At first glance, the explosive ending of 1920 Wall Street doesn’t seem like much as a game mechanism. Like its counterparts in the 19xx series from Looping Games, 1920 is an effectively thematic endeavor. As the story goes, a horse-drawn carriage exploded in New York City on September 16, 1920 in front of the J.P. Morgan building—one of the first studied cases of terrorism, one that happens to be unsolved to this day. The game mimics a vibrant market that is ultimately, even if temporarily, upended by explosion. In real life, the market was open the next day. True to form, then, 1920’s explosion stirs the pot but fails to halt the final valuation and declaration of a winner. 

Regardless of first impressions, however, players will undoubtedly remark in the endgame about the impact of the explosion and the need to be more attentive next time. 

1920 Wall Street (hereafter referred to as 1920) is a card-driven stock trading game. Players travel around a rondel, purchasing cards, changing market values, collecting shares, and exerting themselves to determine the effect of the final explosion, after which total money rules the day. In many ways it’s exactly what a stock game ought to be, with a dash of disruptive historical flavor. 

The end

Two anticipations govern the decision-making in 1920.…

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Fantasy Realms - K. David Ladage

I can remember when I first caught wind of Stonemaier Games releasing Red Rising. I was not familiar with the books series, so that was not a draw. Still, I thought I would give the game a chance. What I found was a game that wanted to be too many things at once. It was muddled and unfocused. However, if you read the various design diary entries over at Stonemaier Games, one of the things you find is that Red Rising was heavily influenced (even based upon) the game Fantasy Realms.

Having played both games, I can say that I enjoy Fantasy Realms significantly more than Red Rising. The deck of cards is smaller and the mechanics are unified (e.g., the game is more focused). The tropes in Fantasy Realms are universal, while in Red Rising I am constantly reminded that I have not read the books.

Perhaps Red Rising could get an expansion that altered things in a way to focus and balance the game (although I am not sure that is even possible). Meanwhile, although I know there exists an expansion for Fantasy Realms, I am uninterested. What the base game does—what it is—requires no embellishment.

Ease of entry?:
★★★★★…

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Even after several plays, I’m not entirely sure Tower of Doubt is good. What I know is this: I’ve never played it only once, or even twice—Tower of Doubt has thus far been a three-play title when it hits the table. This tower is the sort that begs a few plays to understand the experience and gather an opinion. It’s quick and it’s easy. The question is whether those few plays will beg another try or birth frustration. I’ve seen responses in both directions. 

Fidgety

Tower of Doubt is part of the Itten Funbrick series—small, slender, sleeve-boxes with simple games inside. I had a chance to play the more celebrated Viking See-Saw last year and loved what it offered. Tower of Doubt requires a steady hand like its cousin, but for entirely different reasons. This tower, or these towers, present an imperfect deduction challenge for two players. 

Dexterity Challenge #1: The Setup. The game begins by reaching into a bag and pulling six towers, one by one, to stand on the overturned game box, a platform for the fun. Each tower is a rectangular prism, the top faces of which are occasionally decorated by dots. A tower may have zero to four dots. The towers stand such that each player can see two of the sides, a partial…

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Fire Tower - Bob Pazehoski, Jr.

I had a chance to sit with this strange little entity recently. Players each respond to, defend against, and aggressively wield the everlasting fire that has ignited in the center of the board. The aim? Survive—and burn your opponents’ towers to the ground, relegating them to participation in the consolation game known as the Shadow of the Forest. Eliminated players participate in the wiles of the forest fire, exacting revenge upon those who wrought their demise. I won’t lie. It’s weird. 

The game is pretty on the table as the orange fire crystals slowly—and then rapidly—spread across the central grid. The play begins quite slowly before launching to a lightning finish. Players put up blockades of a sort, pour water where they are able, redirect the wind to send the fire elsewhere, and unleash chaotic bursts of flame on the way to a bit of a disappointing finish. Fire Tower is incredibly aggressive. Yes, you can simply play defense the whole time and let fate decide, but a significant portion of the deck begs you to issue militaristic commands to the flames in the name of player elimination. 

At heart, Fire Tower is an abstract area control game with bells and whistles attempting to match the…

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Let’s call it a disconnect. Mechanically, Loco Momo is occasionally interesting. Thematically, Loco Momo makes no sense whatsoever. Animals find a camera in the woods. Knowing immediately what it is for, they devise a contest whereby the best photographer keeps the camera. They then proceed to—stay with me now—stack themselves in a grid where each animal somehow has a different colored background, adhering to specific and abstractly devised patterns, cooperating perfectly for each opponent’s desires to keep it a fair contest?

I guess that’s one possible story.

Occasionally

The central board features four groups of four tiles. The tiles show one of five possible animals with one of three hued backgrounds. Players select any one animal tile, move it according to its rule, and take all the animals in the landing group with a matching color background. After filling the gap with tiles from the bag, play continues.

Meanwhile, the player manages a 5x5 grid, filling tiles from left to right in the row of their choice as they go. Each row has a rule: all the same, all different, paired with the tile above, etc. The goal for each column is matching the background hue.

Because of the move & match mechanic, players acquire tiles at different rates,…

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Castle Combo finds the table. I’m not sure I can pinpoint a singular reason. I love Stéphane Escapa’s art—not unlike the style of the current iteration of Mr. Peabody and Sherman, playfully disproportionate and colorful. I also love the simplicity of the turns—buy a card for a 3x3 grid. Far from frivolous, though, this simplicity is coupled with meaningful decisions that come from the interaction of cards within the grid. The playful nature of it all creates a feel-good, but engaging after-school family play. 

Ease

Players select a card from two rows of three, at first restricted by the location of the Messenger token. One spent key could move the Messenger or refresh the current row if the options aren’t quite right. After paying the coin cost, the card enters the grid and triggers an immediate effect. These effects typically provide coins or keys based on any number of conditions. The Messenger might move as the cards are replenished (indicated by the placed card), and play moves on.

In the event that none of the cards are appealing after exercising options with the keys, cards play face-down into the grid and grant coins and keys as a near-sighted boon. After nine turns each, the grids are full and the…

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Everdell Duo - K. David Ladage

My wife and I love Everdell. It is an amazing little engine-builder that has so few flaws that they are hardly worth bringing up. My colleague, Bob Pazehoski, Jr., has taken a deep-dive into the game and the expansions (I highly recommend reading those if you have not before). When the news of a two-player version first came into my view, I knew I would be getting this (add to that the fact that you could also order the larger-format cards for the original and this was a no-brainer). In order to kick the tires and give this thing a test drive, my wife and I dove in, read the rules, and prepared to play. We decided to start with the cooperative game using the first chapter scenario. Our first few actions were awkward as we got used to the things that were a little different from Everdell, but it did not take long before we knew what we were doing. The tactical and strategic choices that have to be made in a cooperative play are interesting and thoughtful! This game is, as Mr. Pazehoski put it in his review, “...a streamlined masterpiece…” ‘nuff said.

Ease of entry?:
★★★★☆ -…

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Drachentreppe is simple. Three to six players select one of their three wizards to activate and roll the single custom die to determine movement up a gorgeously tactile spiral staircase. Results of one, two, or three grant movement up the steps and the choice to keep going. The other three sides end the turn with something special. The “wizard up” side allows the active wizard to jump ahead to share a space with the next highest wizard. The “wizard down” side triggers a clumsy fall to the bottom (unless “caught” by a friendly wizard). The dragon side prompts a visit from—you guessed it—the dragon, which is good and leaves the player with an egg. 

The simple, press-your-luck style is easy to understand and explain to adults and children alike. In practice, however, those simple rules reveal a host of inconsistencies and frustrations. 

The spiral staircase has a crowding rule that will make adults reach for a bottle of wine as the children giggle. If a third wizard lands on any one stair, the one who has been there the longest falls, uncontrollably and uninterrupted, to the bottom. That’s right, there is little use building a stable home base here, because eventually—and by eventually, I mean often—the foundation will be eviscerated by everyone’s favorite tablemate: blind misfortune! Even the Parcheesi…

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Looking at the box, I fully expected Gnome Hollow to be cute—the sort of cute that leads a publisher to take the Gen Con balloon sculpture by the horns and make it all gnome-y. I can’t say I expected it to be as substantial a game, though. As it turns out, there’s a lot going on in there. Sometimes you even lift back the pointy hat to find competitive little thieves behind the rosy cheeks and beards.

Gnomenclature

The path to describing the gameplay of Gnome Hollow is not entirely linear. Every turn is a flow chart complete with if/then statements and cascading consequences (not unlike Mr. Lynch’s flowing review of Riftforce). A relatively simple, cartoony, flowchart by comparison, but a chart nonetheless.

Players add two (or more) hex tiles to the central garden to begin each turn. Tiles are predominantly green with some combination of glittery path and colorful mushroom(s). The great hope is to enclose a glittery path ring to unleash a series of fortunate events. The first is to (potentially) collect every mushroom depicted on the path. The second is to (likely) move a ring marker on the player board from its starting location to a bonus spot—determined by the number of tiles incorporated in the ring—and to receive any subsequent cascading bonuses.

Gnome Hollow Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

I was born after the decline of the milkman. I live in a small town where the idea could almost live again. Folks around these parts walk to pick up milk from their organic suppliers, but no one dons the cap and uniform for house calls. I have fond childhood memories of food deliveries, helping the mailman with his daily rounds, and, obviously, the daily passing of the ice cream truck. There’s some nostalgic romance in those aspects of bygone days, I guess.

The whole home delivery scene is appealing as a setting for a game. Milkman, from Dice Hate Me Games, puts players in charge of the whole operation—from farm to front door.

Raw

Milkman is a dice-chucker. Players each roll their two black dice on every turn. With two possible rerolls, they then make the best of their results and take action. The active player also receives a single roll of four white dice, granting a few extra options and first dibs in selecting customers for the turn.

On the dice, cows produce raw milk that is stored in tanks with limited capacity. Bottles convert an entire tank into whole, skim, or chocolate, stored in refrigeration with its own limits. Cash gives wooden cash tokens. Meeple select…

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What fascinated me as I read the story of the game’s design is a number. Actually, it’s an open-ended range of a number: two hundred plus. That’s how many times Chénier La Salle played iterations of this city-building game with his family. We have a lot of games we love, but we don’t own a single one that we’ve played two hundred times. The closest bet might just be Take the Gold, a silly little five-minute game from CardLords that my youngest daughter has played since she was three. Non-stop. Seriously, she has worn out more than one deck. 

Two hundred…plus. I love it. I wanted to know more, so I reached out to Chénier to see if he’d be interested in a conversation. To date, New York 1901 is his only design credit. I think I could live with that if…

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Pencil erasers. You know the sort, the molded 3D variety that were never intended to erase. They were more like elementary school status symbols, beacons of personality that wagged in the air as you filled in bubbles with your Ticonderoga No. 2. Truth be told, they were a bit of a nuisance for how they threw your pencil out of balance, but they looked so cool.

Finally, someone has made a game with erasers as player markers—minus the hole necessary to properly top a pencil. It was the artwork that first drew me in as I listed Kyoto No Neko among my most anticipated list for GenCon 2024. Even as I tore into the shrink to check out the illustrations, though, I had to pause to admire the kitties made of the stuff of erasers. Endearing, they are.

In fact, everything about Kyoto No Neko has a charming look. The square board is flanked on all sides by stair-stepped player-specific territories to create a unique overall shape. The finished grid is an overhead map of the city: rooftops, terraces, and roadways for kitty travel. Cute little kitty paw tokens are scattered about, face-down and waiting to be discovered.

Feline It Out

The whole of the game is a series of skill checks. Every token requires one of several…

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Over the years with Everdell, I’ve gone through phases. I’ve run through the expansions, ranking every Everdell experience along the way. I’ve played with my kids regardless of age, introducing even the youngest through My Lil’ Everdell. I’ve played with friends—I’ve even played Everdell digitally. I’ve explored strategies for my favorite tabletop world and I’ve followed that world to new edges of the map with the release of Farshore.

Most recently, I’ve settled into two-player outings with my elder daughter. She has an enthusiasm for Everdell that rivals mine and I cherish the chance to play together. I was immediately intrigued, then, when I found the announcement for Everdell Duo. I think it’s safe to say most players most enjoy Everdell as a duel. Sprawling table presence and ballooning downtime tend to keep the smaller, tighter experience appealing. The upcoming campaign is obviously hoping to scratch a developed itch and maybe rake in the folks on the fringes of the Meadow.

With the rise of two-player versions, it seems everyone is out to streamline and redefine stellar gaming experiences. What changes have James and Clarissa Wilson brought to this newest iteration of my favorite game? Are they refreshing? Worthwhile? I surprised myself a little with my answers.

Remarkably familiar

Everdell Duo will strike all…

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