The Board Game Pixies Goes Big with Family Fun

Pixies is a great little small-box, filler game to play with kids that hits the sweet spot for a family game, with enough randomness to keep younger players competitive but not so much that adults feel like they’re playing Sorry! or Candyland. (As in, I am so Sorry! you had to play Candyland.) It’s easy to teach, with great art that’s also accessible to color-blind players, and playable in under a half an hour, even with three rounds to play a full game. 

Pixies contains a deck of cards numbered 1 through 9 in four different colors, along with some wild-colored cards. On each turn, the starting player reveals a number of cards from the deck rounding the number of players, and then each player drafts one card to place it in their 3×3 tableau. If you take a card and the space for its face value—the top row is 1-2-3, middle is 4-5-6, and bottom is 7-8-9—is empty, you must place the card there. If there’s one card there, you may replace it with the new card and flip the old one face-down underneath it, or put the new card face-down beneath the old one; either way, the card on top becomes “validated.” If there are two cards in the new card’s spot, you must place it face-down in any other spot in the tableau.

The round continues until one player has filled out their tableau, at which point you complete the turn so that every player has taken the same number of turns, after which players add up their points from three sources. Validated cards score their face value. Spiral symbols on cards are worth one point, while crosses cost you a point, regardless of validation status. Some cards are worth one spiral per card of a specific color showing in your tableau, so they’re worth an unlikely maximum of 9 points. Then you score the largest contiguous group of cards of one color, worth 2 points per card in the group in the first round, 3 in the second round, and 4 in the last one.

There is a decent amount of randomness in Pixies, and in this case I’m fine with it, because it’s a light game and that randomness will allow a broader range of players to play it. You’re limited to the cards drawn in each turn, and every time around the table you’re going to have one turn when you get stuck with the last card. (With two players, you draw four cards on a turn, and each player chooses twice.) That also injects a little take-that strategy into the game, since you may choose a card an opponent needs or that would be particularly valuable to someone else, or even pick a card to prevent someone else from ending a round. Or you can choose to play less competitively and just take the cards that are best for you if, say, you’re the one adult playing with some kids. I played this with my seven-year-old, who loved it and caught on to the scoring very quickly, but she only played competitively when I suggested she look at which card(s) might help me.

I mentioned the accessibility of the game before because I think every publisher should be doing this: here, there are four colors of cards, but they are represented by unique symbols so that any player who has issues distinguishing colors can play. The art on the cards is by first-time game illustrator Sylvain Trabut and is striking, depicting fanciful forest creatures that range from cute to perhaps a little terrifying, depending on your perspective, but it also is unobtrusive so that the numbers and symbols are easy to read. Pixies is designed by Johannes Goupy, who’s been quite prolific the last few years, with Rauha, Orichalcum, Elawa, and Faraway among his best-received titles so far, along with the upcoming From the Moon. I’ve played four of his games so far, and this is my favorite, even though it’s on the lighter side of what I like in a board game. Call it a filler game or a gateway game or whatever you like—this is just right for a quick game with the kids before you send them to bed and break out Wingspan or Red Cathedral.

Keith Law is the author of The Inside Game and Smart Baseball and a senior baseball writer for The Athletic. You can find his personal blog the dish, covering games, literature, and more, at meadowparty.com/blog.