Walnut Grove - Andy Matthews

When I first got started in the hobby, I came across Walnut Grove on BoardGameGeek. It was definitely more in-depth than what I was familiar with, but the theme and artwork seemed quaint and appealing. I always wanted to try it out, but never had the chance. Then recently I was able to trade a copy of Sriracha for Walnut Grove and finally try it out.

Walnut Grove is a tile laying and worker placement game in which players farm the land with workers you hire over the course of the game. Over 8 rounds you’ll expand your property—gathering milk, fish, lumber, ore, and grain. You also have the chance to head into town and hire more workers, buy materials to construct buildings, and buy and sell your bounty.

Walnut Grove is certainly a bit tighter than I was expecting. You’re constantly clawing and scraping to make sure you can feed your crew and keep them warm. And it feels like you have a hard time earning enough money to do more than just subsist. Because it’s a tile laying game, there’s a degree of luck involved in the tiles that you draw from the bag. Sometimes you get what you need, and other times…

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Time Division - Andrew Lynch

Time Division is a card game with a simple premise. The first player plays a card, and then the second player plays one. Whomever plays the higher card gets to make a choice: one player scores their card, the other player uses their card ability. That’s a great premise for a game, and I know the kind of game Time Division wants to be, but it isn’t very good. There’s almost never an interesting tradeoff to be found. Whether it’s better to score or to use your ability is always obvious.

I held out hope that the game would grow with familiarity, that new layers of complexity and planning would reveal themselves. It doesn’t, and they don’t. Time Division wants to be a game like Match of the Century, a game filled with tense trade-offs and hard decisions about what’s better in the long run. It doesn’t get there. Even after five or six games, there’s not much of anything to discover.

Ease of entry?:
★★★★☆ - The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?:
★★☆☆☆ - Would play again but would rather play something else

Read more articles from Andrew Lynch.

Odin - Andy Matthews

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Welcome to Louisville!

GAMA Expo is a primarily retailer-based trade show hosted by GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association) and has been in operation for decades. While the last few years have taken place in Reno, Nevada, this year they debuted their new venue in Louisville, Kentucky. This is convenient, not only for me (being from Nashville) but also for a multitude of other attendees. The ease of travel to this new location at the Kentucky International Convention Center was mentioned by many people I spoke with during the event. And the proof is in the pudding: attendance was up by 30% over the previous year for retailers, publishers, manufacturers, and of course media (like myself).

In addition, the new space was much larger than previous years, by tens of thousands of square feet—giving more capacity for vendors, more space for attendees to walk around, and more room for sessions and meetings.

What’s New on the Table?

One of the great things about being a board game media outlet like Meeple Mountain is the chance to see what’s going to be hitting tables over the next year or so. For example, when we attend Essen Spiel, we’re given a glimpse at what might make it to North America the following…

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When was the last time you opened a game and were impressed with the components, like really blown away. Voidfall perhaps? Gloomhaven? Just about any game from Eagle-Gryphon games these days? So imagine my surprise and delight when I opened World Wonders, from Arcane Wonders–a $50 game with oodles of production value (at least in my opinion). Over 20 incredible wooden “wonders” (called monuments in the game, but each different and each with an impressive level of detail), dozens of cardboard tiles, a well designed and thought out insert, and an excellent rulebook–really one of the best I’ve read in quite some time.

But how does it play?

World Wonders Overview

In World Wonders, 1-5 players attempt to raise up their city / civilization, increasing their population, gathering resources, and most importantly…building monuments. The game ends after the tenth round, or when one player raises their population to twelve, although in my experience these two things usually happen very close together.

World Wonders is packed full of things you can do on your turn, which means that there’s always something useful to accomplish. Each player starts the game with 7 coins, and 0 each population, wheat, pottery, and engineering, marking them on their personal player board. Over…

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Vienna - David McMillan

This past weekend, I finally got my copy of Vienna to the table. Vienna, for those not in the know, is the 5th game in the much-lauded (and also highly criticized) Stefan Feld City Collection from Queen Games. Reimplementing La Isla, which I reviewed as part of my Focused on Feld series, Vienna plops the players down right smack dab in the middle of Austria during the early 1950s. World War II has ended, but the Cold War is just getting started. Espionage is the name of the game.

Vienna comes with two modes of play: the basic mode—which plays almost exactly like La Isla— and an advanced mode that introduces a whole lot of new elements. I got to play the basic mode. A few mistakes were made, but I enjoyed the experience overall, and I feel like that was the consensus among the other players at the table as well. I’m really excited to get it to the table again so that I can dig into the new material.

Keep an eye out for my upcoming review!

Ease of entry?:
★★★★☆ - The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?:
★★★★★ - Will definitely play it again

Read more articles…

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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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Monikers: Monikers-er - Andrew Lynch

Monikers is a great party game if you’ve got a group that isn’t afraid of getting silly. Monikers-er cranks things up, with a collection of obscure, seemingly impossible cards. All your new favorites are here: Mukbong, Washington Crossing the Delaware, Reiner Knizia. It’s the Monikers set for those who like their word selections eclectic, which I certainly do. The final endorsement: I’d rather play Monikers with just these cards than mix in the base set.

Ease of entry?:
★★★★★ - No sweat
Would I play it again?:
★★★★★ - Will definitely play it again

Read more articles from Andrew Lynch.

Faraway - Andy Matthews

Faraway is a game about journeys—traveling through a magical land called Alula. Over the course of 8 rounds players will play cards in front of themselves in order to arrange resources and scoring conditions for end of game scoring. The catch is that you lay down cards from left to right, but score from right to left after first flipping all the cards face down. This means you have to constantly be thinking in two directions—setting yourself up with difficult scoring cards on the left side, while giving yourself things TO…

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Back in 2020 we reviewed Cascadia, a deceptively simple tile laying and tableau building game from Flatout Games, who were coming off back to back successes with Calico and Point Salad. Since that time Cascadia won the Spiel des Jahres in 2022, and landed solidly in the top 100 games on hobby site BoardGameGeek. So it should come as no surprise that publisher AEG and developer Flatout Games are doubling down on their investment and releasing Cascadia: Landmarks, along with two new standalone roll and write games called Cascadia: Rolling Rivers and Cascadia: Rolling Hills—each exploring and celebrating a specific habitat in that area.

But it’s Cascadia: Landmarks we’re talking about today. Since it’s an expansion for the base game, I won’t be covering standard gameplay (you can read my review of Cascadia here), and instead I’ll just be talking about what the expansion brings to your table.

Cascadia: Landmarks Overview

One of the things I liked best about Cascadia was the variety, the input randomization. When setting up the game, you selected (or chose at random) one card for each different animal (elk, bear, fox, salmon, and hawk) and used that one for scoring. This meant that your focus could be noticeably…

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Sankoré: The Pride of Mansa Musa – David Wood

When I heard Fabio Lopiano, the designer of Merv: The Heart of the Silk Road, was coming out with a new game with co-designer Mandela Fernández-Grandon, I was instantly interested.  While Merv is a medium weight game, Sankoré is on the heavy side.  Don’t get me wrong; the mechanics of the game are straight-forward.  It’s just that there are lots of moving parts to remember and keep track of.  It took me and my gaming group several games to get the hang of it and eliminate mistakes.  That aside, Sankoré is a great optimization puzzle. 

Players work to generate prestige in 4 academic topics:  Astronomy, Law, Theology, and Mathematics. They do so by various means, such as teaching classes, graduating students, completing objective cards, and collecting Sankoré tiles.  However, they also need to manipulate the victory point (VP) value of each of the 4 different types of prestige.  This is done by placing books in the library.  The topic with the most books on a shelf awards 2 VPs per prestige.  One VP per prestige is awarded to the topic with the second most books on each shelf.  Given there are 3 shelves in the library, 9 total…

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Back in 2010 Matt Leacock was fresh off the release of Pandemic—one of the first, and definitely one of the most successful, cooperative games in the world. I don’t know his motivation, but I think he wanted another cooperative game that was perhaps a bit simpler and more family friendly. And thus Forbidden Island was born. It used a similar framework as Pandemic: multiple, distinct player roles (each with their own special abilities); a card driven system which both advanced the game and provided benefits and penalties to players; and a goal (rescue 4 artifacts and get on the helicopter before the island sank).

Two other  Games in the Forbidden series have been released: the excellent and challenging Forbidden Desert, and the less-than-stellar Forbidden Skies. And now Gamewright Games has released the 4th title in the series, and I’m pleased to tell you that Forbidden Jungle is a return to the formula which made the first two titles so successful.

You know where you are? You're in the jungle, baby.

In Forbidden Jungle, 2-5 players attempt to search and conquer an alien jungle landscape in search of four crystals which will powe the portal—which you must also find—escape through. All the while, you must avoid the deadly…

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Voidfall – David Wood

Man, oh man, was I ever excited to have this baby show up on my doorstep, and it did not disappoint.  Touted as a Euro 4X space game, Voidfall is a beast both in terms of table space and complexity, but it was so worth it.  The core mechanic is playing Focus cards to take actions.  Each card has 3 actions listed on it, but players can normally only take 2 of them.  The number of Focus cards that can be played each cycle varies, so players will have to plan out their strategy each cycle by selecting which cards they will play, and just as importantly, the order they will play them.  IMO, it’s this planning feature that makes the game shine. 

The game comes with a bunch of scenarios (solo, co-op, and competitive) of varying complexity, including a solo tutorial that helps new players navigate the learning curve.  There’s a bunch of iconography players will need to become familiar with, but after a while it becomes second nature.  Combat is simple and completely deterministic.  In fact, there’s an app you can download that automatically determines the outcome for you.  And because each game is limited to 3 cycles, this a 4X that doesn’t out stay its welcome. 

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The Fox Experiment – David McMillan

Have you ever backed a game on Kickstarter without knowing anything about it solely based on the game’s designer pedigree? This was the mistake I made with The Fox Experiment. I’d meant to read the rulebook. I had every intention of watching some videos. I swear that at least going to the game’s entry on BGG was on my to-do list. Before I knew it, the campaign was over and my pledge had been collected.

Fortunately, some accidents are happy ones.

This past weekend, I finally had a chance to get my copy of The Fox Experiment to the table and it was delightful. That first game was…rough. I quickly learned that there was a vast difference between reading the rules and applying them. After a few rounds, though, things began to fall into place and I was gleefully rolling dice, breeding pups, and fulfilling research projects without a care in the world.

I quite like this game and I look forward to the opportunity to explore its inner workings even further in the future. 

Ease of entry?:
★★☆☆☆ - Not an easy onboard
Would I play it again?:
★★★★★ - Will definitely play it again 

Read more articles from David McMillan.

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The post Quick Peaks – The Fox Experiment, Forest Shuffle, Kartel, Ancient Realm, Age of Comics: The Golden Years appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Since our very first post, we’ve been laser focused on publishing high-quality board game related content: whether it’s written or video. We craft and discuss, parenthesize, spellcheck, and edit until we’re happy with it. And this year we had our biggest published year ever, with 544 published pieces; that’s crazy for an all-volunteer team like ours.

Join me as I reminisce on the past 12 months!

410 Written Reviews

Last year we made it to the top 5 results in searches for “board game reviews”, but now at the end of the year we’re in a solid 3rd place. That’s incredible when you consider that we’re beating out The New York Times, Kotaku, Reddit, Good Housekeeping, and hundreds and thousands of other outlets who cover tabletop games.

We actually reviewed even more games this year than we did last year: 410 compared to 387. And almost 170 of those games were released this year!

By traffic, our biggest game review hits of 2023 were part of our One Shot Mysteries series: Unsolved Case Files Avery & Zoe Gardner and Unsolved Case Files | Jamie Banks. The new release in the Everdell line, Everdell Farshore, also garnered loads of traffic. Unsurprisingly our review of Heat: Pedal to the Metal zoomed to the top of our hit…

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