Décorum is a cooperative game of passive aggressive cohabitation. You’ve moved into a new house, but can you all agree on what goes where, in what colour, and style?
This is a two to four player deduction based puzzle game that strongly limits communication between the players and which features some light roleplaying elements.
Disclosure: Thanks to Floodgate Games for giving us a review copy of this clever puzzle game. Some links in this post are affiliate links, using them costs you nothing extra and helps support this website. As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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Learn about Décorum, a board game about cohabitation and home decoration.
Decorum is a home decorating board game that was designed by Charlie and Harry Mackin with help from Drew Tanenbaum. This is the first game from this trio, who also worked together to create the Movin’ Out Expansion. We haven’t tried that yet and this review only covers the base game.
This cooperative hidden information game, plays two to four players. With two you are presented with a twenty game campaign that also tells a story. When playing three to four there are ten scenarios of varying difficulty that can be played in any order. Each scenario takes under an hour and we’ve been finding that we often play more than one in a single sitting.
The rules are easy to learn and the suggested age of thirteen plus seems a bit high. We can easily see younger kids enjoying this game as well, though watch out for frustration levels as the game can be difficult at times.
At its heart, Decorum is a multi-player logic puzzle where players take turns to arrange, and re-arrange a house. They do this by adding objects to rooms, painting walls, changing the style of objects, etc., with the end goal of fulfilling each player’s unique requirements. The trick is that there are strict communication rules, which brings in that passive aggressive theme.
The components in Decorum all work well, and most importantly, the colours and iconography are very clear. All of the various object tokens have unique shapes and icons on them. The house board is very clear. It’s easy to see what goes where and the information on the cards is very concise. Our only concern is the choice of using the colours of yellow, red, green, and blue.
While there is iconography on most of the components, it represents the items style not colour. We don’t have any colour based vision issues but we do worry about the colour choices being a problem for some players.
I also wasn’t a fan of the box insert. While you get some great tuck boxes for all the cards and there’s a spot for each of these, all of the tokens and objects just end up tossed into two heart shaped wells, which means a lot of sorting at the start of each game.
We’ve yet to find a great solution. Even putting things into baggies doesn’t speed things up much.
We originally reviewed Decorum on The Tabletop Bellhop Gaming Podcast Episode 249: Great Board Games From Women Designers, and I invite you to also check that episode out. Since that review we have played Decorum a bunch more and it’s also proven to be very popular at our local public play game nights.
Creating a happy home in Decorum
In Decorum the players are presented with a house with four rooms each painted one of four colours. The rooms start with a small selection of objects in them. These objects include curios, wall hangings, and lamps. The objects come in four different colours, but they also come in different styles. Note not every object comes in every colour or style.
Each game of Decorum starts by picking a scenario. While the two player scenarios are meant to be played sequentially, the three and four player scenarios can be played in any order. Each scenario will give you a starting set up for the house, a short intro to the scenario, and cards for each player that shows their requirements to be fulfilled. Players must not share or discuss these cards with the other players, that will ruin the game. Everything on the player cards is secret unless told otherwise.
These cards let you know exactly what you want to see in the house. This can include rooms being specific colours, specific objects being in certain rooms, more of one type of object than another in the entire house, half the house being painted a certain colour, and all kinds of other possible item and colour arrangements.
A nice touch that we didn’t know we were getting with this deduction game, is that the two player scenarios also feature a bit of light roleplay as each player takes on the role of a character. You get that character’s name and a short introduction that you are meant to read out at the start of the game. It’s then encouraged that you stick to that role when playing the game. In addition to adding depth to the game, these intros also give you some subtle hints for solving the puzzles.
Each turn in Decorum three things happen. First the active player changes something about the house. This can be adding a new object to a room, removing an object from a room, swapping the style of one of the existing object in a room, or painting one of the four rooms a different colour.
Next the active player checks their cards to see if all of their requirements are filled, if they are they declare that they are “fulfilled”.
Next comes the fun part, every other player now comments on the change just made. The comments must be either a positive comment like “I love it”, a negative comment like “You’ve ruined everything,” or a neutral comment like “Meh.”. If the house now fits another players needs they say they are “fulfilled” and if everyone says this you win the game!
The key here is that you can’t communicate anything about your actual desires when letting other players know how you feel about the changes that were just made. Remember, this is a game about passive aggressive cohabitation, not just about working together to make the perfect home.
In Decorum, if you could all just share what you want there wouldn’t be a game here at all. The fun is trying to figure out what everyone wants without them saying anything directly. While you can say “I hate that new lamp,” you can’t say “I liked the last one better”, as that gives away a bit too much information.
To help you out along the way, after so many turns making changes you get to have what is called a Heart to Heart in a two player game, or a House Meeting when playing with more that two. When you have one of these discussions, each player gets to share one of their goals. This is the only time you can speak clearly about one of your desires. Hopefully this helps the team figure out where to go from there.
Play continues around the table until everyone is happy or you spend thirty rounds debating and making changes. If after thirty rounds you can’t find a way to make everyone happy, someone moves out and the game ends in failure. If you win, competitive types are presented with a way to track their score based on how many rounds it took you to win and how many Heart to Heart/Family Meetings you had.
Another thing we didn’t know we were getting with Decorum is a slight legacy element. When you are playing through the two player campaign, as you get to games twelve and fifteen you unlock some new things. I know what these are and I don’t want to spoil it, but I will say they were thematic and added depth to the game.
With thirty scenarios (Twenty two player and ten multi-player) there is probably enough game here for most groups, but just in case you manage to finish them all, there is also a free Decorum web-app that includes a new scenario every day!
Who knew arguing about furniture could be so much fun?
I first heard about Decorum during one of the online game conventions back during the COVID lockdowns and I’ve been wanting to check it out ever since. The entire concept just sounded like fun and I’m happy to report that it is. This is a rather out of the box sort of game both in theme and in the mechanics as well. It’s just hard enough to almost be frustrating while also being very solvable.
What really won me over with Decorum is the passive aggressive theme and the way that is enforced by how you are limited in what you can say, giving only vague positive, negative, or neutral statements. This is not only what makes the mechanics work as well as they do but it’s also what makes the game fun.
Added to the thematic mechanics is what I consider a bonus roleplaying element in the two-player campaign that I didn’t even know we were getting. It’s way more fun to be a passive aggressive Steveinator than it is to be a passive aggressive Moe. This also helps alleviate hard feelings by adding another layer between the players.
I was very disappointed that they didn’t carry over the concept of characters and a story for the three and four player version of the game. Everyone I have played this game with, or have watched after I taught the game to, really gets into the roles they’ve been given and I find that missing when playing with more than two. Enough so that I don’t usually recommend the game at more than two unless I’m talking to people who have already played it as a pair.
I want to applaud the designers for the diversity in the roommates included in the scenarios. There are cohabitating couples and friends. The game depicts a wide variety of people and relationship types and it’s done without fanfare, it’s just there, and I love it.
One potential downfall to this game is that after you’ve played a scenario you can’t really replay it. I say potential because I’ve found that after playing a few scenarios in a row I pretty quickly forget what requirement was from what scenario (except the first one which had a specific key element in it).
This memory loss grows the longer the time between games grows. If your group plays the heck out of a game, then puts it aside, only to return to it months later, you probably don’t have to worry about replayability and could probably do the full campaign multiple times.
My only suggestion for this is that if you do replay a scenario, you should probably play the same character number again each time. For Deanna and I, we make sure that I always play number one and she plays number two, so we don’t forget this.
I like logic puzzles and I like puzzle based games and Decorum is one of the best I’ve played. This is a very unique experience compared to the mystery and escape room style games we usually play together. That comes from both the unique themes and more so from the communication restrictions. While Decorum is basically a logic puzzle the game is very much about how you communicate and trying to broadcast your own goals and interpreting the goals of the others with limited information. You will quickly learn it’s not just what people do that matters but what changes they make.
Another big advantage of the communication system in Decorum is that it eliminates any potential for quarterbacking. Telling another player what to do is strictly forbidden, and removing every object another player places over and over again is just part of the passive aggressive theme of the game. These are the things that make this game work.
If you are looking for a unique cooperative board game experience you need to check out Decorum. This isn’t another everyone has a special ability, move around on a map, and work together to defeat the threat, style of game. This is a game about communicating with each other and trying to get everyone on the same page, and that fascinates me.
If logic puzzles are your jam, you are going to love Decorum. The entire game is all about figuring out the rules the other players fall under and then trying to manipulate things so that all of those rules are followed. If you like feeling smart after solving a difficult puzzle, Decorum will give you that over and over again.
On the other hand, if what you love about puzzles is the ability to work on them on your own and figure things out solo, Decorum will not be for you. This is very much a cooperative game and you have to work with others. Despite featuring thirty puzzles there’s no way to play this game solo.
One group I encourage to try Decorum are those game players who generally dislike cooperative games. This one plays and feels quite a bit different from most other team and cooperative games. With a complete elimination of potential quarterbacking you never have to worry about someone else telling you what to do. Also there’s no way for one player to steal the spotlight or go on their own. There is also no room for random or disruptive play and you wont find any type of betrayal or hidden roles here. Despite being about passive aggressiveness this game isn’t at all confrontational.
For us Decorum has been a huge hit. Deanna and I love it, and you all know how much we like two-player games. Our kids love it and have been playing through the campaign on their owns. We’ve enjoyed the three and four player games we tried, though I think we all agree that we prefer playing in pairs.
Decorum has also been a surprise hit at our local public play game nights. Most of the time it gets chosen by a couple and I set up scenario one. Often the pair enjoy the game enough they ask to play through a couple more scenarios.
And I find that often leads to people picking up the game and continuing the campaign on their own. We’ve also had groups of three and four try it as well, and even had one pair come back with friends who they wanted to show the game off to.
Next up, we’re excited about diving into the two player only expansion, Decorum Moving Out. I’ll be sure to report back with a review once we’ve explored it a bit.
FAQs
Is Decorum Only Good With Two Players?
I strongly feel that Decorum is best with two players. While you can play with three or four. we’ve found that to be best with players who have already played the two player version. That isn’t to say it isn’t fun with three or four and that you can’t start of playing with that many, it’s just more enjoyable the other way around.
Decorum is about being passive aggressive, do I have to worry about hurting someone’s feelings?
This is a game where passive aggression is a fun theme, where you are talking ‘in character’ and not actually being passive aggressive with each other. Adding on that layer of playing in character helps to buffer hurt feelings. It also comes out through the mechanics of only being able to say positive, negative or neutral things about each change made in the game.
How replayable is Decorum?
Each scenario in Decorum is only meant to be played once but there are thirty scenarios! That’s a lot of games in one box. I don’t know a lot of people who have played many games in their collection more than thirty times. Added to that, since we first reviewed Decorum on our podcast, they’ve released a web-app which gives you a new scenario to play each day.
One thing that amused me the most about Decorum is how much Deanna loved it. I think she enjoys the game even more than I do. What’s funny about this is that she often maintains that she does not like cooperative games. At least now we’ve got her admitting that she doesn’t like certain styles of cooperative games, which does not include Decorum.
What’s a genre of game you swore you didn’t like only to be proven wrong time and time again, and eventually having to admit that maybe it’s only certain games of that type that you don’t like? Let us know in the comments below or better yet join The Tabletop Bellhop Discord and start a conversation there!
- Play through 30 unique scenarios, each introducing new twists and challenges.
- Keep your conditions a secret, they say how you want the house decorated.
- Add, remove, and swap objects, or repaint rooms to make the house look just right… for you.
- Respond with “Love it”, “Hate it”, or “Fine with it” to work together toward a perfectly decorated home.
