Although you’d expect that from a game about umbrellas.

So far I’ve neglected to mention the production, but holy mackerel they did a wonderful job with Umbrella. It is one of the most vivid and enchanting board games on my shelf. The contrast between the vibrant umbrellas and the greys of the urban sprawl makes the game’s components pop.

There’s also a fantastic level of detail. I already mentioned the musical silhouette on the back of the playerboards. But on the front, each is detailed with a shop front or business entrance in the different player colours. It’s an impressive detail that’s easily missed if you’re not paying enough attention.

So to end on a musical comparison, Umbrella is like the Lion King. Visually stunning, but with a well-worn story that you know you’ll enjoy, even if it doesn’t excite you. It’s a wonderful entry into the world of musicals (and board games).