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Payback WBG Score: 6.5 Player Count: 2-6 You’ll like this if you like: Simple card games Published by: Payback - Self Published Designed by: Karel Psota This is a review copy. See our review policy here What happens when someone puts Sh*thead in a box? Every gamer has at least one classic card game they learned long before they discovered modern board games. For me, and probably many of you reading this, it's Shithead. You know, the one where you deal three face-down cards to each player, and then three face-up on top and a hand of three, and you just have to get rid of your cards? Although it has many other names too, like Palace, Shed, Karma, or China Hand, plus many more! The classic shedding game has existed in countless forms for decades, spreading through schools, pubs, family holidays, and university common rooms with little more than a battered deck of regular playing cards and a handful of house rules to playfully argue over. I spent hours playing this with my school friends at every break time in my mid teens It holds a lot of fond memories for me. That's what makes Payback such an interesting proposition. It isn't trying to hide its inspiration. Instead, it asks a simple question: can you take a game that almost everyone already knows and make it better? And more importantly, make people pay money for it! Before writing this review, I reached out directly to the designers because I had seen criticism online suggesting the game was little more than a commercialised version of a classic game anyone can play with a deck of cards. To their credit, they were completely open about the inspiration. Here is designer Karel Psota: "To be upfront: Payback is directly inspired by Sh*thead, Idiot, or Palace. We took the core mechanics, simplified them for beginners, and added new mechanics to better balance the gameplay. We've always credited it: it's on the website and in the subtitle and opening line of our Board Game Geek description. So it's never been something we've tried to hide. It's worth noting that game mechanics aren't protected by copyright. Only the name, artwork, and wording. As for the negative feedback you've seen, I think some of it comes from people spotting the similarity without having checked the BGG description first. Totally understandable, and it's exactly why we appreciate reviewers like you who dig into the full picture before publishing." The influence is acknowledged and I never got the impression they were trying to pass this off as an entirely original invention. The comparison is unavoidable, but it is also one they seem perfectly comfortable with other people making. Because its true! Personally, I am 100% fine with this. There are plenty of other games out there based on classic card games that you could play with a normal deck, but I like the art, the theme, the twist on the rules, and the modifications. I like to support the designers who do this. As long as it is all open and honest, I am in. I wouldn't mind it being made clear on the box, but I get why they don't do that! How to set up If you've played Sh*thead before, setup will feel instantly familiar. Each player receives three face-down cards, three face-up cards and a hand of three cards. Nine in total. You can switch the three face up cards with the three dealt cards in anyway you wish, in order to get the best three face up cards possible. High cards and special card are best. The objective remains exactly what veteran players would expect: get rid of all your cards before everyone else does and avoid being the unfortunate player left holding cards at the end of the game. The basic framework is so similar that experienced players will be comfortable almost immediately. Where Payback begins to separate itself is in the way it presents information. One of the enduring quirks of Sh*thead is that no two groups seem to play it quite the same way. Every family has its own version. Every friendship group has added a few house rules. I've played versions where sevens were low, eights skipped turns, kings reversed play and four of a kind burned the pile. And others, where all those things were wrong! The problem is that teaching the game often involves explaining which version you're using before you can even begin. Payback removes most of that confusion by placing the powers and effects directly on the cards themselves. Rather than memorising a collection of inherited rules, players simply read the cards in front of them. There are no suits, no misremembered or made up rules. Just do what the cards say. How to play The core gameplay remains reassuringly familiar. Players take turns playing cards onto a central pile, matching or exceeding the value currently in play. If you cannot legally play a card, you pick up the entire pile and add it to your hand, a punishment that can instantly undo several turns of careful progress. Or you can draw from the top of the pile, and try to use that! If it matches or beats the top card, all good. If not, you take that along with the pile into your hand. You can play multiple cards of the same value, and after you play, you must draw back up to three cards. Once players have emptied their hand, and the draw pile is empty they move on to their face-up cards before eventually being forced to rely on their face-down cards, often creating the most dramatic moments in the game as players blindly hope the card they reveal will save them rather than condemn them. So far, so Sh*thead. The biggest difference comes from the collection of special cards that give Payback its identity. These allow players to burn piles, reset values, skip opponents and generally interfere with one another in ways that traditional Sh*thead used to do with the various house rules. Just like standard Sh*thead this feels like a race where players are largely focused on managing their own position, whilst actively encouraged to look around the table and identify who is about to win so you can make their life miserable. The game earns its title because revenge is not merely possible, it is often the optimal strategy. OK, so still very much Sh*thead! This additional interaction creates conversation and laughs around the table. Players celebrate too early, make temporary alliances, plead for mercy and then immediately betray one another the moment an opportunity presents itself. The underlying structure remains familiar, and the overall atmosphere feels very much like the original too. Whether this is an improvement will depend on your tastes, but it unquestionably gives Payback its own flavour. Is it fun? The answer depends largely on what you love about Sh*thead in the first place. If your affection for the original comes from its simplicity, then Payback may feel slightly over-engineered and unnecessary. There is a certain beauty to pulling a standard deck of cards from a drawer and teaching a game in two minutes. No custom components are required, no special powers need explaining and everyone can be playing almost immediately. And you know if the people you are playing with enjoy it, they have the game at home already! On the other hand, many groups have spent years creating increasingly elaborate house rules to make Sh*thead more interactive and entertaining. Those players are likely to appreciate what Payback brings to the table. The special powers create memorable moments, the game becomes easier to teach to newcomers and there is far less room for arguments about which version of the rules should be used. Rather than replacing Sh*thead, Payback feels more like a polished and standardised version of the game that many groups have gradually evolved on their own over the years. I was also surprised by how much the dedicated deck helps with accessibility. People who have never encountered Sh*thead before often learn Payback faster because the information is presented so clearly. Veteran players may not need that assistance, but newcomers certainly benefit from it. In that sense, Payback succeeds in making a traditionally informal card game feel more approachable without completely losing the spirit of the original. I am a big fan of the big cards, the bright vibrant art, and overall packaging. I play games as I enjoy them, but I, like many of you, like nice stuff. This is just a way to make a simple classic card game I like, a little better. See it more as an upgraded component rather than a new game and you may just find you love this! Pros Makes a classic card game easier to teach and learn Special powers create plenty of interaction and memorable moments Eliminates the endless house-rule debates that surround traditional versions Various expansions for more variety Nice chunky cards Cons It's Sh*thead. You own it already with a deck of cards Final thoughts Payback's biggest challenge is convincing players that it deserves to exist alongside a game they can already play with a standard deck of cards. After spending time with it, I think it largely succeeds. The designers have never hidden where the inspiration comes from, and the more important question is whether the additions improve the experience enough to justify a dedicated product. Payback feels like the result of somebody looking at decades of accumulated house rules and deciding to build a cleaner, more accessible version that everyone could agree on. Traditional Sh*thead isn't going anywhere, and nor should it. It remains one of the most simple and elegant card games created. Payback simply offers a cleaner way to enjoy those same foundations. Want to try it yourself, you can buy from this link.

An Age Contrive: Folklore & Pilgrimage WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-5 You’ll like this if you like: Anachrony, Tzolk'in, Le Harve Published by: Bellows Intent Designed by: Chris Matthew This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. This review is for the Core version. An Age Contrived was one of my favourite games of 2024. More importantly, it was one of those rare games that improved every time I played it. The more I understood the systems, the more I appreciated the decisions. So when Folklore & Pilgrimage arrived, I wasn't looking for the game to be fixed. I didn't think it needed fixing. What I wanted to know was whether it would make an already excellent game even better. The short answer is yes. The slightly longer answer is that it depends on which part of the expansion you're talking about. You can read the review of the main game here. And we previewed the expansion here. Now, in full, is our complete review for this expansion, which just gets better and better with every play. And in fact, my opinion of this has changed a fair bit since the preview. How to set up An Age Contrived: Folklore & Pilgrimage The expansion is split into three distinct modules. Two new asymmetric characters, the Folklore module, and the Pilgrimage module. The good news is that none of them significantly increase setup time. The new characters simply join the existing roster and can be selected as normal. The Folklore module adds a small player board extension, a deck of Folklore cards from which you choose three cards from, three artefacts that you place into your new mini board, and a tracking cube to each player area. Pilgrimage introduces a slim side board that you can place alongside the main board along with additional shrine components that you can group and place together at the bottom of this board. There are new Pilgrimage miniatures for each character, place each one in the game at the starting space on this new board, and a handful of supporting doubler tokens that slot alongside the main board. Everything integrates surprisingly cleanly into the existing game. If you already know how to set up An Age Contrived, you'll have no trouble incorporating the new content in a few moments. How to play An Age Contrived: Folklore & Pilgrimage The core game remains exactly the same. You'll still be advancing your Transmuter, managing energy, constructing monuments, upgrading actions and pursuing multiple scoring opportunities while attempting to create increasingly efficient turns. The expansion layers additional systems on top of that framework. The two new characters each offer their own strategic twist. Chronari specialises in manipulating time and the position of Transmuter tiles, allowing for additional activation opportunities. Valimod interacts heavily with the Tile Pool where he counts as two energy, teleporting around the board through the use of Wild energy and creating unique movement possibilities. The first few ties you play as them you may struggle to successfully integrate their powers into the game, but they are very useful if used efficiently. The Folklore module introduces artifacts and encounters. As you recharge your Channel Marker, you can now, if you choose, prepare artifacts on your new mini board, moving them from their unprepared spaces to the prepared spot, one at a time. Later, after any movement of your main character on the main board, if you end on a non-bridge location, you can place one prepared artifact there. Doing so allows you to trigger Folklore cards that provide new actions, benefits, and interactive opportunities. These can be activated on your own turn or through the actions of your opponents. If someone builds on a location where you have an artifact, you get to run an action from a previously played card, and they now get to take two actions. Pilgrimage introduces an entirely new side objective. Players contribute energy towards Shrines in a similar fashion to monuments, but rather than binding energy and scoring in familiar ways, they advance pilgrims across a dedicated board to unlock benefits and end-game points. Any time there are two energy from the same player here, then a Shrine can be built. There are multiple shrines to choose from, each with a different power. After you build it, you can then move your Pilgrim mini here up the number of spaces as per the number of energy you had there, plus your movement points. Your movement points start at one, but can be increased to two using your recharge power. When you move your Pilgrim up, you can move onto the newly built Shrine to activate their powers. The higher up you finish this track, the more end-game points you will get. It creates another strategic avenue to pursue alongside everything already happening in the base game. The new characters The two new characters are a welcome addition. Neither fundamentally changes the game, and if I’m being honest, I don’t always make full use of their powers every time I play. However, that’s not really the point. What they offer is choice. They create different strategic approaches, encourage you to think about familiar systems in slightly different ways, and provide another reason to come back for just one more game. In a game built around replayability and experimentation, that is valuable in itself. And a new expansion for a game with asymmetric characters without new characters would be a miss. Folklore: the gentle expansion The real stars of the expansion, however, are the Folklore and Pilgrimage modules. Both have earned a permanent place in almost every game I play, including games with new players. They integrate so naturally into the existing design that they never feel like additional complexity for complexity’s sake. Instead, they simply provide more opportunities, more decisions, and more ways to approach the puzzle. The first game with them both in, and you may feel overwhelmed, but now if I take them out, I feel the game is missing something. You can't ever do everything, but I like that in a game like this. You need to pick your strategy and run with it. And to have that choice, and see your specific progression based on your strategy, feels rewarding to me. Of the two, I particularly enjoy the Folklore module. One of the most common discussions around the base game was whether movement on the main board mattered enough. Personally, I never considered it a problem. An Age Contrived was already an excellent game without this expansion, and I certainly wasn’t sitting there wishing movement was more important. What Folklore does isn’t fix something broken. It enhances something that was maybe just not that important, but now can be. Before adding Folklore, my eye naturally went to the monuments in play, my own Transmutation Device, and the immediate scoring opportunities around me. That's what I focused on and in truth, yes, the wider map did become irrelevant to me. I didn't move my character much or make much use of the bridges. The map was always there, and it was always beautiful, but I found I was often looking at specific pockets of it rather than the whole thing. With Folklore in play, that changed. Suddenly I was studying the board differently, plotting routes for my character, thinking about where I wanted to end my movement, and considering how those spaces might matter later. You want to run into the other players to build on their spots, or have them build on yours, so you track them too. It is a significant change, but it makes the board feel more alive. You are no longer just admiring this gorgeous expanded landscape in the background. You are using more of it. My attitude to this changed a lot the more I used this expansion and I now see the benefit of this in a big way. Simply looking more at the overall game board may sound like a small or slightly strange point, but it genuinely changed how the game felt to me. By encouraging you to look across more of the board, Folklore makes An Age Contrived feel bigger and more of an event. Not heavier. Not more fiddly. Just broader, richer, and more connected. It gives greater purpose to movement, while also making better use of the wonderful table presence the game already had. It feels like a visual size and "vibes" expansion, as much as the new elements, strategy, choices, and components. Pilgrimage: the star of the show Pilgrimage achieves something similar, but in a different way. It introduces another scoring avenue, another area of competition, and another balancing act to manage throughout the game. Like the best parts of An Age Contrived, it constantly asks you difficult questions. Do you invest here or elsewhere? Are you doing enough? Are your opponents doing more? The result is a module that feels meaningful without ever feeling intrusive. And of course, the game now cannot end until all the shrines are built, as well as the monuments, so it does make the game a little longer, and there is more agency about how the game ends now. But as you build the shrines with just two energy, it happens pretty quickly, and the extra powers you gain from moving up the track mean you can progress in other areas a little quicker, so it all evens out. It's just more choice, more action, more strategy all within the same delightful package. If you already love An Age Contrived, I think this expansion is an easy recommendation. It doesn’t transform the game into something radically different, nor does it try to. Instead, it adds more depth, more purpose and more interesting decisions to a game that was already one of my favourites. That’s exactly what I wanted from an expansion, and exactly what Folklore & Pilgrimage delivers. But if you want a much bigger, epic, choice filled experience, put all the modules together and the overall package does feel just bigger. Pros Pilgrimage adds meaningful new decisions and scoring opportunities Both new characters feel distinct and enjoyable Integrates seamlessly with the base game without bloating setup Folklore maps you experience the full map Cons Adds complexity to an already complex game Unlikely to convert players who disliked the base game Final thoughts The best expansions don't fix broken games. They make great games even more interesting. That's exactly what Folklore & Pilgrimage achieves. The two new characters are fun additions that provide fresh strategic options and increase replayability, even if they won't fundamentally change every game. The real success story, however, lies with the two modules. Both have become permanent additions to my copy, and both feel so natural that it's hard to remember what the game was like without them. What impressed me most is that the expansion doesn't simply add more mechanisms. It changes where your attention goes. In the base game, I often found myself focused on my player board, my engine, and the monuments immediately around me. Now I'm constantly looking across the entire map, planning routes, assessing opportunities and paying attention to areas of the board that previously sat in my peripheral vision. The result is subtle but powerful. The game feels bigger. The world feels more alive. That beautiful board becomes an even more important part of the experience. Most importantly, none of this comes at the expense of what already made An Age Contrived special. The expansion doesn't clutter the design or weigh it down with unnecessary complexity. Instead, it adds more meaningful decisions, more strategic depth and more reasons to keep exploring a game that was already exceptional. If you already love An Age Contrived, I think this is an easy recommendation. Not because the base game needed fixing, but because this expansion does what the very best expansions do: it gives you more reasons to love a game you already couldn't stop thinking about.

This is a preview copy sent to us for our early opinions. No money exchanged hands. Some art, rules or components will change in the final game. Find out more here. Reviewing a prototype is always a slightly strange exercise. Especially one this early in development. The game is due to come out the middle of 2027. By the time Corebind eventually reaches publication, the artwork could be different, the iconography could be cleaner, cards may be rebalanced, and entire mechanisms could evolve. What I can say, though, is that after several plays of this early prototype, Corebind is a game I consistently wanted to get back to the table. At its core, Corebind is a deck-building race. Players are competing to stabilise four elemental cores before their rivals, all while the game itself imposes an eight-round limit. If that sounds familiar, that's because the foundations are rooted in classic deck-building design. You'll improve your deck, acquire stronger cards, build combinations and try to create increasingly efficient turns. What surprised me was how quickly Corebind established its own personality against the greats upon which its roots were grown. Learning the ropes I won't pretend the rulebook instantly clicked with me. But I must remember, this is an early prototype. On a first read, there are quite a few concepts to absorb. Different actions, different card types, stabilising cores, purging cards, exploring the Wilds. It initially felt like there was a lot going on. Then we started playing. Within a round or two, the structure suddenly made sense. The actions feel logical, turns move quickly, and before long you're making meaningful decisions rather than looking things up. In fact, one of my biggest takeaways was that the game flows much more smoothly than the rules initially suggest. How to set up Corebind Each player starts with an identical ten-card deck, four elemental cores, a player board and a reference guide. Shuffle your starting deck to create your draw pile, known as the Wellspring. Set up the shared Wilds deck, the Purge pile and three market rows containing Bronze, Silver and Gold cards. Finally, place the round tracker on round one and you're ready to begin your race to stabilise all four elemental cores before the end of round eight. How to play Corebind Corebind is a deck-building race where players are trying to stabilise all four of their elemental cores before their opponents or before the game reaches the end of round eight. At the start of each round, players draw five cards and then take turns playing one card and choosing one action. Cards can be used in several different ways, whether that's triggering special abilities, generating Essence to acquire stronger cards from the market, exploring the Wilds for new opportunities, or tying cards to your elemental cores. As you acquire new cards, your deck becomes more powerful and efficient, allowing you to create stronger combinations and make faster progress towards your objective. To stabilise a core, you must attach cards containing matching elemental symbols to it. Once a core has accumulated four matching element symbols, it is completed and removed from the game. The first player to complete all four cores wins. While building an efficient deck is important, Corebind is ultimately a race, and players who focus too heavily on engine-building can find the game ending surprisingly quickly as an opponent completes their final core and claims victory. On your turn, you can do one of five things. Channel allows you to play a card for its special ability, triggering the blue text on the card. Fuse is the main way you'll acquire new cards, combining the Essence generated by up to three matching elemental cards to purchase stronger cards from the market. Forage lets you explore the Wilds deck in search of useful new cards or recover previously Purged cards. Stabilise is how you progress towards victory, allowing you to attach elemental cards to your cores in an effort to complete them. Finally, Converge is a powerful all-in action that combines the Essence of your entire hand to make a large purchase, but at the cost of Purging every card revealed. Choosing when to use each action, and balancing deck-building with progress towards your cores, forms the heart of the game's decision-making. More than just another deck-builder The first thing that really grabbed me was a clever little idea that I haven't seen implemented quite like this before. As you acquire cards from different sources, they enter your deck with different card backs. That means when you're drawing through your deck, you often have some information about what's coming. If you've only acquired one card from a particular source and you spot that card back approaching, you know exactly what is waiting for you. Other times you might know you're about to draw something powerful, even if you don't know precisely which card it is. It sounds like a small thing, but it creates an unusual layer of planning that most deck-builders simply don't have. You're not just managing probabilities. You're reading your deck as it cycles and adjusting your plans accordingly. The second idea I really enjoyed revolves around Purging, which is Corebind's version of trashing cards. In most deck-builders, once a card is trashed, it's gone forever. Here, Purging often provides a powerful immediate benefit, but those cards enter a shared area where they can potentially be recovered by you or even stolen by other players later. That creates fascinating decisions. Do you cash in a powerful card now for an immediate advantage, knowing somebody else could claim it later? Or do you keep it safe in your deck? I found myself constantly weighing short-term gains against the possibility of handing opportunities to my opponents. The joy of discovery One of the biggest strengths of this prototype is simply the sheer amount of content. Corebind currently contains around 250 unique cards, and that becomes obvious almost immediately. In my first game, the biggest source of enjoyment wasn't optimising my strategy. It was discovering what was out there. Every trip into the market or the Wilds felt like opening another door. New effects appeared constantly. New combinations emerged. Cards I'd never seen before would suddenly appear and completely change my plans. By later plays, that experience evolved. I started recognising cards and understanding some of the stronger combinations. There were moments where I found myself hoping a particular card would appear because I knew how well it would fit into my strategy. The interesting thing is that it rarely mattered when it didn't. With so many unique cards available, another exciting option usually appeared instead. Rather than feeling disappointed, I'd find myself changing direction and exploring a different combination. That constant sense of discovery remained one of the game's strongest qualities throughout. Watch the finish line One lesson I learned very quickly is that Corebind is a race. I spent one game happily building what I thought was an excellent engine, feeling quite pleased with myself, only for another player to complete their final core far sooner than I expected. The game was over before I felt remotely ready for it. That's not necessarily a criticism. In fact, I think it's part of the tension that makes the game work. You cannot simply sit back and build the perfect deck. You need to keep one eye firmly fixed on what everyone else is doing. The ending can arrive abruptly, particularly once players know what they're doing. Table presence and pacing As a prototype, it would be unfair to spend much time discussing artwork or production quality because those elements will almost certainly change. What I can comment on is pacing. Corebind moves. Fast. Turns are snappy. Downtime is minimal. Even when players are considering multiple options, the decision space remains manageable. At lower player counts especially, I could easily see groups playing three or four games in a single evening. That's probably one of the strongest compliments I can give any prototype. After finishing a game, my immediate reaction was rarely "that was enough". It was usually "shall we go again?" Pros Clever deck-building ideas that genuinely feel fresh Excellent sense of discovery thanks to the huge variety of cards Fast turns and short playtimes encourage repeated plays Cons Rulebook needs a bit of tightening, sure that will come. Endings can arrive suddenly if you're not monitoring opponents Final thoughts Corebind is still very much a work in progress, and plenty may change before release. The artwork will improve. Components will evolve. Certain cards and balance decisions will almost certainly be revisited. What excites me is that the foundation already feels strong. The deck-building is familiar enough to be approachable, but introduces several genuinely interesting twists. The stabilisation race creates tension throughout. The unique card-back system adds subtle but meaningful planning opportunities. Most importantly, the game constantly rewards curiosity. Even after multiple plays, I was still discovering cards, spotting new combinations, and wondering what might appear next. For an early prototype, that's an excellent sign. The best compliment I can pay Corebind is that I stopped thinking about what the game might become and started enjoying what it already is.

An Age Contrived WBG Score: 8.5 Player Count: 1-5 You’ll like this if you like: Anachrony, Tzolk'in, Le Harve Published by: Bellows Intent Designed by: Chris Matthew This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. This review is for the Core version. An Age Contrived comes from new designer Chris Mathew, who seems to have struck Kickstarter gold, after over 4,800 backers pledged close to half a million dollars for this game back in the beginning of 2023. Now the game is hitting people's tables, and there have been some mixed reviews. I will say for the record, right now, I like this game and will explain why in more detail below. But I will also cover the criticism people have for the game, so you can hear a balanced argument. But first, let's explain how this game works and get it to the table. This will be a detailed teach of the set-up and how to play. If you would rather just know what we think, skip to the Is It Good? section below. How To Set Up An Age Contrived First place the main board down on the table. It's a beauty, so take a moment to take it all in! Now shuffle the five Monument Randomiser Tokens and draw a number matching the player count. These Monuments will be used alongside the Beacon Monument during your game. The total number of Monuments played will always be equal to the number of players plus one. Next, locate the metal frame a for each Monument in use this game and place them into their positions from under the game board. Start with the middle Monument, lay the board flat, then do the sides one by one. The Dice Tower suggest this process is hard. Do it in the right order and it will not be hard at all. Locate the various panels for each Monument you are using and place them in their assigned space on the board. they go in numerical order with one on the top and the square icons facing up. Place the Monument Patron Tokens into each Monuments bound energy area. This is the circular area behind each Monument. Now, get the Monument Benefit Tokens and remove all Tokens that show a player count greater than your number of players. This is shown in a notch icon on the top right of the token. Randomly deal one Monument Benefit Token face-up into the assigned space next to each stack of Monument sections in use this game. Next, randomly deal one of the six Achievement Tokens face-up into each of the the blank Achievement Token spaces on the board. Return the rest to the box. Then remove all upgraded Transmuter Tiles that show a player count greater than your number of players, then shuffle the remaining Tiles by tier a single face-down deck on the bottom of the board, with tier three on the bottom and tier one on top. Reveal four tiles face-up to fill the Tile Pool. Next, place the Upgraded Actions tokens faceup near the board in a 4x2 layout suitable for your player count or utilise the provided tray. Then, position the Conduit Tokens in three stacks near the board or in the tray. Remember to place the Conduit Token with two icons at the top of each stack to reward the first player to claim it with a superior token. Now, distribute one quick-start card to each player randomly for character assignment. Alternatively, players can choose their card if they prefer, although random selection is recommended due to the asymmetry in player powers. Gather your character’s corresponding Transmutation Device, Character Board, character components, and a player aid. Players can select the side of their Transmutation Device, Character Board, and Transmuter Tiles to use, which does not impact gameplay. Each player now needs to place their Character Miniature on the starting space of the closest region to their seat at the table that has a Monument in use this game. Now, take all the energy tokens of your colour. Note there are four types of icons. Place two Energy Tokens of each type into the energy reserve on the right hand side of the game board. You will be bale to get these using various powers during the game to increase your pool. Then, place your remaining Energy Tokens into the Exhausted Pool of your Character Board Everyone now places their three Bridge Tokens onto their matching numbered spaces on their Character Board along with their Channel Marker, face up with two players and face down with every other player count. Each player must now place their five Action Tokens into their matching numbered spaces of their Transmutation Device You can use either side, just position them into the right slot. The two Transmuter Tiles numbered zero are placed to the left of your Transmutation Device. Now, each player must place Energy Tokens from their Exhausted Pool, matching the types and positions shown in their quick-start card. Place one Energy Token into the Tile Pool on the main board and this should leave four on your exhausted pool. Next, randomly deal the neutral Bridge Tokens based on your player count face-up onto the broken path spaces connecting each player’s starting region to the central region on the main board. Finally, randomly choose who will be the start player, and give them the start player marker. You are now ready to play! How To Play An Age Contrived On your turn, players can either ADVANCE their channel (to develop and prepare for later turns) or take one or more ACTIONS. Play continues in turns like this until all of the Monuments have been made, at which point the game continues until all players have had equal turns, then the game ends immediately. Advancing is done very simply by selecting one of your two inactive Transmuter Tiles and sliding it into the first position of your Device. This will push the others along, knocking the last one. The one that is knocked off is brought back to your inactive side. Any energy in the final tile that comes out is immediately exhausted. You will then fill up all spaces in the new tile that you just added with energy taken from your exhausted pool. You can pick any energy, so think about which action you may want to do. If your Channel Marker is charged, you can do this all twice. When you move the tiles along, check to see if any of the symbols on them match any symbols above in any gained Conduit Tokens. You start with none, so this won't happen for a while. But when it does, you can then carry out these actions, moving your character or energy one space along the tracks for each matched symbol. More on this later. The main thing you will do in the game though, is use the energy in your device to take actions. There are five actions in the game as shown on the bottom icons on each of the five rows. You can upgrade these through building monuments and buying new upgrades. When you use your turn to take actions, select and exhaust one energy from the bottom row from the area you chose to take an action. Add this to your exhausted area. Then take the Action. You can repeat this for as many energy tokens as you wish to exhaust from the bottom row. Any energy located in the bottom row at position five can be exhausted to perform any one action. The other four work as such: The second action space lets you buy and upgrade the Transmuter Tiles from the main board. The first one costs one energy, the second and third cost two, and the final costs three energy. You can only spend energy previously placed into the energy tile pool on the main board. Later upgrades will let you reduce these costs. The tile you buy immediately replaces one of your existing tiles. You can never have more than seven. The replaced tile is out of the game. All other tiles then slide down and a new one is added to the row. Upgraded tiles have more spaces for more energy, and additional icons to improve your Advance action. The fourth space lets you move your figure on the board two spaces or move on the Monument or Pillar tracks. These final two are on your player board, and the first time you do this, take any energy token from your exhausted area and add it sideways into the first position on the track. When you get to the top of either track, you can carry out the benefit. This is to either bind (add) an energy token to a Monument's bind area on the main board or onto one of the Pillar spaces on the main board. In a two or three-player game, there is only one space for each monument, so act fast. Moving your character on the board is mainly to get into new areas and cross bridges. Doing so gains you the benefit of the bridge. More on that later. Finally, the first and third action space work in the same way. You can exhaust energy here to then move energy from the corresponding upper rows and place them onto the board. Space one lets you move energy from space four and five. And action space three lets you move tokens from energy space two and three. Pictured above is an upgraded action tile in space three for you to see how you can advance this. Hopefully, it is clear what this means. You can add any one upper energy to the board. You will also notice a symbol in the first space that lets you refresh your Chanel Marker, meaning you can Advance twice again on your next Advance turn. Moving energy to the board is the main thing you will do in the game. There are three places to move energy too. First, you can add tiles to the Tile pool to help you buy upgraded Transmuter tiles in later turns. Second, you can add them to the left-hand Achievements row to any achievements you may have completed by then for end game points. These change each game but are mainly about getting energy onto the board, upgrading your Transmuter tiles, and developing your powers. You can either gain five points or two points for each type of Energy token you have on the board in the Monument spaces that match the energy use here on the Achievement row. The above two show how you can gain points if you have bound energy to at least three Monuments, and below; if you have acquired at least three Conduit tokens. Finally, you can add them to the monuments, and this is the main action in the game. When you add energy to the monuments, you must match one of the face-up spaces in one of the face-up monuments, based on the type of energy required there. When you fill the final space on a Monument, place the final piece on its side to remind you that you were the player to add the final energy. Then, when your turn is over, you will build that completed piece of the monument. Each Monument has four or five parts. When the final part of the final Monument is built, the game is over that round. When you build the Monument, remove all energy from it, one at a time. Each player who contributed energy can take one of two actions. Either gain one or two (for the first piece of each Monument) energy from the Energy reserves on the right side of the board, or take that Monument's Benefit Token. These are different each game, but are essentially how you will upgrade your actions, gain the Conduit tokens to improve your Advance turn, and build bridges. There are also other benefits that repeat other actions already covered. Each player can gain just one of these two benefits, no matter how much energy they have there. Now, each energy token becomes active. The Rose energy is exhausted but lets you move your character one space on the Monument or Pillar track. The Magnet energy lets you load it back into any empty space on your Transmuter tile board. The Compass energy lets you place it on the board into one of the three available spaces (Tile Pool, Achievement row, or Monument section). Any wild energy can be placed anywhere on the Monument, but now it just simply becomes exhausted. But when you build your first bridge, a Wild energy power will become unlocked. Watch out for other play throughs that got this rule wrong! The final token, placed on the side, does not activate like this, rather it moves onto the board next to the built Monument, into the Monument's bound energy area, ready for big end game points. Everyone gains a benefit from contributing towards a Monument being built, but the completing player gets the biggest reward. At the end of the game, players will be rewarded with points for any of the four types of energy they have fully gained from the energy stores on the board, for each energy bound to a Monument on the board or bound to the Pillar spaces, and for any Tier three bridge that has been built, and all achievements you have bound energy to. Finally, any energy left in the Tile pool will gain one additional point as well. Is It Fun? An Age Contrived Board Game Review Building up your engine through combo turns is a real delight. In your first game, you may not be able to do this quite so much. It does take a game or two to learn the strategy and really learn how to play this game well. This learning curve is not too steep though, but you do need to give it a few games. But it is also genuinely satisfying as you see your turns develop into combo-tastic beauties, and your scores improve rapidly. Game one will still be fun, you just may not build up your combos quite so well and get a great score This was a big criticism that The Dice Tower review focused on. Which did not sit well with me. They suggested the Action turns took too long (due to these combo-tastic turns) and that the Advance turns were dull. The Advance turns certainly are not as fun, but are just a necessary part of the panning process, and are quick and the game runs on when you do it. The Action turns can combo into longer more powerful turns, but this does not happen each time, it takes a few turns to power them up as when you have a bigger turn you use your energy up, so you then need to build back up. The Dice Tower are right to say it can lead to longer wait times between turns, but these longer turns are not frequent, and when they happen, they involve other players as well. So, you need to be paying attention. For example, when someone completes a Monument, this will involve all players who contributed to it, each player being able to then activate their energy there. When someone buys a new tile, you can add more Energy to the Tile pool if you had any there. And you will want to be paying attention when people add tiles to the Achievement track or bind energy anywhere else on the board, as it will affect what you can do on your later turns. There are only so many spaces for this. The game offers a plethora of options each turn and in your overall strategy. There are multiple viable paths to victory. The variety ensures that every choice you make feels significant and impactful, but also unique and truly a choice. There is never an obvious and clear path. It's up to you what you aim for. I don't see a way you can ever do it all. In part, this is down to you, obviously. But you do need to pay attention to what other players are aiming for and counter that. You cannot let other players dominate specific scoring areas. Watching other players strategies is important, and forming your own strategies to counter is key. I enjoy this sort of interaction in games. It forces me to adapt my strategy during each game rather than following a set process. Visually, the game is a treat. Constructing monuments is both fun and rewarding, with each structure adding to the game's aesthetic appeal. And let's face it. It's just cool to do. They clip on magnetically to the board and it just works so perfectly. When built, they look great and add an impressive dimension. The game's pace is intriguing. If multiple players focus solely on monument building, or at least as a major part of their strategy, this can lead to a very quick game with lower scores. If one player opts for this strategy, others may feel pressured to follow suit to avoid missing out on completed monument bonuses, and the end game scoring this brings. However, balancing your focus across all areas of the game will likely yield better results. There leads to a fascinating balance between game pace, strategy, and overall performance. Mastering the art of multitasking in this game is challenging yet crucial. For instance, the pillars of civilisation initially offer a modest four points for the first one built, which might seem insignificant. But if you manage to complete all six, a whopping 39 points can be yours. As with monuments, it's important to prevent any one player from monopolising this scoring area. For context, in a two-player game, the maximum points from monuments are 36, but linking the energy bound this way to your achievements is essential. Achievements can significantly boost your score, especially if you’re the first to reach them and can capitalise on the bonus points for bound energy types on the board. You can score two points for each bound energy on the board of any one type this way. Another criticism from The Dice Tower was how the game felt a little devoid of theme, and how what you did did not link with the overall feel and story of the game. And how the board was detached from the game and moving your character felt devoid of purpose. I suppose feeling for you will depend upon your own desire to immerse yourself in the lore, which is rich and deep; and how much you want to play a resource management efficiency euro game versus a more thematic character-driven Ameritrash. The game can be both. What you do with you energy effects what you can do on the board. The two are interlinked. And where your character moves affects what bridge powers you can activate, and which monument track you can bind energy too. Where you are and what you do affects your abilities. The most surprising criticism from The Dice Tower for me was when they said the game makes you get "bogged down in minute details" that they "don't care about," such as where they place their specific energy on their Transmuter board. Where you place energy affects what actions you can do on later turns, and which energy you place affects which energy you will place on the board, potentially activate later, and score with the achievements. This is fairly basic future planning seen in a lot of games. I like the process of thinking through future turns in this game. "I want to score this energy in this achievement, and I want to take this action from activating this energy on that monument, so I will place this energy here, these here, and then these ones here." I like this sort of thinking. This is a very odd criticism that I wonder if it comes more from the unscripted "riff" style of review they do, that can create off-the-cuff points like this that are perhaps not actually thought out, or even genuinely believed? It would be fair to say that planning ahead turns like this is not something that some individuals would enjoy, but to say they are minute details they don't care about simply makes no sense in this reviewer's considered and humble opinion. And then they had an issue with the "un-fun" and "boring" rule about keeping your character facing and moving in the same direction. My understanding of this was so that your character cannot simply walk on, off and back onto a bridge, over and over. Like any track in any game, you move up and towards the next benefit. Not up and down, off and on the tracks you like. Hence, keep moving forward in the direction of your character. There are other issues they mentioned such as the Monument building (which is the entire point of the game!) stopping the game flow; that I could also debate here, but I think I will leave it at that. Maybe they were having a bad day. Overall, the interplay between strategy, game pace, and multitasking makes for an engaging and intellectually stimulating experience. I love getting better at this game. I love trying new strategies in this game. And right now, I cannot stop thinking about previous games of this, future potential games, and ways I may try and play next. I think I may be falling hard for this game. Watch the Dice Tower review for contrasting views and make up your own mind. But for me, this is up there as one of my top ten games of 2024.

Fruit Island WBG Score: 6 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Simple kids games Published by: Analog Game Studios, Designed by: Reiner Knizia This is a review copy. See our review policy here Every now and then I play a game that reminds me my children and I are in very different stages of our board gaming journey. Fruit Island is one of those games. Designed by Reiner Knizia, Fruit Island is a lightweight family game about collecting fruit, avoiding a rampaging gorilla, and deciding whether to push your luck for a few extra points or head back to safety. After seven plays at both two and three players, I found myself in an interesting position. The children enjoyed it. I enjoyed watching them enjoy it. But I rarely found myself excited by the game itself. That might sound harsh, but I think it says more about the audience than the design. Setting up the island Setup is refreshingly simple. Place the island board in the middle of the table, fill a bag with fruit and gorilla tokens, place the monkeys at the market, and you're ready to go in a couple of minutes. It's exactly the kind of setup parents appreciate. No sorting hundreds of components, no lengthy rule explanations, and no complicated iconography to decipher. How to play On your turn, you'll draw a token from the bag. If it's a Gorilla token, you will move or rotate the Gorilla the shown number of spaces. Then draw again. Keep drawing and acting on the token until you get a fruit token. If it's a fruit token, you place it onto a matching tree somewhere (you will have two choices) on the island before moving your monkey one to three spaces. When a tree becomes full, a monkey can land at its base and collect all the fruit from it. Collected fruit isn't safe, though. The island's resident gorilla is constantly roaming around the board and if it lands on your space, all of your unbanked fruit disappears. To protect your haul, you need to return to the central market and bank your fruit before disaster strikes. That creates the game's central dilemma. Do you grab another tree and risk losing everything, or do you play it safe and cash in what you've already earned? It's a simple question, but one younger players immediately understand. Monkey business The first few plays of Fruit Island are genuinely enjoyable. The gorilla creates tension, children quickly become invested in protecting their fruit, and there's plenty of excitement whenever someone gets caught carrying a large haul. The problem is that the game reveals most of its tricks very quickly. After several plays, turns start to feel remarkably similar. Draw a token. Add fruit. Move. Decide whether to bank or not. Repeat. There are tactical decisions lurking beneath the surface. You can influence where fruit appears, position yourself relative to the gorilla, and occasionally force opponents into awkward situations. But these decisions never develop into anything particularly deep. More often than not, success feels heavily influenced by being in the right place when a tree fills or avoiding an unfortunate gorilla movement. That's perfectly acceptable in a game aimed at younger players, but adults looking for the clever decision-making often associated with Knizia's best work may come away disappointed. Best with more players Of the player counts we tried, three players was noticeably more enjoyable than two. And I would guess four even better, but I have not tried that yet. The extra player creates more chaos, more competition for fruit, and more uncertainty around the gorilla's movement. Ironically, adding more randomness made the game more entertaining because there was simply more happening around the board. At two players, the experience felt thinner and more predictable. Even at three players, however, nobody was asking for an immediate rematch. The games were pleasant enough, but they lacked those memorable moments that make you eager to reset the board and go again. Who is this for? This is where Fruit Island succeeds. If you have younger children and want something a step above traditional children's games, there's a lot to like here. It teaches risk versus reward, introduces basic tactical thinking, and wraps everything in a colourful, approachable package. In many ways it reminded me of a HABA-style game that has been given a little extra hobby-game polish. If your children are already moving into more advanced family games, however, I suspect they'll outgrow Fruit Island fairly quickly. Likewise, I can't imagine many adult gaming groups choosing to play this unless children were involved. Pros Very easy to teach and learn Quick setup and playtime Creates genuine push-your-luck tension Younger players will enjoy the gorilla mechanic Works well as an introduction to hobby gaming Cons Becomes repetitive after a few plays Heavily influenced by luck and timing Limited strategic depth for experienced gamers Two-player game feels noticeably weaker Few truly memorable moments Final thoughts Fruit Island is a perfectly competent children's game that understands exactly what it's trying to be. The rules are simple, the tension is easy to grasp, and younger players will have fun collecting fruit while desperately trying to avoid the gorilla. The issue is that there simply isn't enough beneath the surface to keep older gamers engaged for long. After a few plays, I'd seen most of what the game had to offer, and while the children were happy to play, I was never particularly excited to get it back to the table. For families with younger children, Fruit Island is a pleasant way to spend twenty minutes. For adults hoping another Knizia classic is hiding amongst the bananas and mangoes, you may want to keep your expectations in check. Find out more info here.

Finspan: Sharks & Reefs WBG Score: 9 Player Count: 1-5 You’ll like this if you like: Wingspan, Everdell, Finspan Published by: Stonemaier Games Designed by: Michael O'Connell (II) This is a review copy. See our review policy here Finspan, but with teeth I really liked Finspan. In fact, I liked it more than a lot of people seemed to initially. While some felt it stripped too much away from Wingspan, I actually thought that was the point. It took the satisfying engine-building core of Wingspan and streamlined it into something faster, cleaner, and easier to table. Less fiddly. Less intimidating. More elegant. But even I admitted in my original review that it perhaps lacked just a little of the strategic texture and variety that made Wingspan and especially Wyrmspan so endlessly replayable. Enter Sharks & Reefs. And honestly? This expansion fixes almost every tiny criticism I had of the base game without ruining what made Finspan work in the first place. That is harder to do than it sounds. This is not one of those expansions that completely transforms the game. It does not reinvent Finspan. It does not suddenly make it a heavyweight strategy title. What it does instead is quietly deepen the experience in a way that feels so natural you almost forget it was not there originally. After a few games, the coral reef system feels less like an expansion and more like how Finspan was always supposed to play. Which is probably the highest compliment I can give it. Oh, and do you like me new board game table? Finspan: Sharks & Reefs - How to set up Setup is almost identical to the base game, which is one of the expansion’s biggest strengths. Shuffle the new fish cards into the main deck, mix the new starter fish into the starter pile, and replace the scorepad and achievement board with the new versions included in the expansion. If using the variable achievement side, shuffle in the new achievement tiles and randomly assign them to the correct weeks. Each player then takes a coral reef overlay and places it over the twilight zone section of their ocean board. This adds a reef track to each of the three dive sites. Place the coral tokens into the general supply and hand each player one of the new reference cards. That is basically it. The new board overlay. The expansion integrates into the base game incredibly smoothly. There is very little additional overhead, and I genuinely think you could teach this version to brand new players without them even realising parts of it are expansion content. Finspan: Sharks & Reefs - How to play The core game remains exactly the same. On your turn, you either play a fish card into your ocean or dive down one of the three columns on your board, activating benefits as you descend. The big addition here is coral reefs. Each time you dive, your diver will pass through the new reef overlay section in that column. When this happens, you may discard the required resource to grow your reef by placing one coral token there. The cost depends on the column. One reef requires discarding an egg, another a young fish, and another a card from your hand. At the end of the game, each coral is worth one point. Fully complete a reef and you also gain a chunky bonus depending on the column. Simple enough. But the cleverness comes from how the new fish interact with coral. Some new reef fish require a certain amount of coral already present before they can even be played. Others gain enhanced abilities if enough coral exists in that dive site when activated. Suddenly, the reef system is not just another point source. It becomes part of your wider engine-building strategy. Then there are the sharks. And yes, they are cool. Some sharks introduce powerful new abilities, including breaking schools apart into four separate young fish, consuming fish directly from your hand, or allowing fish to be played entirely for free. A few cards even create chain reactions around coral generation and consumption that can make certain columns explode in efficiency later in the game. One particularly clever addition is the new two-stage activated abilities. Some fish now provide a standard benefit, but then give an extra reward if you have enough coral in that specific reef. It creates lovely moments where you suddenly realise your previously average dive has become massively more effective because of how you built your ecosystem several turns earlier. And that is what this expansion really adds: layering. Finspan: Sharks & Reefs - Is it fun? Yes. Very. But perhaps more importantly, it makes Finspan itself more fun. That is the key thing here. The base game was already smooth and approachable, but there were moments where strategies could feel a little too straightforward. Sharks & Reefs gives you more to think about without dragging the game down into complexity overload. The reef system adds tension to your decisions constantly. Do you spend your eggs growing coral now, or save them for fish costs later? Do you break apart a school for short-term flexibility? Do you prioritise filling an entire reef for the bonus points, or simply use coral to unlock stronger fish abilities? Do you commit heavily into one dive site, or spread your coral growth across all three? These are not earth-shattering strategic dilemmas. This is still Finspan. But they are exactly the sort of small extra decisions the game needed. The expansion also improves the rhythm of diving. In the base game, I often found myself repeatedly favouring one or two columns depending on my engine. Now, because each reef has different costs and scoring potential, I naturally found myself diversifying more often. I want to complete my collections of all the coral. The bonus is too enticing! This expansion subtly nudges you toward broader play without forcing it. I also love how optional much of the reef strategy feels. You can absolutely lean hard into coral synergy if the cards appear, building a powerful reef-focused engine. But if the cards do not come, or another strategy opens up first, you can largely ignore coral and still compete. That flexibility matters. The new fish deck is fantastic too. The added variety massively helps replayability, especially at higher player counts where the original deck could occasionally cycle faster than ideal. And the shark cards genuinely feel thematic. There is something wonderfully satisfying about smashing apart a school into four scattered young fish and immediately turning them into new opportunities elsewhere in your ocean. These are the upgraded egg tokens available from Stonmaier Games webstore Finspan: Sharks & Reefs - The theme and presentation Stonemaier continues to absolutely nail the presentation side of these games. The artwork is stunning once again. The coral reefs themselves make your ocean board look far more vibrant and alive, and the sharks add a little extra menace visually that Finspan perhaps lacked previously. More importantly though, this expansion carries a stronger ecological message than the base game did. Designer Michael O’Connell has spoken openly about wanting Sharks & Reefs to highlight the fragility of marine ecosystems and the devastating decline of coral reefs globally. That passion genuinely comes through. Building and protecting your reefs does not just feel mechanically rewarding, it feels meaningful within the context of the theme. No, a board game is not going to save the oceans. But games absolutely can make people care about subjects they otherwise might not engage with. And I suspect more than a few players will finish a game of Sharks & Reefs and suddenly find themselves Googling coral bleaching afterwards. That matters. Pros • Adds meaningful strategic depth without complicating the core game • Coral reefs integrate beautifully into the existing systems • The new fish abilities and increased card variety massively improve replayability Cons • Will not convert people who fundamentally disliked base Finspan • Coral requirements can briefly confuse newer players early on Final thoughts Sharks & Reefs is exactly what a good expansion should be. It does not bloat the game. It does not “fix” Finspan by changing its identity. Instead, it understands what Finspan already was and carefully builds upon it in ways that feel natural, elegant, and surprisingly impactful. For me, this moves Finspan from “really good streamlined Wingspan variant” into something that genuinely stands alongside the other Span games confidently on its own terms. Wyrmspan probably still offers the deepest strategy of the trilogy. Wingspan still has the broadest appeal and legacy. But Finspan with Sharks & Reefs may honestly now be the one I most want to actually play. And perhaps the best compliment of all? I do not really want to play Finspan without this expansion anymore. Turns out the ocean was just missing a few sharks. And let's be honest, most ecosystems improve slightly when you add sharks.

Boitas WBG Score: 8 Player Count:2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Trick-Taking, with a twist - obz! Published by: Kheo Games Designed by: Sidhant Chand This is a free review copy. See our review policy here. Trading, tricking, and timing your moment At first glance, Boitas looks like a straightforward trick-taking game with a fresh theme. A few hands in, though, it becomes clear this is doing something a little different. Less about following suit and more about picking your battles, reading the table, and knowing exactly when to win… and when not to. It’s a clever twist on the genre, wrapped in a theme that actually carries some weight. Playing as ancient sea traders navigating ports and bringing back goods sounds light, but it feeds nicely into what the game is asking you to do. You are not just chasing tricks, you are chasing the right ones. In one game, I spent an entire round deliberately losing, picking up cowries, the currency in the game, while others fought over mediocre goods. Then the next round, with a stronger hand and better timing, everything clicked. That shift from passive to aggressive play is where Boitas really starts to shine. But getting it right is hard. Satisfyingly hard. Let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How to set up Set up takes a little longer than you might expect for a card game, but it is all purposeful. Shuffle the main deck and deal five cards to each player. Lay out three ports, each with a face-up port card showing the trump suit for that trick, and place two import goods at each port. Place the remaining goods tokens to the side. Set up the market with four face-up cards, create a supply of cowries, and give each player a couple to start. Place the four Elephant cards into the main area by the market and you are now ready to play. How to play The game runs over four rounds, each built around three trick-taking phases followed by a market phase. In each trick, players can play any card. There is no obligation to follow suit, which immediately changes the feel. You are aiming to place one of the top two cards to win goods at each of the three ports each round. The highest cards gets first pick of the two goods at the port. Second highest takes the other, while everyone else picks up cowries as compensation. The twist comes from the port system. Each trick has a trump suit, dealt at random during set up, and a key number based on which number the port it, making certain cards incredibly powerful in the right moment. Elephant cards sit above most of the hierarchy, but even they have counters, which keeps things dynamic. Don't worry, I will explain! After three tricks, the market phase kicks in. Players use cowries to buy better cards from the market or powerful elephant cards, improving their chances in future rounds. The elephant cards are expensive, costing three cowries, but potentially very powerful. Whereas normal cards from the market cost one cowrie each. Then it all resets and builds again. So, how do you determine the highest card for each trick? Well, first, it's simply the highest card played. Then, you need to see if anyone played a trump card, based on the colour of the port for that round. If they have, that will then beat any other card played. Again, the highest trump card played wins if there is more than one. But wait, you can beat any trump card even if you don't have the highest one, if you play the trump card that matches the number of the port. For example, if this is the first trick of the round, and you are playing at port number one, then the trump card matching that port's colour with the number one would now beat any other trump card played even if the other trump cards have higher numbers. Make sense? Well, we are not done there. There is one card that can beat the trump card matching the port, and that's the Elephant card. There are only four in the game, no one starts with them, and you must buy them. So you know when they are in people's hands and could come out. But of course, you don't know when people may play them. But there is still a card that could beat that! I know. But this is the final one, I promise. The Elephant, when played, can be beaten by the four of any trump. The five or higher of any trump would beat a four of any trump when played. But not when the Elephant is in play, when the four jumps up to the top card. So this is the order, you can see in this handy card provided that now hopefully makes sense to you. By the end of the game, points come from a mix of collected goods, cards left in hand, and leftover currency, forcing you to think beyond just winning tricks. And here lies the final twist. From your collected goods, you can either score the highest value of each good type you collected, but just the highest value one. None of the others. Or, you can choose to score from all goods of two types, discarding any other type of good you may have collected. It's your choice! What it feels like to play This is not a traditional trick-taker, and that is both its strength and its biggest hurdle. It feels closer to a mix of trick-taking and tactical bidding. You are constantly evaluating whether a trick is worth winning, whether second place is enough, or whether it is better to lose and invest in future rounds. That push and pull is where the tension lives. But of course, with the interesting way the highest card is selected, you will not always be sure how likely your chosen card is to achieve what you want it to. You could play a valuable and hard-to-get Elephant card in an effort to win a trick where you really want one of the goods there, only for another player to bring out the four trump after you. Sure, you could now come second and still get a good over a cowrie, but with the way the goods score, this good may not score you anything at the end of the game, and you spent an Elephant card to get it. The open information about upcoming ports adds another layer. You are not just reacting, you are planning ahead, shaping your hand through the market, and trying to line up the perfect moment to strike. You know what goods are up for grabs each round, and you will know if any Elephant cards are in play. And you will begin to understand which goods which players want based on the previous goods they have collected. This is all open information, but does make a rather simple trick-taker have a fair few layers! There is a nice rhythm once it clicks. Early rounds are about positioning, later rounds are about evaluation and execution. But it does take a game or two to get there, and some players may bounce off the initial complexity or the feeling that card draw or a misunderstanding of what other players may be going for can swing things. Pros Clever twist on trick-taking with meaningful decisions every turn Strong balance between winning now and building for later Market phase adds depth and control over your hand Cons Slightly more rules overhead than expected for a card game Some reliance on card draw can affect consistency in early games Final thoughts Boitas is a smart, slightly unconventional take on trick-taking that rewards timing, planning, and a willingness to play the long game. It will not replace your classic trick-takers, but it is not trying to. Instead, it carves out its own space somewhere between trick-taking and tactical hand management and set collection. For the right group, especially those who enjoy thinking a step ahead and adapting on the fly, there is a lot to dig into here. It is quick, interactive, and just different enough to feel fresh without losing its core identity. Just remember, sometimes the best move is not to win the trick… it is to let someone else take it, potentially overspending with a powerful card, and then profiting yourself later.

Off With Their Heads WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Welcome To Published by: Druid City Games Designed by: J.B. Howell, Michael Mihealsick This is a review copy. See our review policy here By Steve Godfrey Welcome to another edition of ‘a game title gets a song stuck in Steve's head.’ This time it’s Don’t Lose Your Head from the musical Six. Which I feel is a nice juxtaposition to the games title and is definitely something you don’t want to say to the Queen of Hearts. How not to lose your head Set up by giving each player a sheet and a pencil. Shuffle the deck of cards and give each player nine cards each. Then place the wonderland board on the table and put the Red Queen on the Hearts Space (she has a thing and she’s sticking to it) The game plays over three rounds and each round consists of seven bouts. At the start of each bout every player chooses a card from their hand to place down on the table. Cards are then revealed and put in order from highest to lowest based on the number on the card and suit using the wonderland board. In the very first bout of the game it will go to hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades. The order will tell you which of the three areas of your sheet would be marking off. The highest card will mark in the top “Meadow” section the lowest in the bottom “Keep” section and the middle cards in the middle “Woods” section. You will play for three rounds each consisting of seven bouts. At the end of a round you will have two cards left in hand that will be kept to one side. Each area has its own way of marking and scoring and you’ll be writing the number of the card you picked and using the colour of the suit or that card. Aces count as either 1 or 11 and the court cards count as 10 when marking. The Meadow has five mushrooms each with a number of spaces on them and a points value. You mark your number in the left most space in one of those mushrooms of the same colour as the suit you played. Filling those up will score the indicated points at the end of the game. You must mark from left to right in a mushroom and you can’t use the same number twice in one. The Woods has a number of different trees and these will circle points values. Filling in all the trees surrounding a value will score those points at the end of the game. If you manage to fill all the trees in this section then you'll score an additional 30 points at the end of the game. Also if you follow the Jabberwock rule and manage to not put two of the same numbers adjacent to each other then you can double your score!. The Keep will have you filling numbers from either the red or black entrance. Any number can go in these spaces but the numbers you fill out in the spaces with the wreaths will score you that many points at the end. You also get a bonus for reaching the middle space. To help you out you’ll also be able to gain teacups which you can use to either mark in a different zone or change the colour of your card. There are also eat me biscuits which, when you mark those spaces then let you immediately mark the same card in a different zone. There’s a wonderlandian bonus which is a set collection style bonus. In each section you can mark off a wonderlandian for completing little mini objectives. After three rounds the game will end and you score up your points from each section and your wonderlandian bonus. But it is not quite over yet. The six cards that you kept to the side after each round still have a job to do. You take these cards and from them you’ll need to make the best five card poker hand. The better the hand, the more points it’s worth. Then compare hands with the other player and the player with the best gets some additional points. Don’t lose your head Off with their heads is a mix of trick taking, poker and roll and write. Which, when you lay it all out like that sounds like a fever dream of board game mechanics, until you remember that it’s set in wonderland and then it all weirdly makes sense. What it actually is a fun and innovative use of what is essentially a standard deck of cards. What’s great about it is that despite the mish mash of mechanisms it all flows really nicely together and yeah, makes sense. You can tell that it’s not just the designers throwing these mechanisms together because they're trying to be edgy or do something wacky to get attention in a genre that's so flooded that you'll need to ride an upside down Toucan to get through it. It’s actually been thought through to make sure that everything works and nothing is wasted. The perfect example of that is the cards. Rather than having 9 cards just to give you more decision space in what you play, those extra cards are actually put to use at the end of the game and are also a big part of why choosing which cards to use during the round isn't as easy as it seems. Setting those two cards aside for an endgame mini game is a lovely little touch and might even throw a few dilemmas into the mix. It’s all too easy to pick two really good cards at the start of each round and set them aside and stating to yourself that you're not even gonna look at them. That is until you might have to because one of the cards you set aside is gonna be the perfect one to use in that round. Do you risk using it now and getting it back later or keep hold of it and hope that later rounds benefit you more. I also love that it makes future rounds less predictable. Going into the last round of a four player game a total of 16 cards have already been set aside so you have no idea if it’s even possible to get the cards you need to complete your end game poker hand. Wasteland? I think you mean Wonderland! Each bout utilises that clever spin on trick taking where your main focus won’t necessarily be on winning the trick. In fact, losing the odd few may actually be exactly what you want. Again, the scope of the decisions this gives you can be pretty vast, well vast for a game like this anyway. You need to consider what area of the board you want to make your mark on (literally) and if you've got a card that can get you in that position. But you also need to factor in the number and the colour you want to write as well. Then there's the current suit order and consideration of what cards your opponents have already played that round. I find that last bit a bit too much for my brain to keep track of but if you can then you have yourself another layer of gameplay my friend. Now, to quote the Rolling Stones ‘you can't always get what you want’ and I suppose this plays into the nature of a lot of trick takers. Playing your highest or lowest card, even if it's the highest or lowest suit won't guarantee you the placement you want. Heck, I've even played hands where I’ve wanted to keep to the middle and ended up playing the highest card! What I’m trying to say is, don't hinge too many of your plans on playing every card exactly where you want and give yourself enough space to be flexible because I'm not gonna lie, it doesn't always feel great when you're constantly being outdone and have to play in the same area when you really want to diversify. That can sometimes make the game feel more reactionary rather than a result of your clever card play. ‘I’m sorry, not sorry ‘bout what I said’ Thankfully the game comes with what every good tea party should. Tea and biscuits of mitigation. As with most games of this genre the designers have seen the potential trap and made ways to get you out of such sticky and repetitive situations. Rather than bad luck keeping you stuck in middle town, there are a couple of tricks to let you upstairs to bask in the sun or downstairs to soak up the gloom, whatever floats your boat. They've even gone so far as to give you a teapot lifeline gratis at the start of the game. These little nuggets or rather, biscuits are just enough to get you out of any trouble you might find yourself stuck in, but make sure to use them wisely. Better still they give you the one thing that a lot of X and write games need, combos. The biscuits give you the ability to make the same mark again in a different area and that's key if you want to fill up more or your areas. Like most (good) biscuits they’ve made them tempting to go for. There’s a few that are easily gettable within your first bout, drawing you in like an unattended chocolate hob nob mmmmmmm…... I like the fact that some of these, like some teacups, are within easy reach. It just means that if you do feel like you're stuck in one section you have the opportunity to pivot away from that quickly. Much like a lot of the game, the decision of whether to go for these or not isn’t always easy. In some cases going for these may draw you away from other higher scoring opportunities….but they may just be worth it in the long run. Let's talk about the last minigame, the wonderlandians. These are another scoring condition but could also go towards being a distraction, but not in a bad way. Some of them are things that you could easily stumble upon during the natural course of playing the game. Like filling a mushroom in the meadow where some you’ll need to make a conscious effort to try and get. The Keep for example needs you to divert from the main path to collect the rabbit and the humpthy dumpty. They all add to the cavalcade of choices you get to make. ‘I’m just tryna have some fun’ Just when you think the “verb & write” genre may have been running out of new ideas, Off With Their Heads comes along and throws in a new and unexpected twist. Now I didn’t really get caught up in the whirlwind of the ‘verb & write’ explosion of recent times but I certainly had a few favourites and I’m happy to say this one is up there with those. Right now I'm off to play a nice relaxing game of crochet with a flamingo and a hedgehog. What? No I’m not using them as the club and the ball! That’d be ridiculous!…they’re my opponents!

Madcala WBG Score: 9 Player Count: 2 You’ll like this if you like: Mancala, Wonderlands War, Onitama Published by: Druid City Games Designed by: Aaron Hein, Manny Trembley This is a review copy. See our review policy here By Steve Godfrey Madcala is a game based around a chaotic tea party in which people constantly move seats, rudeness is at its peak and garbled conversations are had over copious amounts of tea. I can’t believe they’ve finally made a game about our family gatherings! How to cause chaos at a tea party. Set up by laying out the playmat. Yep, you read that right, you get a playmat with this game. Give each player a colour of shard, either pink or black and have them place two shards of their colour on each plate on their side of the mat and place their larger doubler shard on their home plate. Each player then takes a character and places their card and plus ones on their side. Then take any tokens that their characters or plus ones use. Players take a hit point disc and set it to the max. Then flip the coin and have someone call it to pick the first player. On your turn you take a mandatory action by moving shards on your side of the mat. Pick one plate on your side of the mat and take all the shards from that plate and going clockwise add one shard to every plate, skipping your opponents home plate, until you have one shard left to place. When you put that last shard down you then take the action of that plate, regardless of which side of the mat it's on. The actions are, Hit your opponent for two damage, add two shards from your supply to your home plate, heal one damage and hit for two, draw a commoner card and finally, heal a damage or refresh a plus one card. You can, on your turn, play commoner cards as a free action. These will have a number of different actions on them, including giving you more shards, letting you rearrange them or even just doing damage. You also have the option of using your characters ‘plus one cards’ Each character has three plus one cards that have their own special abilities. Each one has a shard cost which you pay by taking your shards from the mat. Perform the cards ability and flipping the card over. It can only be played again once you've taken the refresh action on the mat. Some plus one cards are not refreshable. Instead these have a limited number of uses and once they’re used then the card is done. The game will end when one player has no hit points left and their opponent wins. “Begin at the beginning….. Did you ever watch Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (not, not the rubbish ones, the animated one) and think how much fun and chaotic it'd be to be at that tea party? But then also realise how frustrating it’d be because you'd never actually get a cup of tea. Well that's pretty much what a game of Madcala can be. It’s fun, chaotic and I never get a cup of tea…but I cant really blame that last thing on the game. Madcala is based unsurprisingly off of the game Mancala. Which I'll be honest, I just thought it was the name of a mechanism and didn’t realise it was the name of the actual game! In my defence it’s only been around a few thousand years so I’ve not really had time to catch up with it. Madcala is one of those games where you can almost see the escalation of the design process. You can see where the designers went from “ok, wouldn’t it be cool if we took Mancala and added a battle mechanic to it” then there was a decision to add the commoner cards then someone suggested the characters and the asymmetry. What I'm saying is that it’s a game with layers. Now normally this would include some kind of onion reference but since it’s a tea party I’m gonna go with a layer cake (feel free to imagine your preferred flavours.) Each layer adds another, well, layer of strategy to the game. Like any good strategy game it encourages you to think about the bigger picture rather than just your current turn. In fact, paying attention to what your opponent can do could be even more key because you could be literally giving them the tools to do either exactly what they want or something better. I can't tell you how many times I’ve moved shards round to my opponents side of the board only to hear them say “that’s actually helped me!” Yeah, I’m not great at this game. Sacrifice is the name of the game here and you’ll be sacrificing your shards a lot. It feels almost wrong voluntarily handing your pieces over to your opponents side and potentially giving them the opportunity to do negative actions against you. But I love that this could equally be a way to stop them doing those actions against you. Just adding one shard to one of their plates could be the thing that foils their plans. Where this exchange hurts the most though is when you hand over your doubler. It's the chess equivalent of lending your opponent your Queen for a few turns, being offended when they attack you with it and then feeling reluctant to take back the treacherous so and so. That is of course WHEN they decide to give it back. Because let's be honest, there's nothing like holding your opponent's most powerful piece hostage. Trust me, there's no amount of Liam Neeson style threats that's gonna get that back any quicker. Especially not when your opponent hasn’t seen Taken and has no idea what you're talking about. On the flip side of course you get the satisfaction of hoarding and using your opponents shards so it does balance out. “It’s always tea time” Each character has a mix of fun abilities each with their own unique style of play which fits their character. The Cheshire Cat for example has a madness die in place of their doubler which dictates the action of the space it lands on. The Mad Hatter has a one time ability to completely reset the board to factory settings and the Queen of Hearts is all about using commoners to manipulate her action token. Don’t worry though, I’m sure that no commoners were hurt in the playing of this game. The characters are where the true theme of the game comes to life. There’s certainly a difficulty curve to them and I’d definitely recommend someone taking Alice as the more beginner friendly. It’s not necessarily difficult in how their abilities work, but more in how to use them to the best effectiveness. By no means is that a negative though, in fact it’s a massive positive in terms of replayability. Now you can spend some games experimenting with a character and with games only lasting around half an hour tops it’s not unheard of to play at least a couple of games back to back. It gives you so much chance to really explore the characters. With so many different and seemingly crazy abilities, balancing is always going to be a concern. I can only speak to that a little bit. I’ve played a lot of the characters but I've not played a lot of the many possible combinations but I concede that there may be a combination out there that aren't exactly equally matched. I suppose that given the cast of characters you could argue that any unbalancing could even be thematic? Regardless, it's never really bothered us. Games tend to last less than half an hour so if we do ever find a dud combination it's not too much trouble to rack it up and play again without ruining our enjoyment. A game like this tends to reward repeat plays and gaining experience. So what may feel unbalanced on the first run may start to even out with more experimenting. The commoner cards are like the last minute seasoning on your steak….although you should really be seasoning your steak before you cook it. I suppose thematically I should have found a way to shuck some oysters into this review rather than a steak. Maybe I’ll find a way to throw a pearl or two in later on. Back to the cards! They give you just enough to add that touch extra to your turns. A sprinkling of extra damage here, a dusting of shard movement there and a drizzling of opponent manipulations (I really shouldn’t write these things on an empty stomach) and they can be enough to give your turn that little extra punch, quite literally. Why IS a raven like a writing desk? We’ve found that games of Madcala don’t tend to outstay their welcome and I think that's because the game is designed to avoid games from dragging on simply because damage will generally be whittled down faster than you can heal it back. On the subject of health, this is a weird little “fix” we’ve put in place for something that probably 95% of people won't even care about. We always play with our health dials face down. It seems almost silly, but for us it really ups the tension in our games since neither of us know how close the other player is to zero health. If we have them face up you can kinda see if you’re gonna win a turn or two beforehand and it makes it a bit anticlimactic in our opinion. Not a knock on the game but a little house rule that we found makes it more fun. We’ve gotta talk about Manny Tremblays art right? This is my first foray into Druid City Games, Wonderful Wonderland World and even though I've seen the art for these games from afar, it's not until you get it close up that you see just how truly great it is. Forget putting this on my wall, I’d consider getting a piece of this as a tattoo. Whether or not you consider the theme and mechanisms as a good match the art fully brings you into the world. The only issue is that you may have to nudge your opponent for their turn because they're too busy staring at the art. ….”and go on until you come to the end”… Madcala became an instant hit for me and my daughter. The clever abstract play, the fun player powers and the brilliant thematic touches has made this one of our favourite two player games. Now I just need to figure out a way to win a game or two! Right I’m off to carry on chasing this white rabbit. So far it’s quite content to just hop around the garden. At this rate I’ll never get to wonderland. I’m beginning to think that this is just a normal rabbit. ….”then stop”.

Pride Of Ninja WBG Score: 8 Player Count: 3-5 You’ll like this if you like: Deck-building Published by: Ninja Star Games Designed by: Muneyuki Yokouchi (横内宗幸) This is a free review copy. See our review policy here Silent moves, loud consequences There’s something immediately appealing about Pride of Ninja. Not just the theme, but the promise of outthinking your opponents with hidden information, clever drafting, and just a touch of chaos. After a few plays, what stands out most is how deceptively simple it feels at first… and how quickly that illusion disappears. This is not just a light drafting filler. It is a tight, tactical knife fight in a very small box. One early game summed it up perfectly. I stacked what I thought was a flawless ninja engine, feeling very pleased with myself… only to reveal everything and realise I had the most ninjas without hitting the safe threshold. Instantly slain. Back to zero. Everyone else quietly scooped up points while I sat there wondering where it all went wrong. That moment right there is Pride of Ninja in a nutshell. Let's get it to the table and see how it plays. How to set up Choose either the blue deck or the red deck, depending on how wild you want the experience to be. The blue deck is cleaner and more controlled, while the red deck introduces more risk and player interaction. Remove specific cards based on the number of players to tighten the experience, then shuffle your chosen deck and deal seven cards to each player. Six in a five player game which is then topped up to seven with one of the special black zero cards which is immediately placed face down in front of each player so they have six in their hands. Each player takes a temporary point tracker and tokens in their chosen colour, and sets their victory points to zero. Place the slain tokens within reach, and you are ready to begin. How to play Each round, players draft one card at a time, selecting a card and passing the rest to the player next to them until all cards have been chosen. As you draft, you build a tableau of four cards in the front row and three in the back row. One will already be in your back row in a six-player game. The front row is where cards are placed face up, showing your intentions, while the back row is hidden, keeping your plans secret. Each time you choose a card, place it face down in front of you. Then, when all players have chosen, on the count of three, either reveal your chosen card and slide it to the front row, or keep it hidden and place it into the back. Once all cards are placed, the hidden cards are revealed and everything resolves in initiative order. Cards grant temporary points, manipulate other players, or potentially get you slain. If you are slain, your temporary points reset to zero for that round, which can be a brutal setback. At the end of the round, any remaining temporary points convert into victory points. Track this on the main score board. The game continues over multiple rounds until someone reaches the target score of 20 points, or 15 in a five player game. If no one reaches that score, shuffle up and deal them out again. What it feels like to play Every decision sits in that uncomfortable space between logic and instinct. You are watching what others draft, trying to remember what is still in circulation, and guessing what might be hiding in those face down rows. Do you play conservatively, or push your luck for a bigger payoff? The reveal phase is the highlight every time. Cards flip, plans collide, and someone at the table almost always groans as their strategy unravels. In one game, a perfectly timed Shogun turned a disaster round into a huge swing, simply because enough players had been slain at the right moment. It felt clever, lucky, and slightly unfair all at once. Over time, the game shifts. You stop just playing the cards and start playing the people. You learn who pushes too far, who plays safe, and who likes to bluff. That evolving meta is what gives Pride of Ninja its staying power. Pros Tight, interactive drafting with meaningful decisions every turn Strong player interaction with bluffing and prediction at its core Two distinct decks that genuinely change how the game feels Cons Getting slain can feel harsh, especially for newer players Some light memory and card tracking can give experienced players an edge Visual clarity and readability may be an issue at a distance before you get used to the cards Final thoughts Pride of Ninja is a clever little game that punches well above its weight. It looks simple, plays quickly, but delivers a surprising amount of tension, interaction, and table talk. It will not be for everyone, especially those who dislike swingy outcomes or direct interaction, but for the right group it creates exactly the kind of memorable moments you want from a small box game. Just do not get too comfortable. In this game, confidence is often the first step to getting completely cut down.

This is a preview copy sent to us for our early opinions. No money exchanged hands. Some art, rules or components will change in the final game. Find out more here . More than a book. A world waiting to be played Some books tell you about a world. Others quietly invite you to build one. Zoologist’s Primer: Birds  sits firmly in the second camp, even from the limited preview I’ve had in front of me. This is not a traditional RPG book. It is not a rulebook, and it is not trying to be. Instead, it feels like something far more interesting. A beautifully presented field guide that blends real-world ornithology with folklore, magic, and just enough narrative spark to get your imagination doing most of the heavy lifting. Even in a small sample, you can see exactly what it is trying to be, and more importantly, who it is for. One page you are reading about albatross migration patterns and their incredible ability to glide for months. The next, you are being told they carry the souls of drowned sailors and will curse you if harmed. That balance, between fact and fantasy, is where this book really finds its voice. You dip into it rather than read it cover to cover. Each entry stands on its own, so you can jump straight to a bird that catches your interest. Whether you are preparing a DnD session, writing a story, or just browsing, it works best as a reference you return to again and again rather than something you power through. Each bird follows a consistent and thoughtful structure. You get a grounding in real biology first, with clear descriptions, habitat, behaviour, and lifecycle. Then, just as you settle into that scientific rhythm, the book pivots into folklore and magical properties. That is where the real value lies for game masters and world-builders. Each creature becomes more than a bird. It becomes a narrative device tied to magic, folk lore, and real-world ornithology. A blue jay is not just noisy and territorial, it becomes a trickster figure tied to deals, deception, and confidence. Even from this preview copy you can immediately see how easily these entries translate into encounters, plot hooks, or character inspiration. Zoologist's Primer feels like something that could exist inside the world it is describing. The tone walks a clever line between academic and playful, never taking itself too seriously, but never losing credibility either. There is a genuine sense of curiosity running through it, like it was written by people who simply enjoy these subjects and want you to enjoy them too. Even in a limited preview, the presentation is striking. Clean layout, strong visual identity, and a clear effort to make this feel like a premium, tactile object rather than just another PDF or reference guide. I would love to see the final printed version. There is also a quiet confidence in how little it explains. It does not spoon-feed mechanics or tell you exactly how to use everything. Instead, it trusts you to take what is there and run with it. That makes it far more flexible, but also means it will appeal more to creative players than those looking for rigid systems. Pros Unique blend of real-world science, folklore, and fantasy Strong structure makes each entry easy to use and adapt Inspires ideas immediately for RPGs, writing, and world-building Cons I will wait to see the final version, but I like what I see! Final thoughts Based on this preview, Zoologist’s Primer: Birds  feels like a tool that I as a DM would very much like to use. It gives you just enough to spark ideas, then steps back and lets you build something of your own. It will not be for everyone. If you want more traditional monsters then this is not it. But if you like crafting encounters with more real-world animals, or adding flavour to your games in a way that feels grounded yet magical, there is a lot to be excited about here. Even in a small sample, it is clear this is something made with care, curiosity, and a genuine love for the subject. And if the rest of the book delivers on what this preview promises, this could end up being the kind of resource that quietly lives on your shelf… and somehow finds its way into every game you run. You can find out more about this here .

This is a preview copy sent to us for our early opinions. No money exchanged hands. Some art, rules or components will change in the final game. Find out more here . We recently previewed The Secret Valley , a lovely compact spatial card game that is coming to Kickstarter soon. Well, with that release, another game from the same publisher and designer is being crowdfunded at the same time. The Lost Island. The Lost Island is a classic looking and playing roll and write that first published in 2021, but is now seeing a more widespread release. The game plays incredibly simply and fast. Give each player a playing sheet and a pencil. All players must decide to play on either side A or B, but they must all use the same side. Next, place the three dice down in the middle. Now, choose four scoring cards to use. Then have each player decide how they want to draw each of the five different territories in the game by sketching their chosen shape in the space for each on the right of the player sheet. Set up is done! The first player now rolls all three dice. They then choose one of the five territories that all players will now draw. They cross off their chosen territory on their game sheet. Only they do this. They then choose one of the rolled dice. This determines how many of the chosen territory they draw on their player sheet. They can draw the first territory anywhere on their sheet, but any additional ones drawn that round must touch another drawn that round. The other players then do the same, but with one of the two remaining dice, drawing that many of the same territory. Each player can choose any of the remaining two dice, even the same one if they wish. The lead player then moves round one space, and the three dice are rolled again. Each territory can only be selected by the lead player once in a four player game. So four times in total across the game, as each player can choose it once. In a three player game there are two uses each. And in a two player game there are three uses each. You will be drawing the territories based on the cards you chose during set up, and their specific scoring conditions. Points are awarded based on each territory’s alignment and placement with others, the size of groupings, or connections on the map, etc. All the standard scoring you would expect from this sort of spatial puzzle. But the combination of the four cards chosen, from a possible 12, means there is a huge amount of variation in how the game can play out, and the tactics you need to employ. The game continues until either the active player runs out of uses of any available territory, or one or more players cannot draw the number of territories selected due to their player sheet running out of space. Players then score for each of the four chosen scoring cards, and the highest score wins. On the player sheets, there are a few icons that affect the game. On side A, there are six spaces that let you mark off a plus or minus one modifier. When you draw any territory in one of these, mark off one of the spaces shown on the bottom left. Then, on any later turn, you can reduce or increase any die by one or more by crossing off the appropriate number of spaces. There is also one question mark in the centre space. When you draw any territory in this space, you immediately score your current lowest scoring card from the four in play. This is a little laborious, as you need to work out all four scores and then take the lowest. But it is a good opportunity to see where you stand and whether you need to adjust your strategy. The point at which you choose to cover this central space is up to you, but the later you leave it, the higher you are likely to score. On side B, there are two of these question marks. There are also eight exclamation marks. Whenever you are about to draw in one of these spaces, you can ignore the chosen territory from the lead player that turn, and instead draw any territory you wish. The solo game works in the same way, with one small change. You roll three dice and pick one to draw that many of any chosen territory. You can draw each territory three times. Then, roll the remaining two dice. You must use one die to determine the territory type. You will notice each territory on your player sheet is marked one to six. The second die then determines how many of that territory you draw. You can choose which die does which, unless of course you roll a double. The Lost Island is one of those roll and writes that knows exactly what it is doing. It's quick to teach, quick to play, and gets straight into the puzzle without any faff. What stands out immediately is how clean the turn structure feels. Roll, choose, draw, move on. There is almost no downtime, even at higher player counts, and that keeps everyone engaged from start to finish. It is not trying to reinvent the genre, but it absolutely delivers a smooth, satisfying loop. What really carries it, though, is the scoring card variety. Across a couple of plays, the feel of the game shifted noticeably depending on what cards came out. One game had me tightly clustering shapes to chase adjacency bonuses, while another had me spreading out more cautiously to avoid blocking future placements. That moment halfway through, where you realise one scoring card is lagging badly and you need to pivot, is where the game finds its tension. Who it is for and how it scales This is very much a “bring it anywhere” kind of game. It works across two to four players without much drop-off, and the shared turn structure means everyone stays involved. It is particularly good for groups that enjoy spatial puzzles but do not want heavy rules overhead. The solo mode also deserves a nod. It keeps the core decision space intact with a clever dice tweak, rather than feeling like an afterthought. That said, if you are looking for something deeply strategic or wildly innovative, this may feel a bit familiar. It sits comfortably alongside other roll and writes rather than trying to outdo them. The icon spaces and modifiers add some spice, but the core experience is still rooted in well-trodden territory. Where it shines and where it stumbles Pros: Fast, clean gameplay with almost no downtime Strong variability from scoring card combinations Accessible rules with a satisfying spatial puzzle Cons: Does not push the genre in new directions Scoring triggers can briefly interrupt the flow Can feel a bit samey across repeated plays without card variety Final thoughts The Lost Island is a confident, well-executed roll and write that does all the fundamentals right. It is easy to get to the table, easy to teach, and offers just enough tactical flexibility to keep things interesting across multiple plays. It will not replace your heavier puzzlers, but it absolutely earns its place as a reliable, portable option that you can pull out with almost any group. Sometimes you do not need to discover new lands, just enjoy mapping the ones you already know. Deep huh!?