Head-to-head comparison

Faraway vs Sea Salt & Paper

Both are twenty-minute card games in tiny boxes. Faraway is the thinker's choice; Sea Salt & Paper is the social one. A table that likes to optimize, Faraway. A table that likes to gamble, Sea Salt & Paper.

Light weight Faraway

$20

2-6 20 min Light

Play eight cards in a row, then score them backwards. A twenty-minute puzzle that rewards planning in reverse.

Buy Faraway · $20 →

Light weight Sea Salt & Paper

$15

2-4 20 min Light

A tiny card game of pairs, sets, and knowing when to stop. Origami art, huge replay, pocket price.

Buy Sea Salt & Paper · $15 →

Pick Faraway if

You want a quiet planning puzzle where scoring runs in reverse and the best players think backwards from the end.

Pick Sea Salt & Paper if

You want a livelier filler with steals, pairs, and a push-your-luck ending that gets the table shouting.

The tradeoff.

Faraway

Faraway is a small card game with one idea that turns out to be deep: you play eight cards in a row over eight turns, but at the end you score them in reverse order, last card first. Each region card has a scoring condition, points for every sheep icon you have, points if you have three different colors, and it only counts what was played before it in scoring order, meaning after it in play order. So the card you play first scores last and sees everything, while the card you play last scores first and sees nothing. Planning a game means thinking backwards from the finish.

Each turn everyone drafts a new region from a shared row, with the numbered cards deciding who picks first next time, and playing a card with a higher number than your previous one earns a sanctuary card, a small bonus with its own scoring. The rules take three minutes, the game takes twenty, and the aha moment when someone realizes how the reverse scoring rewards a slow build is worth the price on its own.

Best for: 30 Minutes or Less, For Introverts, Cabin Trip

Sea Salt & Paper

Sea Salt & Paper is a small card game about collecting sea creatures, folded from paper in the illustrations, and it has become one of the most played fillers of the last few years for a simple reason: every turn is a decision. You draw either from two face-down piles, keeping one and discarding the other face up, or from the two discard piles, which everyone can see. Then you may play pairs for immediate effects, steal a card, take another turn, peek at the deck. When you reach seven points in hand you may end the round, and the choice of how is the game: stop for your points, or declare a last chance and bet that you will still have the most points after everyone else gets one more turn, which doubles your reward if you are right and hands the round to the others if you are wrong.

The rounds take five minutes, games to thirty or forty points take twenty, and the push-your-luck ending produces genuine groans and cheers. There is a memory element in tracking the discards and a little bluffing in how confidently you play, but the rules fit on a card and the teach takes two minutes.

Best for: Two Players, 30 Minutes or Less, Long Flight

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