I don’t know why this is, but suddenly, dexterity games with sand timers are very, very hot.

Maybe “hot” is the wrong term, but it’s a strange coincidence that of the 40+ games I grabbed at SPIEL 2023, two of them featured sand timers as their main mechanism. Quicksand (Horrible Guild) was the first of these two, and I really enjoyed that experience thanks to the player scaling—Quicksand has a solo mode and accommodates up to seven players—and great depth, thanks to 20+ scenarios included in the box.

Skyrockets (Floodgate Games) is an updated version of Kites. In fact, it is so similar that the game’s BGG page says that Skyrockets “reimplements” Kites; officially, this is an updated version of the older game.

Let’s make one thing clear right away: if you do not own either version, Skyrockets is the definitive Kites game you should own. I thought Kites was great and frankly did not need a new version, but if you are shopping at your local game store and are staring at both games on a shelf, buy Skyrockets.

Skyrockets takes everything great about Kites, then adds a mechanic that makes the entire game slightly more forgiving. Then, Skyrockets goes for replayability gold thanks to 11 “Festivals” included in the box, with…

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Into the Metaverse

If you’re anything like me, you’ve dabbled in the Collectible Card Game (CCG) world at some point. Whether it’s Pokémon, Magic: the Gathering, the newly-released Disney Lorcana, or any number of the hundreds of other CCGs on the market, it’s not uncommon for board game enthusiasts to wind up with a passing interest in CCGs at some point. For those unfamiliar with the typical experience, it goes a little something like this: you buy packs of random cards to rip open in hopes of finding a super rare card, you build a deck of cards from the random cards you open, and you go to tournaments or game nights where you do battle against others with your deck. Of course, that’s only one aspect of the hobby. Some people are collectors who just like to collect everything; others use the hobby to make money by selling individual cards to game stores; and some just like the art and the theme.

Millennium Blades is a hilarious love letter to CCGs and nerd culture at large. The experience is so heavily defined by typical CCG tropes and experiences that I would wager it’s hard to get the whole experience of this game if you've never dabbled in those worlds. This game is explicitly tied to its theme, and…

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Did you know that the guy who designed The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine is also the brains behind one of the best deductive game series on the market?

Thomas Sing has designed both of The Crew games (published by KOSMOS). The Crew is one of the reasons why it feels like billions of trick-taking games hit the market over the last 3-4 years. Sing has also designed five games in the family deductive game series The Key, published by HABA.

I reviewed three of the five games last spring in a single review. The mix of real-time investigation and a scoring system that rewards efficiency was a winner in my household; my kids love these games!

If you have never played The Key, feel free to read my previous article detailing the play system. Nothing has changed with Royal Star Casino Burglary except the criminals and the types of puzzles that can be solved here. Don’t worry, no spoilers here! I will talk about the puzzle format this time around to give you a sense of whether this game is right for you.

Tetris!

In Royal Star Casino Burglary, three criminals have broken into the vaults of a casino and tried to make…

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Because of the nature of the game, this is the only photo.There’s nothing quite like the particular feeling that comes from seeing people enjoy the fruits of your personal labor. If you knit, or cook, or fix up old cars, you know what I’m talking about. There’s a warmth in experiencing the joy of others and knowing you did that. The hours you spent crocheting that hat were worth it, because it’s keeping your friend’s head warm. You were worried you added too much paprika, but look how much everyone is enjoying the cream chicken.

It doesn’t even need to be something that serves the joy of other people. Maybe you make your own furniture, or you paint watercolors you’re never going to show anybody else. The making of things is a deeply personal experience, and probably our best way of proving to ourselves that we exist in this world. We need it.

The Promise of the Premise

Unboxed, from designer Jordan Sorenson and publisher WizKids, has a marvelous premise. You play as archeology students on a dig who have come across the remains of a series of ancient games. Given nothing but a (miraculously) complete set of components and a few hieroglyphics, you are tasked as a group with figuring out how exactly these games were played.

…

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Back in 2021, I had the chance to review Dungeon Scrawlers: Heroes of Undermountain from WizKids. Since then, Heroes of Undermountain has consistently stayed in my gaming rotation. It’s fast, it’s kid-friendly, and it’s relatively easy to teach. When I learned about the Heroes of Waterdeep expansion, I had only one question: what could they possibly add to this game?

Complex City

Truth be told, Heroes of Waterdeep is more of a standalone sequel to Heroes of Undermountain. The gameplay is familiar: players simultaneously race and trace their way through identical dry-erase dungeon maps while grabbing treasure, eliminating monsters, and generally scoring points in various D&D-themed ways. (You can find a more thorough explanation of play at the review linked above.)

[caption id="attachment_286979" align="alignnone" width="961"] Several of the new dungeons are based in the city of Waterdeep and have a slightly more urban feel.[/caption]

Of course, this version sports a few new features. The most immediately obvious is the set of cards that come along with the standard double-sided player sheets. There are five character cards, swapping the original game’s sturdy cardboard for dry-erase so that players can track their score across all three rounds. This is a nice quality-of-life addition, though the new cards only include a graphical representation…

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I would imagine, to a game designer, each of life’s moments presents an opportunity. They simply must for a game like Paku Paku to exist. How else does a disheveled pile of dollhouse dishes end in shouting panda-themed madness? 

Panda, fill thine belly!

Each of the five wooden dice in Paku Paku contains some combination of green smiling pandas, red dish icons, and/or the numbers one and two. At the outset, these dice are passed out one at a time until they are all out. With up to eight players, some may begin empty-handed. In the center of the table are twenty four plain white Barbie dishes (plates, bowls, and cups), a handful of penalty markers, and a Table board. 

One…two…three…Paku Paku! Simultaneously, players begin rolling the dice in front of them. When a number comes up, they roll again. When a smiling panda comes up, that die is passed left. When a red dish comes up, a single dish must be added to the stack in the center of the table board before rolling again. If at any time a player is rolling more than the allotted limit of dice (which changes, depending on the player count) or if they knock over the stack of dishes, someone yells Paku, Stop! The offending player then rolls the dice in…

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When a friend expressed interest in playing Bullet⭐, the fully-compatible sequel to Bullet♥︎, I was in the unusual position of having to tell him to read the manual. This almost never happens, but the circumstances were exceptional.

When I came back fifteen minutes later, I asked him if he knew how to play.

“Yes. It’s basically a mobile app that steals your data.”

Starlight Express

Bullet⭐ is, indeed, basically a mobile app. 1-4 players rush—this is a real-time game—to use cards and abilities to remove colored Bullets from their boards. These Bullets are drawn at random from each player’s personal bag, and added to their personal board. Bullets have numbers on them, indicating the number of empty spaces they cross before stopping. If a Bullet should happen to make it all the way to the bottom of your board, it takes away some of your health.

Bullets are removed by playing cards from your hand that depict something akin to a tetromino. Certain spaces have to contain a bullet, certain spaces have to be empty. Once Bullet tokens have been lined up appropriately, which almost never happens without you using…

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Every now and then something lands on my desk that charms me completely. Something irresistibly playful, smart and altogether beautiful. Something I can’t help but pore over, a fidget spinner for the mind.

Let me tell you about 21X.

Algebraic Blackjack

The goal of 21X is to get as close to 21 as possible without going over. Each round you receive two cards, the value of which might be fixed or could be determined by the number of cards you have (N) and/or an integer of your choosing (X).

You might be dealt these cards:

[caption id="attachment_269544" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Your starting cards are -5 and 8X.[/caption]

The total value of these cards is (-5 + 8X), but since you can choose the value of X you have some flexibility. If X is 1 then your total would be 3. If X is 2 then it's 11. With 3 you’re up to 19 and might call ‘Stick’, challenging your opponents to beat your score within a minute. But that leaves you open to someone else reaching 21 in that time so you might instead ‘Twist’ and take another card.

[caption id="attachment_269545" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Your third card is 3N.[/caption]

Since you’ve got three cards, N…

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Unlock! is a good friend of the family here at Meeple Mountain. We’ve reviewed all the following games from this “escape room” game series: Escape Adventures, Secret Adventures, Mystery Adventures and Exotic Adventures.

When publisher Space Cowboys (through their distributor, Asmodee) reached out with a copy of 2021’s Unlock! Legendary Adventures for review, I was excited to run through another escape room-style single-play mystery game. I’ve played so many over the last year or so: four of the Unsolved Case Files games from Pressman, two of the Cold Case games from ThinkFun, Suspects: The MacGuffin Affair from Studio H, and a couple of the EXIT games.

But I hadn’t played any of the Unlock! games. Trying out a new series that is already so well loved by the team was pretty cool.

For some notes on how to play an Unlock! title, you can re-read my colleague Ashley’s review of Escape Adventures. All the games play using the same systems—the use of an app, a deck of cards, and a one-hour time limit to solve that specific mystery. I’ll summarize my final thoughts about the three cases included in Unlock! Legendary Adventures in this spoiler-free review!

Action Story (Easy)

Let’s start…

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I’ll be the first to admit that while I am not religious, I do love a good Advent calendar.

24 days of candy? Yes please. 24 days of miniature boozy gifts? Absolutely. 24 days of Harry Potter LEGO toys? The kids say thank you.

We have 3-4 Advent calendars on the mantle every year, so when our partners at KOSMOS offered to send a copy of Exit: The Game—Advent Calendar: The Hunt for the Golden Book, I jumped at the chance. If you are familiar with the Exit games, you know you are getting top-notch puzzles from the brains of Inka & Markus Brand. The Brands are designers of classics such as Rajas of the Ganges and Village, and they have essentially focused on Exit and other family games over the last five years or so.

With the Exit: The Game—Advent Calendar entries (there is one other Advent Calendar game, The Mystery of the Ice Cave), you are getting something that just fits well with a family on the go: 24 bite-sized puzzles that take 15-30 minutes to wrap up.

My Favorite Way to Exit

I can only tell you so much about The Golden Book without giving it all away; while there is technically a plot to the story here, your main focus is on solving each…

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In 2018, the team from Le Scorpion Masqué brought families to the brink of an undead invasion and the end of life as we know it. What made Zombie Kidz: Evolution so special was the combination of simple, kid-friendly mechanics and the charming world of elementary school antics. And let’s not forget the gift of a legacy-style experience driven by books and stickers that created and sustained a lasting interest that has yet to wear thin in our household.

Those kidz were lightning in a bottle, I say. 

It stands to reason, then, that the same publishing team might look to take us back to school for another adventure. Flashback: Zombie Kidz is another story set in the Zombie Kidz universe. Or should I say, Flashback: Zombie Kidz is a moment set in the Zombie Kidz story? 

From the start, it’s important to know that there is no need for familiarity with Zombie Kidz: Evolution in order to play Flashback. The two are wholly independent creations that just happened to be linked by a common setting and story. Each will build sympathy and love for the other, but neither is required for understanding. 

Overview: No spoilers here, folks. 

In earth’s final moments—the zombies having successfully invaded the school—just before said zombies do us all in once and…

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Peter McPherson came out of nowhere in 2019 with his hit game Tiny Towns (a charming game about building tiny settlements for forest dwelling creatures). He followed that success up with several expansions including Tiny Towns: Fortune and Tiny Towns: Villagers, and new title Wormholes in early 2022. We enjoy Peter’s games so much that we’ve interviewed him twice (Feb 2019 and Jan 2022). His approach to design is deceptively simple…friendly and approachable themes, clever and engaging gameplay, and very little player conflict.

Peter’s newest game Fit to Print is also set in the woodlands, the busting town of Thistleville; but this time players aren’t furry general contractors…no, instead they are furry editors-in-chief. That’s right, Fit to Print takes players to the newsrooms of small town papers. Your local newspaper is on a tight deadline and it’s up to you, the loyal editor, to produce an interesting and lucrative front page. The best (worst?) of all is that Fiit to Print is a real time game. It’s not enough to take on the role of an editor, you’ve also got to feel the pressure of getting the front page ready for ink just in time for the Sunday edition! If you think you can handle the heat, then…

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