Popcorn

Game summary

👥 A game for 2 – 4 spelers
⏳ Play time is around 60 minutes
🏢 Publisher is IELLO

Introduction

Lights, camera, action! 🎬 In Popcorn, you step into the role of a cinema owner and decide which movies will draw packed theaters. Program your films wisely, attract the right audience, and cash in at the perfect moment… can you turn your cinema into a true blockbuster? 🍿

Let’s get it on the table

When setting up Popcorn, first prepare the central play area. Set the four Starting Movie cards aside. Shuffle the remaining Movie cards to form a draw pile and place the Final Showing card at the bottom of the stack. With two players, place ten cards below it; with three or four players, place five cards below it.

Place the Feature and Premier tiles in the center of the table. To the right of each tile, lay out three face-up Movie cards, starting with the Features. These cards form the market from which players can buy movies during the game.

Shuffle the Award cards and place them face down as a draw pile. Place the Advertising board between the movies and the theaters. Set aside the Popcorn tokens, Dollar tokens, and Theater trophies nearby. With two players, only the Theater trophy worth three Popcorn is used.

Sort the Theater tiles by seating capacity: one, two, and three seats. From each stack, place three tiles face up so players immediately have a choice of different theaters.

Finally, prepare the Guests. Create a central supply with two Guests of each color (red, blue, yellow, and green). Set all remaining Guests aside for player setup.

Players setup
Each player receives a Cinema board, a cloth bag, and three Lobby sliders in their color, which are placed on the indicated spaces on the board.

Each player then randomly draws one Starting Movie. This movie is immediately placed in the leftmost theater, fully covering the bottom action row. Place the matching slider so that it covers the colored marker in the lower-left corner of the card. Return all unused Starting Movies to the box.

Next, distribute the starting Guests. Each player places one Guest of each color (except white) into their exit zone. Then, add one Guest of each color and five white Guests to the bag. Finally, the player takes one Guest from the central supply in the color of their Starting Movie and also adds it to the bag. Each player now starts with exactly ten Guests in their bag.

Place the Audience cube on the first space of the Audience track, meaning players draw three Guests per round at the start of the game.

Each player receives three Advertising tokens in their color and a Popcorn bucket to store Popcorn earned during the game.

Each player then draws two Award cards, chooses one to keep, and places the other at the bottom of the deck without revealing it.

The start player is the person who most recently went to the cinema. This player receives the First Player marker. Starting money is then distributed: the start player receives $5, and each following player receives $1 more than the previous player.

After these steps, the game is fully set up and the first round can begin.

Let’s Play

A game of Popcorn is played over several rounds. Each round consists of three fixed phases, always played in the same order: Buying and Advertising, Showings, and End of Round. The start player begins, and play proceeds clockwise.

During the Buying and Advertising phase, players take turns, starting with the start player. The other phases are generally resolved simultaneously.

During the Buying and Advertising phase, a player may perform their actions in any order. All actions are optional. A player may buy at most one movie and at most one theater per turn. In the first round, no theater may be purchased. Players may also place or retrieve Advertising tokens.

When buying a movie, the player chooses one of the face-up Movie cards and pays its cost. Movies from the Premier row cost $2 extra, but immediately grant one Guest in the color of the movie, which is added to the player’s bag. The movie is immediately placed into a theater, or it replaces an existing movie, which is then moved to the archive. If the theater has exactly the correct number of seats, the player immediately receives the Showing Bonus. Then place the Lobby slider beneath the movie to reveal the available actions.

When buying a theater, the player chooses one of the face-up Theater tiles and places it in their cinema, possibly replacing an existing theater. The first time a player places a theater in the rightmost position, they immediately increase their audience by one.

Advertising tokens previously placed on the Advertising board may be retrieved during this phase. For each token retrieved, the player may resolve its corresponding effect, such as adding, moving, or influencing Guests. Tokens may also remain on the board for a later round.

Each player opens their cinema by drawing a number of Guests from their bag equal to their current audience. If the bag is empty and more Guests must be drawn, first return all Guests from the exit zone to the bag.

The drawn Guests are then placed into theaters where movies are showing. Within a theater, Guests are seated in order, starting with seat one. Players may choose freely which theaters to place Guests in and do not need to fill a theater completely. If there are more Guests than available seats, the excess Guests are placed in the exit zone.

Next, the Guests are activated. The player chooses the order in which theaters are resolved, but within a theater, Guests are always activated from lowest to highest seat number. Each Guest first performs a Seat action, if possible. Gray seats are available to all Guests, while colored seats may only be used by Guests of the matching color. The Guest may then perform one Movie action, provided the Guest’s color matches the movie’s color and the action is still available. Each Movie action may only be used once per round. After resolving their actions, the Guest leaves the theater and is placed in the exit zone.

Once all Guests have been activated, the Showings phase ends and the End of Round phase begins. All Lobby sliders are moved up one position, covering one action per movie, making it unavailable. Then refresh the movie market: any remaining Feature movies are removed from the game, Premier movies shift down, and new cards are drawn to refill both rows. The First Player marker is passed to the next player.

The game ends

The end of the game is triggered when the Final Showing card is revealed while refilling the movie market. This card is set aside. One final full round is played, during which players open their cinemas one last time and place and activate their Guests.

After this final round, scoring begins immediately. The final score consists entirely of Popcorn, scored in the following order:

Popcorn in the bucket
Each player opens their Popcorn bucket and counts all Popcorn earned during the game.

Money
For every $5 a player has at the end of the game, they gain 1 additional Popcorn.

Theater trophies
Each player totals the cost of the three theaters in their cinema.

• The player with the highest total receives the largest Theater trophy.
• With three or four players, the player with the second-highest total receives the second Theater trophy, provided there is no tie for first place.
• With two players, only the smaller trophy is awarded.

Award cards
All players reveal their Award cards. For each completed Award, the player gains the indicated amount of Popcorn. Guests, seats, movies, and other elements may be used multiple times to fulfill different Awards.

Advertising tokens that remain on certain spaces of the Advertising board at the end of the game may count as virtual Guests. A token on the wildcard space may first be moved to a Guest color of the player’s choice before scoring Awards, potentially allowing additional Awards to be completed.

After all Popcorn has been counted, the player with the most Popcorn wins the game.

Final Conclusion & rating

Weight: 2.32/ 5
Replayability: 7,5
Our rating: 7 out of 10 dices

Popcorn is a wonderfully thematic board game in which everything just clicks. From start to finish, you truly feel like you’re running your own movie theater. The components look fantastic and add enormously to the overall experience. The popcorn buckets, the scoring tokens, and especially the movie cards are designed with so much love that the theme really comes to life. In fact, some of those films could easily be playing in an actual cinema.

What makes Popcorn stand out is that the theme never feels like a thin layer pasted on top. Everything you do in the game fits logically within the idea of building a cinema empire. The mechanisms and theme reinforce each other, making every decision feel meaningful. While Popcorn is fun to play, after a few games it did start to feel a bit repetitive for us. Still, Popcorn is highly recommended for anyone who loves strong themes and beautifully crafted components. 🍿🎬

Thanks to IELLO for the review copy and for giving us the opportunity to share our thoughts on the game.