Saddle Up

Designer Paul Dennen has won my trust with his design work on Dune: Imperium (and the recently released Dune: Imperium - Uprising), the Clank! games (Clank!, Clank! In Space, and their associated expansions). Publisher Dire Wolf first caught my eye with the digital card game Eternal and has continued to put out fantastic digital implementations of some of my favorite board games. I had to pry myself away from a challenge run of the Root digital adaptation to force myself to finish some work today. So when I heard Dennen was releasing a brand-new game under a new IP, I was immediately intrigued.

Wild Tiled West is, as the name implies, a Wild West-themed polyomino tile-laying game. Players will throw dice and take turns drafting tiles to add to their growing settlements, adding pastures, roads, and buildings to complete towns or fulfill certain scoring conditions. By covering specific grids, players will receive resources that help them buy fancier buildings or take out the ne’er-do-wells lurking among their towns. After four “years” of drafting, players will score up their settlements, and the person with the most points wins!

It may sound straightforward, and that’s because it is. But is that simplicity a strength or a weakness?

Fur-ocious Fun

The first thing to…

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We’ve talked about Cascadia many times before, from our review of of the Cascadia base game, to our review of the Cascadia: Landmarks expansion, our inclusion of Cascadia in a list of games you can easily play with kids and a humorous list of games which include bears. But I don’t think any of us expected Cascadia to get “the dice game” treatment.

That’s right; this newest member of the family (technically two newest members) is a reimagining of Cascadia as a roll and write game. But let me reassure you that Cascadia: Rolling Hills, and Cascadia: Rolling Rivers aren’t just some money grab. While they do share the same DNA, they’re totally new games.

Let’s dive in and find out what makes these two new entries tick. Note that while my main focus in this review is on Cascadia: Rolling Hills, I do talk about both games.

Cascadia: Rolling Overview

As the name implies, these are dice games built atop the Cascadia framework: the animals and habitats we’ve come to know and love, as well as the hex based layout of the countryside. Over the course of 20 rounds you’ll roll dice to gain various animal and nature token symbols. These symbols allow you…

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I’ve had the chance to meet some of the team at Gamelyn Games at past conventions. I always stop and stare.

How do these guys keep coming up with so many strategy games that basically fit in a handbag?

I’ve had the chance to play Tiny Epic Galaxies and Tiny Epic Quest. Both games were fine; I would give Tiny Epic Galaxies the edge in terms of gameplay, and Tiny Epic Quest the edge in production because all of the tiny meeples can be outfitted with swords and shields. For a game that can be played on an average-sized kitchen counter, the amount of game in the box is a marvel for the Tiny Epic series. Prices are just as fair, with those games costing me about $25 each.

Our Meeple Mountain team is working with Gamelyn to go “back catalog” and review some of the older Tiny Epic games that we have not covered previously for the site. I signed on for Tiny Epic Mechs (a game that I bought personally) and Tiny Epic Western, a review copy sent by the publisher.

After getting a round of plays in summer, I admit that I align very closely with the game’s current ranking on BGG. It’s a fine time, with an easy teach and a serviceable solo…

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boon (n.): a gift; a benefit enjoyed, blessing, advantage, a thing to be thankful for: sometimes without even the notion of giving, but always with that of something one has no claim to, or that might have been absent.

lake (n.): a large body of water entirely surrounded by land; properly, one sufficiently large to form a geographical feature. Or, in some board games, a syllable of misdirection in the title of a game about traveling along a river.

The thematic arc of Boonlake takes place on a normal sized board featuring a river that apparently travels around the region of Boon Lake (not pictured). Each player operates from their own ranch, a holding tank of production sites, inhabitants, cattle, houses, and settlements with ample room for a dozen modernizations that unleash beefy abilities. The game is a concoction of exploring the map, harvesting goodies, creating a tableau of project cards, and establishing fruitful settlements.

The real game of Boonlake, however, takes place on a small board holding seven action tiles. Each tile is a progression of activity that begins with the current player and radiates out to involve everyone at the table. Once a tile is employed, it is placed at the bottom of the board’s track and pushed up to close the gap. In this way, there…

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The idea of Coyote is simple enough. Each player is dealt one card, which they do not look at, and sets it in the provided base so that all the other players can see it. An additional card is placed face down in the middle of the table, and can only be inspected by players with Peek cards to spend. The cards number from -10 to 20, with two additional special cards. On your turn, you either say a total you believe to be less than the total value of all the cards—keeping in mind that your information will never be perfect since you can never see your own card—or you challenge the previous player.

If…

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You’ve probably heard of Steven Aramini. Part of the team that created Circle the Wagons and Sprawlopolis, Aramini has also found individual success with titles like Barker’s Row and Animal Kingdoms. 2022 promises to be another big year for Aramini with a host of upcoming releases: River Wild, Ancient Realms, and Naturopolis (the third installment in the Sprawlopolis line, after Agropolis). Apparently not content with that, Aramini is also launching a new publishing venture under the banner of Write Stuff Games. Aramini’s inaugural game for Write Stuff is Fliptown, a rootin’ tootin’ random-and-write that promises Old West charm with modern sensibilities.

[caption id="attachment_248810" align="alignnone" width="1024"] The Trail and Badlands are 2 of the game's locales, where an enterprising ne'er-do-well can build themselves a tidy fortune.[/caption]

Ante Up

The goal of Fliptown is to rack up the most red stars (i.e., victory points). These stars are earned (and lost!) directly during play, though some long-term investments yield silver stars which aren’t tallied until the end of the game. Players will also score a few extra stars for leftover cash and gold, the two economic resources that help pay costs.

Each of the game’s three rounds features five turns plus a few…

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Back Rulebenders on Kickstarter.

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Buy The Quick and the Undead on Amazon

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Them’s the Rules, Pardner

In Tumble Town you are one of the competitors in the running to be named mayor. You must roll dice and construct buildings. You receive points based on building placement, building cards, and a secret goal card unique to you.

There are four colors of dice used as resources: black, gray, red, and gold. Whenever at least two of the dice colors get down to two or fewer dice this triggers the end of the game and you finish the round.

During your turn you will go through four phases: Claim, Take Dice and Roll, Construct and Use Powers, Place and Discard Extra Dice. During your Claim phase you choose any Building Plan card and place it to the…

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Lying between Wyoming and Canada you will find Montana, looking like a board game box that got damaged during delivery. In the late 19th century, Montana waited, largely uninhabited, while an abundance of raw material lay there ripe for the picking. In Montana, from Rüdiger Dorn, each player will take on the role of a land baron in that time period: herding cattle and working to build up town after town in order to gain the renown needed to win the game.

The goal of the game: head off each opponent and place your final town tile before they are able to place their final tile. But getting to that goal? Therein you’ll find the challenge. Each player will have to make a choice between committing a worker to an action on a central action board in order to gather a commodity, building a town, or building up their workforce in order to make each future action more fruitful. Being a worker placement game, each action taken will have the effect of removing an option for each future worker placed onto the board; tarry too long and the action you were hoping to take might not be there for you. Each choice you make can make you or break you, but if you play competently (and have a little…

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Circle the Wagons Overview

Circle the Wagons is a quick and easy, down and dirty, 'Boomtown' building card game for two players. Draft cards from a central display to make your town unique. Earn points for the largest groups of territories in your city, and take a gamble on the three bonus cards and hope you don't bust. Get the highest number of points and you just won Circle the Wagons!

Circle the Wagons is a light "wallet" card game for 2 players from Button Shy Games. Known for their wallet line of card games, all limited to 18 cards, Buttonshy has released games such as Turbo Drift, Pentaquark, Ahead in the Clouds, and Cunning Folk. Circle the Wagons is from Button Shy's newest game and releases on Kickstarter on April 4th.

How to Set Up Circle the Wagons

Setting up Circle the Wagons is simple. Shuffle all 18 cards together territory side up. Peel three cards from the top and place them in the middle of the table bonus text face up. These are the bonus cards used in this game. The other 15 cards are placed territory side up in a circle around the bonus cards as you…

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