Touch grass. Play Lacuna, a new “cozy” board game. Be happy. Repeat.

The worst part of playing a modern board game is “the teach” — that interminable period of time when you first sit down to share something unusual with a new group of people. Very rarely comes a game that literally has no “teach” moment, where you can just sit down and run through the opening few rounds and things just sorta make sense. LacunaCMYK’s latest game is a magical experience: a relaxing, good-vibes-inducing, easy to understand, and chilling.

Fans of CMYK will know the studio’s hit games: MonikersThey are a fun way to play charades. WavelengthThe contraption is a pop-culture invention with a huge plastic spinner. The number of participants in these two party games is virtually unlimited. Lacuna It is designed to be a more intimate and personal experience for only two players.

Also, it doesn’t really look like a board game at all.

Lacuna It comes in an attractive cardboard tube. Pop the top, and just below it you’ll find a plastic panel that looks like a shaker from a large plastic jar of paprika or garlic powder. Under that panel, you’ll find all of the pieces: 49 wooden flowers in different colors, 12 metal pawns and a heavyweight fabric playing mat. It’s a delight to unbox, both visually and tactilely. However, the most fun comes when you set it up.

The 49 flowers are thrown into the tube. You then replace the plastic cover and shake the petals onto the playing surface. The two players work together to move flowers by hand. They then take it in turns to place pawns, for six total rounds.

Photo: CMYK

It is important to position your pawn in between flowers that are the same colour. After placing their pawn, players take the flowers but leave their pawns in place. After all the pawns are in place, the players scan the board and pay attention to the 25 remaining flowers. They collect flowers by determining which pawns were closest to the flower. With the plastic ruler that comes with it, you can easily resolve disputes. It adds a surprisingly strategic layer to the game, and it provides the big “A-ha!” moment where everyone at the table suddenly understands the game.

First introduced LacunaMy family and I were on a car camping trip to Wisconsin. After a long, hot 6-mile trek through a tick-infested forest, the kids and I were dog tired, as was the dog — but still, we were all somehow restless. Then I grabbed my camera. Lacuna. I unfolded the mat as if it were a magic act, then dumped the flowers onto the picnic tables. After two minutes, the children were hooked. In the van, I quickly forgot about my antique chess board and other favorite family games. It was important that I was able slink to work at the campfire on dinner preparation. Both my 10-year-old and my 13-year-old, and later the other adults we were traveling with, all left the weekend excursion raving about the fun new game they’d discovered.

Photo: CMYK

Lacuna This isn’t perfect. It would be nice if some of the colors were a little more similar. It’s the rare instance where colorblind players may actually have an advantage, since each color also has its own shape and pattern to differentiate it. There’s no dedicated area on the board to score out at the end of the game, which feels like a lost opportunity. The flowers tend to fall off the table when they are poured out. We actually lost one in the folds of someone’s sweatshirt, and we only found it all the way across the campsite when we checked out the next morning. But it’s easy to see how bottle caps or treasured rocks can be used as alternatives in a pinch.

It was nice having something colorful, easy to understand, and bright after a day of hiking. Lacuna was one of the highlights of our first big family trip of the summer, and it’s earned a place in our car camping totes — likely for all time. Lacuna It could become an enjoyable new tradition in your family.

Pre-orders are now open for LacunaThe CMYK Website will begin offering a discount price of $34.99 starting on 6 June. This seems fair considering the quality of the product. You can expect a retail suggested price of $39.99 for the product when it ships out in July.