There’s something about the cover for At the Office, a new release from designer Reiner Knizia and Polish publisher Trefl, that’s deeply evocative. Artist Michał Ambrzykowski perfectly captures the essence of an anonymous mug from a workplace break room. Look at the cover for more than a moment, and you realize that mug is inside a coffee dispenser. I can hear the sound the machine makes when you press the button to brew and dispense the coffee. I can smell it. I’m there, in my khakis, spacing out while I wait for the process to finish.

When you open the box, you find the standard accoutrement for a roll & write. There’s a manual, of course, four pencils, five dice, and a pad of double-sided player sheets. Each side shows the same pyramid of office employees. They appear to have coordinated for portrait day, as each group is wearing a uniquely colored t-shirt. There’s a fifth group, a multicolored cohort of five bespectacled workers, that overlaps the color groups.

On your turn, roll the five dice. Four of them correspond to the colors of the employee shirts. The fifth, a white die, knows no master. You take any colored die you want,…

The post At the Office Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

I love going to conventions because I get to play games with designers, fans, content creators and marketing managers. Sometimes, I get the chance to play a game with the president of a publishing company.

Such was the case during Gen Con 2023 when I played Inheritors with Dominic Crapuchettes, the President of NorthStar Game Studio. Inheritors was technically a 2022 release, per BGG, but it was a game I had not seen before attending this year’s convention.

And maybe it was Dominic’s presence, maybe it was the easy scoring system, or maybe it was the crisp, quick turn structure, but all of it worked for me. Inheritors is a blast, and now that I’ve played it with 12 different people across four plays, the reaction has been uniform: positivity through and through.

Advocate for a Spy

Inheritors is a hand management game where players have to play cards from various suits in order in a tableau that slowly builds from the lowest number in a suit (one) to the highest card (six). The trick? There are many of the lower numbers in the deck, but only one five and one six.

Starting with a hand of ten cards, players have lots of options on a turn; using…

The post Inheritors Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

The post Velonimo Game Video Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

One of the things I love most about board games: no screen time. It’s actually why I’ve fallen so hard for games since COVID began. As my day job shifted from in-person to virtual, it took away my ability to stare at other co-workers in the flesh. After Zoom/Teams/Meet call #485, one tires of staring into the void to “engage” with work peers.

Similarly, I now subscribe to the newspaper the old-fashioned way, by getting one delivered to my door. I read more, too. And I have a big, 384-page book of puzzles called Ultimate Mind Games sitting on my desk, so that I can do word searches, crossword puzzles, and Sudoku among other tasks.

I love Sudoku. In fact, it’s probably the most consistent logic puzzle I like to do whenever I get the chance. I don’t think I’m an expert, but I love the challenge that comes from figuring out where the numbers fit, especially the medium and hard challenges in books I have picked up over the years.

Hiroba (2022, Funnyfox) is a Sudoku-adjacent, area control competitive puzzle game with pebbles, ponds, koi, and a short playtime. Should you dive into the pond or not?

Garden Salad

Hiroba, which Google tells me is “square” in…

The post Hiroba Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Gamewright’s sequel to one of our favorite plays from last year, Sleeping Queens, arrived on my doorstep recently. The kids saw the box and eagerly opened the game.

Sleeping Queens 2: The Rescue is designed by Miranda Evarts, the same person who gave us the original. It’s a slightly different game this time around. Instead of rescuing Queens to score points and win the game, Sleeping Queens 2: The Rescue has players using Queens and cute card companions to rescue the Kings.

The gender flip is welcome. How about the game?

Math is Required

One thing remains the same between both Sleeping Queens games: you’ll still need to know some basic math to win.

Depending on player count, one player must rescue 2-4 Kings to win the game. Scattered around the table are a set of face-down cards representing companions, each with one of the game’s three color suits (green, red, blue). The draw deck includes cards numbered from 1-10, along with special action cards like gnomes, spell books and Queens. Each player is also given a Knight, representing a player power that will constantly move between other players.

On a turn, you’ll roll a six-sided die to see how many cards you will draw from the deck.…

The post Sleeping Queens 2: The Rescue Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

I ran into Monique, from Before You Play, at a mixer during SPIEL ‘22. I posed the same question to her that I posed to all of the content creators I met at the event: what game did you play this week that I need to try next?

“Photograph,” she said. “Just a fun little game.”

The next day, I bought a copy of Photograph (2016, also known as Wind the Film!, published by Saashi & Saashi) and finally got it to the table over the holidays. I have to say that Monique was right. More importantly, I see why she likes the game, because it fits well as a thinky filler for gamers looking to kick off a night of heavier fare.

A Snapshot (of the Rules)

Photograph is a hand management tableau builder for 2-4 players. Based on the number of players, a certain number of 12-card sets of colored cards are added to a shared deck, each depicting a filmstrip story of a particular scene playing out somewhere in town.

A market of cards is built with the two outer columns showing cards face up, and the inner column cards left face-down. Players are dealt five cards but must keep those in the order…

The post Photograph (Wind the Film!) Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

When I came across 2Can, a card game that supported up to 6 players I was intrigued, especially when I saw the simple geometric artwork and the simple gameplay.

So let’s talk about 2Can.

2Can Overview

In 2Can, players are trying to have the lowest score over a number of rounds (the rules say 5, but we usually do 3 to keep it breezy). On your turn, you’re going to draw a card, then decide if you want to replace a card in your play area with the new card, or to…

The post 2Can Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Spring, 2020. That early timeframe with COVID was something else, right?

Lots of good. Lots of not-as-good. Lots of downright bad. And lots of uncertainty. Was it ever going to really be over?

Jamey Stegmaier, the designer of Scythe and many other tabletop winners, came up with an interesting game during COVID: a roll-and-write that takes a single element from each major Stonemaier Games release and combines them into a single product.

This output is called Rolling Realms, and it falls squarely into what I consider “heavy” roll-and-write experiences. Many other experiences have been lighter, such as Railroad Ink: Deep Blue Edition, the Welcome To… games, and the Clever series of games from Wolfgang Warsch.

Other roll-and-writes (or “flip-and-fill” games, which use cards instead of dice) are heavier, such as Hadrian’s Wall and Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘N Write. Rolling Realms comes close to those games (in terms of complexity) and provides a fun experience for heavy strategy gamers looking for something “light.”

I just wish it was a little shorter.

[caption id="attachment_252792" align="alignnone" width="1024"] The star of the show: those dice![/caption]

My Favorite Dice? A New Contender Emerges!

Rolling Realms plays out over 27…

The post Rolling Realms Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

I ran into Nora Meiners from Gamewright while strolling the exhibition hall at GAMA Expo. After she sold me on giving Sushi Roll a spin at Gen Con last year, she had nice things to say about some of our other Gamewright reviews, such as Happy City.

“Have you played Sleeping Queens? It’s a classic.”

I hadn’t even heard of Sleeping Queens, a 2005 release from Gamewright that got re-released a few years ago for its 15th anniversary. I was traveling later that day but the Sleeping Queens box was pocket-sized, so I slipped it into my carry-on and wished Nora well.

Now that I’ve played it a few times, I have to admit: Sleeping Queens is a fantastic light card game that fits on any game table and gets quality family fun into a 10-to-15-minute package.

Why have I not heard of this game before now?

Play Kings, Get Queens, Win Game

Those are essentially all of the rules to a game of Sleeping Queens.

Combining a mix of math, Memory, and some light combat with cards that play offense or defense, Sleeping Queens plays 2-5 players and can squeeze between almost any game you are going…

The post Sleeping Queens Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

“I bet I can make a bigger leaf pile than you!”

     “Oh yeah? Well I have more acorns!” 

“I’ll let you go through this pile of leaves for an acorn!” 

     “Hey! You can’t move that pile once you set it down!” 

Just about any activity can become a game with a few stated restrictions, a well-designed objective or two, and a playful attitude. The question in the end is whether the backyard shenanigans were just a strange moment or whether they can be whittled down into an experience that begs future visits. 

Momiji, a card game collaboration from Deer Games and Japanime Games, takes this playful backyard approach into that dreamy Japanese garden and asks what happens if peaceful leaf collection suddenly grows a competitive backbone? What if acorns become the fiat currency of the garden? Can the enjoyment of nature withstand such frivolity for a span of thirty minutes? Would folks come back for more? 

You may not yet know Dario Massarenti, one of the…

The post Momiji Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Just getting the box in the mail was a delight.

I don’t normally send pictures of review copies to my family, but this box was special: Goliath Games/Pressman Games released an updated version of Rummikub, titled Rummikub Six Player Special Edition, which ups the player count from the traditional 2-4 players. This special edition is the same as all the other versions of the game I have ever owned—this will be the 4th copy I or my family have had over the years—save for one distinct update:

The racks.

But we’ll get to those later. My wife and I played a quick game of Rummikub Six Player Special Edition (which we will refer to as just Rummikub 6 for the rest of this review) when it first arrived, just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. Placing an initial meld, rearranging tiles on the table, finding the best way to use a joker tile...it all came back like riding a bike for the 1,000th time.

That was all fine. But how does it play with 6 people at the table?

This Game is 40 Years Old???

If you don’t know how to play Rummikub, or if you’ve never heard of Rummikub, talk…

The post Rummikub Six-Player Special Edition Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

To interpret is to welcome isolation. With many art forms designed for individual consumption–books, video games, films, painting, sculpture–we encounter an object and interpret it, for stimulation or entertainment. However, even when we compare our interpretations, argue about them, weigh them against others, we lock them within a frame and send that frame out to do battle, to see how strong it is.

What is fascinating and distinct about tabletop games as an art form is that games are mechanical, but not always mechanized. What I mean by this is that tabletop games contain operations and mechanisms that “run” when the necessary input occurs (I move my piece here, and then an event occurs), but the interpretation in many cases is contingent on another person accepting and processing that interpretation, responding to it in kind. In other words, we must share and agree upon the rules in order to play.

Because many board games are not mechanized, the entire experience can completely fall apart if collective interpretation is not collectively maintained. In a video game, you can choose to not interact or do what the game wants you to do, but in many cases, the game continues regardless. Consequences still occur in spite of your refusal to play ball.

In tabletop games,…

The post Tranquility Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Once I Built a Tower

In a game of Sky Towers, each player will be building a series of towers using numbered cards ranging from 1 to 10. A player can only have 1 tower at a time (or 2 in a 2-player game). Each tower is completed when the total of the numbered cards in that tower reaches exactly 21. Scored towers are set aside until the end of the game. After the final round of play, each player will look through their completed towers and count the number of yellow kites therein. The player with the most yellow kites wins the game.

[caption id="attachment_234971" align="alignnone" width="696"] A sample completed tower worth 3 points[/caption]

On a player’s turn, they may take any 2 actions of their choice in any order (including choosing the same…

The post Sky Towers Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.