Puzzle Board Games Archives — Meeple Mountain https://www.meeplemountain.com/category/puzzle-board-games/ Board Game Reviews, Videos, Humor, and more Fri, 03 Jan 2025 04:29:38 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.meeplemountain.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-logo_full-color_512x512-100x100.png Puzzle Board Games Archives — Meeple Mountain https://www.meeplemountain.com/category/puzzle-board-games/ 32 32 Festival Game Review https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/festival/ https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/festival/#respond Fri, 03 Jan 2025 14:00:17 +0000 https://www.meeplemountain.com/?post_type=reviews&p=310599

[caption id="attachment_310585" align="aligncenter" width="600"]Festival, the Box Festival, the Box[/caption]

Festival is a game for 2-4 players where you’re placing firework tiles, each in one of four different colors on your player board, to have them match the patterns shown on objective scoring cards. Have the highest score at the end and you’re the winner!  Festival is a quick, colorful game, but is it worth playing? Read on to find out.

Lighting the Fuse

You’ll start by giving each player a player board in one of the game’s four colors. Each side represents a famous world city, so choose your favorite and place it in front of you.

[caption id="attachment_310581" align="aligncenter" width="600"]The Yellow Australia side and Red Paris side The Yellow Australia side and Red Paris side[/caption]

Then take the 7-point scoring card for your color and choose one of the two patterns, one on each side, that you think you’ll be able to replicate most easily. Place it to the left of your board. 

[caption id="attachment_310582" align="aligncenter" width="600"]The Blue (London) board, with the Blue 7 point card and two others The Blue (London) board, with the Blue 7 point card and two objective cards[/caption]

Each player then…

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Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood Game Review https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/oathsworn-into-the-deepwood/ https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/oathsworn-into-the-deepwood/#respond Tue, 31 Dec 2024 14:00:02 +0000 https://www.meeplemountain.com/?post_type=reviews&p=310503

Publisher Shadowborne Games burst onto the scene in 2022 with their debut hit Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood. The sheer enormity of Oathsworn is impressive to say the least, from both a first-time publisher and first-time head designer Jamie Jolly, although the staff is composed of some industry veterans in both the board game and screenwriting industries,  Behemoth in both size and scope, this game comes complete with optional high-quality miniatures, terrain, and even an ‘armory’ of various weapons that can be physically equipped to the character miniatures via a removable push-fit system. Want your hero to swashbuckle two swords at a time? Just pop out their current arms and replace them with the new blades you picked up last session. The armory system and larger-than-life terrain, while completely superfluous, adds to the experience in a fun way. It’s a “they didn’t have to do that” kind of sentiment that you’ll end up seeing throughout the entirety of the game.

[caption id="attachment_310504" align="alignnone" width="1500"] To flail or chop? Decisions, decisions.[/caption]

Into the Woods

Oathsworn is a large campaign game that effectively boils down to two phases: exploration and combat. In a given ‘chapter,’ the formula is the same. Players start with a narrative-driven exploration, making choices throughout, until finally reaching a…

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Flower Fields Game Review https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/flower-fields/ https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/flower-fields/#respond Thu, 26 Dec 2024 13:59:04 +0000 https://www.meeplemountain.com/?post_type=reviews&p=310382

Each time I have the chance to pick up a game from our partners at Horrible Guild, I get excited. The Italian publisher has given us countless hits over the years: Railroad Ink, Evergreen, Quicksand, The Great Split, and Dungeon Fighter, to name just a few. It’s a testament to their team that in a world where I gift most of my review copies to other players in my network, I still have three of the games listed above in my collection.

During our visit with the Horrible Guild team at SPIEL 2024, I picked up a review copy of Flower Fields, designed by Luca Bellini and Luca Borsa. Flower Fields is a simple tile-laying game that I played three times over three days—once each at different player counts: solo, two players, and three players. Using a mechanic familiar in many other games, players have a small board to hold tiles in a variety of colors, and must select new tiles from a market to place into their tableau to score points at the end of the game.

Flower Fields doesn’t do anything fancy. My eight-year-old son had the game down by the second round of our first game. It’s a little too easy for my tastes—I scored 103 points in my solo…

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Little Alchemists Game Review https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/little-alchemists/ https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/little-alchemists/#respond Thu, 05 Dec 2024 13:59:13 +0000 https://www.meeplemountain.com/?post_type=reviews&p=309297

I sat down with my kids recently to try the new family game Little Alchemists from Czech Games Edition. It’s based on the game Alchemists, both of which are designed by Matúš Kotry, with the latter squarely aimed at serious strategy gamers. The family version has cute box art and a bright, screaming “Ages 7+” stamped on the box’s side runners. I was excited to see if my two kids, ages 10 and 8, would lean in or out on this new design.

On their second turn of the game, my 10-year-old turned and looked me in the eyes. “I love this game,” they said.

I score all family-weight/kids games the same way: is it fun for adults, and did my kids want to play it a second time immediately?

How’s this for a recommendation: we played the game five times over the course of a single weekend.

Actually, Let’s Increase Your Screen Time

Little Alchemists is a 2-4 player deduction game that plays in about 30 minutes regardless of player count. It also has a mini campaign/legacy element—there are six unlockable boxes of new modules (think Dorfromantik: The Board Game) that extend the game from a form of “Baby’s First Deduction Game” to “OK, this is a…

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Kimono Memories Game Review https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/kimono-memories/ https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/kimono-memories/#respond Sat, 02 Nov 2024 13:00:42 +0000 https://www.meeplemountain.com/?post_type=reviews&p=307716

In recent years publisher EmperorS4 has been a reliable source of interesting small-box games, their Hanamikoji series being a standout.

Hanamikoji is one of the best two-player games around, and for my money it’s easily the most memorable I-cut-you-choose game I’ve ever played, at once uncompromising and comedic. Geisha’s Road added new cogs to Hanamikoji’s original tug-a-war battle; it lacks the same lacerating edge but is more thoughtful and knotty. Meanwhile Shadows in Kyoto is the adopted sister, more of a Hanamikoji-flavoured take on Stratego than a blood relation, and slightly weaker for it.

2024 brings a new baby to the family in the form of Kimono Memories. It’s an altogether softer experience from the plots and subterfuge of its elder sisters whilst still retaining some of the same features in its chubby little face. This fundamental difference might put you off or you may find the friendlier gameplay more inviting.

A Snapshot

This time round, you and your opponent are photographers, visiting Kyoto and trying to amass the best photo portfolio of traditional kimonos, the national dress of Japan. 

As with Hanamikoji and Geisha’s Road there are a series of battlegrounds you’ll be vying to win, although in this case it’s not the favour of individual geisha you’re looking to gain but photos…

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Ministry of Lost Things: Case 1 – Lint Condition Game Review https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/ministry-of-lost-things-case-1-lint-condition/ https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/ministry-of-lost-things-case-1-lint-condition/#respond Mon, 21 Oct 2024 13:00:12 +0000 https://www.meeplemountain.com/?post_type=reviews&p=307398

I don’t know what they put in the water at PostCurious, but it’s working. Rita Orlov and her cohort have made a name for themselves over the last few years by publishing a remarkable series of escape rooms, including 2022’s startling The Light in the Mist and this year’s masterful The Morrison Game Factory. In a market dominated by the long-past-their-prime Exit games and the under-appreciated Unlock series, PostCurious distinguishes itself by offering games that push the boundaries of escape room narrative. These are games that stick with you not only as a series of clever and satisfying puzzles, but as stories.

The scope of PostCurious’s narrative ambitions is generally matched by the scale of their games. The Light in the Mist takes 4-5 hours. The Emerald Flame hit around 7-8. I haven’t cracked open my copy of Threads of Fate yet, but the box promises 10+ hours of work. Those are not rookie numbers. The idea of sitting down—over a series of sessions, mind—for that much puzzle can be overwhelming.

It is with that in mind that PostCurious has started Ministry of Lost Things, a series of more modest offerings. Designed with a less-seasoned audience in mind, Case 1: Lint Condition takes about two hours when all is said and done, spread out over five chapters,…

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Reef & Ruins Game Review https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/reef-and-ruins/ https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/reef-and-ruins/#comments Wed, 16 Oct 2024 13:00:09 +0000 https://www.meeplemountain.com/?post_type=reviews&p=307143

In classic mythology, the hydra was a many-headed demon that proved very hard to kill. As if its poisonous breath and tainted blood weren’t enough, a hero attempting to slay a hydra would have to contend with its heads not just  regenerating, but doubling, just as quickly as they were lopped off. Back then, the hydra was a friendless, angry beast.

The modern hydra is a much friendlier, more jovial hydra. Much of that is due, no doubt, to the hydra’s affection for the loveable, peaceable otter. Nothing pleases a hydra more than making its otter friends happy and, if there’s one thing that makes them happier than anything, it’s shiny stuff.

In Reef & Ruins, from Carla Kopp (Way Too Many Cats, Roar and Write!), players take on the roles of otters directing their 3-headed friends (represented by three 6-sided dice) as they search through the ruins of wrecked ships and the surrounding reefs for treasure. If they’re feeling particularly generous, they’ll even impart some of their magical essence into their finds to make them even shinier, enhancing their overall value for the end game.

Each round, a player will roll the three dice and players will use those dice however they wish across their three sheets: Ship Ruins, Enchantments, and Reef. Everything a player does…

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Knitting Circle Game Review https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/knitting-circle/ https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/knitting-circle/#respond Sun, 29 Sep 2024 13:00:04 +0000 https://www.meeplemountain.com/?post_type=reviews&p=306623 It shouldn’t be any surprise that when a new Flatout Games title is announced, my heart skips a beat…two beats if animals are involved. So imagine my delight when I heard about Knitting Circle, a successor to 2020’s Calico, a wonderfully cozy game about cats and quilts. There aren’t any quilts in this game, but you will find hats, scarves, mittens, socks, sweaters, and long johns (flap not included). And more importantly, you’ll find cats, vivid colors, and that clever, puzzly-spatial gameplay that Flatout Games excels at.

So let me introduce you to Knitting Circle.

Knitting Circle Overview

In Knitting Circle, your goal is to earn the most points by creating completed clothing: combining garment cards, yarn tiles, and scoring buttons into a finished product. But it’s not as easy as it might sound. Make sure your garment meets one of the approved patterns or else you’ll earn the dreaded “ugly sweater” pin and lose points at the end of the game. Mix in the Advanced Request cards and your eyes will be seeing rainbows for hours after you finish each game.

Let’s briefly touch on setup, and then jump straight to the gameplay. Just be aware that each…

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Umbrella Board Game Review https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/umbrella/ https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/umbrella/#respond Thu, 19 Sep 2024 13:00:39 +0000 https://www.meeplemountain.com/?post_type=reviews&p=305339

[caption id="attachment_305366" align="aligncenter" width="764"]Umbrella: The Box Umbrella: The Box[/caption]

Umbrella, by Flavien Dauphin and Benoit Turpin, published by Lumberjacks Studio and Pandasaurus Games, is a simple, elegant game that has recently earned a place on my abstract shelf. Let’s see if it lands on yours as well.

The concept is easy enough: you’re trying to rearrange your 4x4 field of colored umbrellas to match the patterns on one of your scoring tiles. Do so, and you’ll place one of the limited number of scoring tokens on your player board. When someone has claimed the last token, the game ends. Whoever has the most points wins.

Of course, the rules make doing so something of a challenge, so let me explain how to play Umbrella.

Falling On My Head Like a Memory

Each player has a board whose center, recessed area, is a 4x4 grid. You’ll place wooden discs with colored umbrellas on the matching, pre-printed spaces on your board. Above this area is a long open space where you’ll place one of the narrow scoring tiles. Players will also receive four square tiles with patterns on a 4x4 grid that matches your umbrella playing area. You’ll place these in two piles, one each on the two leftmost spaces, making sure the…

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Dorfromantik: the Duel Game Review https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/dorfromantik-the-duel/ https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/dorfromantik-the-duel/#respond Sun, 11 Aug 2024 13:00:22 +0000 https://www.meeplemountain.com/?post_type=reviews&p=303805

Dorfromantik: the Duel attempts to capture the charm of its namesake Dorfromantik: the Board Game and transform it from an idyllic cooperative venture into a fierce, head-to-head competition. As you’ll soon see: while the game succeeds on most fronts, there are a few aspects of it that I find bothersome. How bothersome? Read on to find out.

How Is This Game Played?

In Dorfromantik: the Duel (Duel), you and your opponent are competing to see which one of you can score the most points. Each player is provided a set of Terrain tiles, a set of Task tiles, and a set of Task markers in their color, and (save for the player color on the back of the tiles) their sets match their opponent’s sets exactly. This is important because one player—who I will refer to as the ‘caller’ (for lack of a better term)—will flip either a Task tile (if either of the two players ever have fewer than three Tasks) or a Terrain tile, and this is the tile that both players must play into their personal tableau. We’ll call the other player the ‘follower’.

Once all of the Terrain tiles have been played, the game comes to an end and final scoring is performed to…

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AI Space Puzzle Game Review https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/ai-space-puzzle/ https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/ai-space-puzzle/#respond Fri, 02 Aug 2024 13:00:08 +0000 https://www.meeplemountain.com/?post_type=reviews&p=303491

“How was it for you?”

I looked up from behind my small player screen; my buddy Rex had asked the question. I was still processing, as I had just served as the AI player during a recent set of three back-to-back plays of AI Space Puzzle (2024, Portal Games).

AI Space Puzzle is a cooperative deduction game. The theme is loose enough to be nearly non-existent: one player is the damaged AI of a spaceship bound for trouble unless the astronauts of the ship can decipher the cryptic clues provided by the AI to ensure that each room of the ship is correctly unlocked using the proper security keys. (Abstract? Yep.)

AI Space Puzzle is really two games in one. The AI player is playing the first game and will have plenty to do in order to get the right astronauts in the right rooms in just the right number of turns, usually eight turns or less. With a small pile of communication tokens, the AI can hint at the best ways to solve each scenario, hoping that the mix of clever clues and a sprinkle of luck will win the day.

The astronauts are playing a different game, a game that sometimes has a good amount of downtime. The AI’s processing power is the speed at which…

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Ave Uwe: Tangram City Game Review https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/tangram-city/ https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/tangram-city/#comments Tue, 23 Jul 2024 13:00:13 +0000 https://www.meeplemountain.com/?post_type=reviews&p=303108

From the rulebook: “As a prestigious city planner, you have been ordered by the queen herself to build a harmonious city. Take care to balance the human and natural realms by creating equal amounts of building (black) and park (green) tiles, and do not forget to incorporate the shape of a rectangle — the shape most important for fortification. Can you build a city worthy of the queen?”

In the strictest sense of the word, the name Tangram City is a bit of a misnomer. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a tangram is defined as “a Chinese geometric puzzle consisting of a square cut into seven pieces that can be arranged to make various other shapes.” In Tangram City, the shapes you’ll be working with are closer to tiny triangles that have been fused together to create polyomino-like shapes, some with their corners missing.

So, just understand, you won’t be creating tangrams in this game. Instead, as the name implies, you’re going to be using these shapes to create your city and score points.

A Round of Play

During setup, each player will receive their own City board as well as a complete set of 23 City tiles (green on one side and black on the other) and 6 Fountain tiles. They’ll also place a score marker onto…

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Looot Game Review https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/looot/ https://www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/looot/#respond Mon, 01 Jul 2024 13:00:44 +0000 https://www.meeplemountain.com/?post_type=reviews&p=302035

I met with Gigamic during the Festival International des Jeux a few months ago, and they provided a copy of the upcoming Viking-themed tile-laying game Looot.

“I saved this copy just for you!” our friend Rawan said during our marketing meeting. “I think you are going to like this one because we are very excited about it.”

As I say often, publishers say this to me all the time. I always smile, say thanks, and move to my next meeting with the same level of optimism. Gigamic has never led me astray, but tile-laying games are very, very close to the signature cliche “a dime a dozen.” Between high-water abstracts such as Azul, to any number of animal-themed tile layers like Cascadia, to harder puzzles like Calico, to Euro-themed classics like Carcassonne and Tigris & Euphrates, players have hundreds of options in this crowded field.

Still, I think Looot—despite its tricky title, which is one O too heavy for every spell-check tool in the book—is worth a look. That’s because its weight, playtime, and strategic depth give Looot a pretty interesting distinction through the first quarter of 2024: this is the most game you can play in about 30 minutes. Not a lot of games can say that!

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