White Castle showed up on my Top 10 Favorite Games to Play on BGA list last week, and this little worker placement game has become something of an obsession lately. Today, I want to dig a bit deeper into what makes it such a special and truly unique worker placement game.
At its core, White Castle is a dice-driven worker placement game with a heavy focus on tight resource management and a healthy dose of engine building. In other words, it’s a pretty standard Euro game on paper. Nothing about that description should have veteran board gamers falling out of their chairs.
What’s interesting is that White Castle isn’t really the sort of game that normally lands in my wheelhouse. In fact, if you’ve spent any time reading this blog, or glanced at my Top 20 Games of All Time list, you’ll know that Euro games rarely make the cut. When one does, like Dune Imperium or Terraforming Mars, it’s usually because it has earned its keep at my table as one of the very best in the genre.
Terraforming Mars remains a gold standard for Euro games in my book. Through and through, it’s outstanding in every measurable way, the only complaint I have is I don’t play it as often as I would like to. Rich, deep, meaningful gameplay, it’s a masterpiece.
I realize that makes me sound like a bit of a board gaming snob. I promise that’s not the case. I’m perfectly capable of recognizing and appreciating a great game, Euro or otherwise, regardless of genre. It’s just that Euro games often leave me feeling a little cold. They’re usually clever, well-designed, and about as exciting as a tax spreadsheet.
When a Euro game grabs my attention, that says something. When it completely takes over my BGA play history, that says even more. White Castle has done exactly that. I genuinely believe it’s operating in the same league as the genre’s heavy hitters and deserves to be mentioned alongside some of the greats.
I’m still anxiously awaiting my physical copy, but it’s clear as day that this is a very pretty game, albeit a very busy game. I would definitely put it in the “gamers” game category.
There are two things in particular that stand out.
The first is its brilliant use of dice as communal workers that every player draws from. The second is the game’s razor-sharp efficiency. White Castle wastes absolutely nothing. Every action matters, every resource feels precious, and every turn leaves you wishing you had just one more action to pull off your master plan.
It’s a master class in game design.
The Dice Workers
Most worker placement games follow a pretty familiar formula. You have your own pool of workers, your opponents have theirs, and everyone competes for action spaces on the board. That’s the core of the mechanic and, in many games, that’s about where the story ends.
The more interesting examples tend to add something extra. Age of Empires gives players different worker types that create unique opportunities and decisions. Dune Imperium layers deck building and combat on top of its worker placement system, giving players multiple ways to approach the game and interact with one another.
That’s generally where I land on worker placement games. When the mechanic exists in isolation, I often find it a little dry. It’s not that games like Russian Railroads are bad. Far from it. They’re well-designed games with plenty of strategic depth. The problem, at least for me, is that the interaction between players often begins and ends with, “Well, you took the spot I wanted.”
I know that this is a worker placement fan favorite, but it did not fare well for me. It’s a game about railroads, yet they are barely featured in the game, and it’s just a plain, run-of-the-mill worker placement game with absolutetly nothing particularly interesting happening beyond that. It was, in a word, kind of boring.
As a result, many worker placement games start to feel a little one-dimensional over time. The better ones usually find a way to add some extra flavor, some additional layer that transforms the mechanic into something more engaging.
That’s where White Castle surprised me.
At its heart, it’s still a worker placement game. It hasn’t abandoned the formula. Instead, it takes the worker placement mechanic itself and twists it into something far more interesting through its use of communal dice.
The first thing that stands out is that the dice are shared by everyone. Just like the action spaces, the workers themselves are a limited resource. Suddenly, you’re not only competing for the spaces you want to use, but you’re also competing for the workers you want to use on them.
There are a lot of dynamics in White Castle, from the cards that make up the worker placement spots to the value of the dice, no two games are going to be the same, and there is no “base strategy” that is going to work. You really have to assess what is feasible and work with what’s on the table. It’s a new puzzle every time you play.
That alone would be clever, but White Castle goes several steps further.
Each die has three different characteristics that matter.
The first is its value. Depending on where you’re placing it, a high-value die might earn you resources (coins) while a low-value die could cost you precious coins. Sometimes the die you desperately want is also the die you can least afford.
The second is its color. Different locations on the board require different colored dice to activate, which means you’re not simply evaluating numbers. You’re evaluating colors, values, timing, resources, combos, and opportunity all at once.
Then there’s the position of the die on the bridge.
Dice on the right side generally have higher values, making them immediately attractive. Dice on the left, however, grant a secondary action that becomes increasingly valuable as the game progresses. The catch is that taking a die shifts the remaining dice along the bridge. Grab the wrong die, and you might accidentally serve up an incredible opportunity to the next player.
And that’s where White Castle starts to become fascinating.
Every decision feels loaded with consequences, for a worker placement, the interaction goes far beyond “you took my spot”.
Most mechanics are communal in White Castle, but each player does have their own player board where some of your engine-building elements are managed, including some elite spot you might, on occasion, be able to leverage.
Do you take the lower value die on the left to gain the bonus action? Can you afford the resource cost? Are you opening the door for another player to grab exactly what they need? Is there a chain of actions on the board that turns an average move into a great one?
These aren’t decisions you make once or twice during a game. They’re decisions you make every single turn.
What’s remarkable is how much depth emerges from such a simple idea. On paper, you’re just selecting a die and placing it on the board. In practice, every choice feels like a small puzzle packed with tradeoffs, risks, and opportunities.
It’s one of the most elegant worker placement systems I’ve seen in years.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this approach ends up influencing future designs. The idea of communal workers with multiple competing characteristics feels like a genuine step forward for the genre. White Castle takes one of board gaming’s oldest and most familiar mechanisms and somehow makes it feel fresh again.
I was trying to think of a game that White Castle might be compared to, and while it’s a bit of a stretch, it does remind me a little bit of The Red Cathedral.
It’s simply one of the most elegant and exciting worker placement mechanics I have seen come along in a board game in a long time, and I definitely think it’s going to become a thing. You are going to see this in a lot of worker placement games in the future. This is the next evolution of worker placement games.
Now, I should say that I don’t know that this mechanic originated in White Castle; there are tens of thousands of board games out there, so I don’t want to accidentally steal credit from someone by suggesting this is the first invention of its kind, odds are it probably isn’t. Suffice it to say, it’s the first time I have seen it in a game, and I think it’s fantastic.
The Efficiency
The other thing that makes White Castle stand out is just how unbelievably efficient the design is.
This game is tight. Not “Euro game tight.” Not “carefully balanced tight.” I’m talking about the kind of tight where every game feels like you’re attempting a speed run and constantly realizing you’re three moves away from greatness.
Most of the time, you’ll come up short somewhere. You’ll miss a resource, mistime an action, or discover that one seemingly harmless decision three turns ago has come back to haunt you. Then every once in a while, it all clicks together, and the result feels magical.
Without the expansion, you’ll take just nine actions during the entire game. Nine. That’s your whole game.
Nine opportunities to create the most efficient sequence of actions possible and somehow turn a handful of resources, workers, and bonuses into a winning score.
Despite having only 9 actions in a game, your first few play-throughs are going to feel very slow. There are a lot of interactive decisions; the depth here is pretty heavy. Once you get accustomed to the rhythm, though, this game can actually be quite fast. Analysis Paralysis however, is real in this game; people are going to get stuck.
At first, that sounds restrictive. In fact, during your first few games, it feels almost cruel. Some might bounce off the game for that reason, but stick with it because this game is so much more than what you discover on the surface. Surely nine actions can’t possibly be enough. And somehow they are.
What makes White Castle special is how many possibilities exist inside those nine actions. Every move has the potential to trigger another action, generate resources, set up future turns, or create scoring opportunities. The game constantly asks you to squeeze one more drop of value out of every decision.
It’s difficult to fully explain until you’ve experienced it yourself. White Castle is one of those rare games where you finish a session and immediately start replaying your turns in your head. Not because the game was frustrating, but because you can see the path so clearly in the aftermath. You can see where two or three tiny improvements would have transformed a good score into a great one.
That’s the mark of exceptional design.
Great game design isn’t just about knowing what to include. It’s also about knowing what to leave out. White Castle feels like a game that has been refined over and over again until every unnecessary piece was stripped away.
What’s left is a remarkably focused experience where every mechanism serves a purpose and every action matters.
It’s a design that’s elegant, balanced, and incredibly satisfying to explore.
Quite frankly, it’s a chef’s kiss.
Conclusion
I’ll be reviewing White Castle in the near future, but even before putting together a full review, I can already say this much with confidence.
This game is special.
In nearly twelve years of writing for Gamers Dungeon, very few games have seriously threatened a perfect 5 out of 5 score. In fact, only one game has ever achieved it: Blood Rage.
White Castle might just be the second. That’s not a statement I make lightly.
White Castle offers an expansion that is available on BGA called White Castle Matcha, and honestly, once you know the game and try this expansion, it will be hard to imagine playing without it. It’s one of those rare cases where it feels like this expansion probably should have been included in the base game. I didn’t think so at first, probably because I tried it too early, but it’s made me a believer!
If you’re a fan of Euro games, this should already be on your radar. If you’re a fan of worker placement games, it absolutely needs to be. White Castle takes a familiar genre and manages to make it feel fresh, challenging, and exciting again.
That’s a rare achievement.
This is one of the best worker placement games I’ve played in years.
People are always telling me that I should do more Top 10 lists. They’re a staple of the hobby, and to be fair, I used to write a lot more of them in the past. I get it, I like them too. The problem is that whenever I sit down to make one, I inevitably end up recreating some version of my annual Top 20 Games of all time list. After a while, it starts to feel less like a new article and more like I’m just changing the title and hoping nobody notices.
This year, however, I’ve spent a lot more time playing games on Board Game Arena, the digital board gaming site. If you’ve never used it and are a board game fan, you definitely should give it a go. It’s probably one of the best resources available for trying games before deciding whether they’re worth buying. The library is enormous, especially if you’re a fan of Eurogames, and there’s always something new to discover as games are added all the time.
One of the unexpected benefits of BGA is that it exposes me to games I would not ordinarily pick up and probably not otherwise ever try. Some of those games have turned out to be absolute gems. Even more interesting, certain games actually play better online than they do on the table. Some games are fiddly with endless bookkeeping, complicated scoring, or enough upkeep to qualify as a part-time job. When all of that is automated, a game can suddenly become a much smoother and more enjoyable experience online than it ever could offline.
In fact, I’ve caught myself saying, “I don’t really like that game… but I love playing it online.” Which, as strange as it sounds, I actually find to be true quite often.
So that’s exactly what this list is. These are my current 10 favorite games to play on BGA. Some of them are games I already loved, some of them surprised me, and a few are games that I enjoy far more online than I ever would around a physical table.
1. Great Western Trail
This is one of my favorite games of all time. It has appeared on my annual Best Of lists for years, and I do not expect it to disappear anytime soon. What’s interesting, however, is that unlike many of the other games on this list, this is one I actually play very often online but rarely offline. A big part of that is thanks to the excellent Board Game Arena implementation. This is a case of the game being a bit of a pain to teach, and it’s quite fiddly on the table and can be quite long. BBG kind of fixes all that for you.
It’s difficult to point to any specific mechanic in Great Western Trail that keeps pulling me back; There is a hand management element, resource management, and traditional victory point salad. Other than the way you move being a bit unique in the game, there is nothing particularly standout about the mechanics. I think it’s more of a general strategic options thing, everything put together at once. The sheer volume of strategic possibilities GW offers demands a lot of exploration; it goes quite deep. Even after 118 plays, I’m still discovering new ways to win and combo, but more often than I would like, new ways to lose.
A big part of your success in Great Western Trail is timing, landing on the right building at the right time, and doing that consistently is the puzzle and it’s not easy to unravel.
My history with the game is a little unusual. My original review was far from glowing. It took several more plays after this review before I really understood what the game was trying to do, and even longer before I truly appreciated just how brilliant it is. It is part of a very small number of games on this site that I have ever gone back on and re-reviewed.
At its core, this is a tight resource management game that rewards careful planning, efficient turns, and long-term strategic thinking. Success often comes from anticipating your opponents’ plans and finding ways to exploit the opportunities they create, an aspect of the game I adore.
My endorsement here is of the highest order!
2. White Castle
This was a relatively recent discovery for me, but wow, does this game deliver.
At its heart, White Castle is a tight worker-placement and resource-management victory-point salad game, a classic Euro formula. What makes it stand out is its shared dice pool. Players aren’t just competing for action spaces; they’re competing for the dice that power those actions as well, creating a sort of duality to the worker placement formula.
The result is a surprisingly interactive experience. Every turn feels like you’re making a multifaceted decision with significant impact both on your own position and denying opportunities to your opponents but on multiple fronts. It’s one of the more confrontational worker placement games I’ve played that doesn’t rely on cheap direct attacks or “take that” mechanics, like, for example, Lords of Waterdeep.
I love Lords of Waterdeep, but it can be a pretty mean-spirited game; getting slapped with a mandatory quest has a way of unraveling what is otherwise a pretty cordial and competitive worker placement game. I just don’t think it needed this mechanic.
What really sold me, though, is just how tight the design is. Every resource, every action, every position is part of a grand strategic design, and there is absolutetly no room for error. You literally will take 9 actions in the entire game. The game rewards careful planning, clever sequencing, and the ability to squeeze every last drop of value out of your turn. It’s the kind of game where you finish a session and immediately start thinking about what you should have done differently.
This game is challenging on several levels. The learning curve, getting your head around the strategy, unlearning all the stuff you thought was true, and then re-learning the game for real. It’s a brain buster, but absolutetly worth the effort.
In fact, this was one of the very few games I discovered on Board Game Arena that led directly to me buying a physical copy. That’s about as strong an endorsement as I can give.
If you enjoy deep, challenging worker placement games that reward smart play and punish sloppy decisions, White Castle is an absolute winner.
I should talk a bit about the expansion because this is also available on BGA. White Castle: Matcha introduces a 4th dice type and some new actions and cards that take this already pretty deep game and tight game and open it up a bit. It definitely complicates, and while I like I would not recommend it unless you’re playing this game on repeat and need something fresh. In that way, it’s a perfect expansion, as it does exactly what expansions should do: refresh a game you already like.
I’m generally very wary of expansions to games I already think are quite perfect, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In this case, however, as this game can feel pretty short with only 9 actions per player, it pushes that a bit as players get 4 actions instead of 3 per round. It remains a tight game with 12 actions in the game, but if you want more White Castle, this is the way to do. It does what it should as an expansion.
3. Shogun
Let me start with a confession.
I think Shogun is better in person, making this an exception to the general rule of this list.
In fact, if given the choice, I would almost always rather play it at a real table. The reason is simple: the dice tower.
That ridiculous contraption is one of the greatest gimmicks ever put into a board game. Every battle becomes an event. Players gather around it, cheer for impossible outcomes, groan at disasters, and generally make far more noise than any sensible adult should. It is glorious.
So yes, something is inevitably lost when you move Shogun online.
And yet, the Board Game Arena implementation is excellent.
The reason it still works so well is that beneath the spectacle, Shogun is also a fantastic strategy game. It remains one of my all-time favorites and one of the oldest titles in my collection.
So far as “Dudes On A Map” games go, this is one of my favorites. With a few exceptions, simply moving armies around and fighting is not enough for me, a war game has to have some strategic juice coming from somewhere else. In Shogun’s case, that is the action planning system, and in my humble opinion, it’s perfect.
At first glance, it looks like a straightforward dudes on a map conflict. Armies move around Japan, provinces are conquered, and players fight for territory. Simple enough, but the game is much more than that.
The twist is that, hidden beneath all that military posturing, is a surprisingly tight victory-point driven game. Scoring opportunities are limited, which means every point matters. Taking territory is important, but taking the right territory at the right moment is what actually wins games because, as the game progresses, players build point-scoring buildings in territories, dramatically increasing their value.
Then there is the action planning system. Every round, players secretly assign a whole series of actions in advance, often with incomplete information and only a rough idea of what everyone else is about to do. It is a brilliant mechanic that turns every turn into a mixture of strategy, prediction, and outright gambling, culminating in beautiful chaos.
You can devise a master plan worthy of a legendary daimyo. Or you can watch that plan collapse spectacularly because your opponent did something unexpected. Or because the dice tower decided it was feeling particularly mischievous that day. Probably both.
The combination of area control, hidden planning, resource management, and unpredictable battles creates a game that is constantly generating memorable stories. It is strategic enough to reward careful planning, chaotic enough to keep players humble, and interactive enough that nobody ever feels like they are playing a multiplayer solitaire game.
Shogun is one of those rare games that has stood the test of time for a reason. If you have never played it, you should. If you enjoy area control games, you should probably own it.
And if your gaming shelf currently contains Risk because you wanted a conquest, dudes on a map game, I would argue that Shogun is superior in every measurable way and solves that need far more elegantly.
4. Knarr
Knarr is one of those games that seemed to slip past a lot of people when it was released, myself included. It’s a shame because it’s a bonefied hidden gem and smash hit as far as I’m concerned.
Mechanically, it’s a straightforward tableau-based, card-driven engine builder wrapped up in a race for victory points. On paper, there isn’t a lot going on here, mechanically it’s simple and streamlined. In practice, however, the game offers far more strategic depth than its light rules would suggest.
One of the things I love most about Knarr is that it’s sort of a risk vs. reward style game when it comes to your strategy. Your options are to go for the slow burn and explosive end, hoping you will get to execute that final big turn for the win, or you race to finish to outpace people building proper engines, creating pressure on everyone. Once you commit to a path, you are largely along for the ride. The game is simply too short to completely change direction halfway through, so success often comes down to reading the table, spotting opportunities, and trusting your instincts in the early game.
Knarr is a fast-moving game, but whatever your strategy is in any given game, one thing that makes or breaks you is getting the right combination of trade routes and being able to execute them regularly. This requires a lot of planning and a bit of luck.
There is certainly a bit of luck involved. You can’t control what cards will appear, and part of the challenge is figuring out how to make the best use of whatever opportunities are currently available. The best players are not necessarily the ones with the perfect plan, but the ones who can adapt when the cards refuse to cooperate. Reading people’s options is also fairly important here.
Perhaps the biggest compliment I can give Knarr is that one game is rarely enough. Whenever my regular online group plays a round, it’s rare that someone doesn’t immediately demand a rematch. It’s addictive, occasionally frustrating, and consistently entertaining. This is a game that will keep your gaming group up late every time. I’ve had many painful mornings because of this one.
Knarr went straight from Board Game Arena to my shopping cart. It’s easy to learn, easy to teach, accessible enough for newer players, and still offers plenty of depth for experienced gamers. The expansion adds a lot to the game; if you get a chance to grab it, it’s a no-brainer.
An outstanding game and one that deserves far more attention than it’s gotten since its release.
5. Middle Ages
I should probably begin this entry with a disclaimer. I have only played Middle Ages three four times.
As a result, its appearance on this list may be a little premature. There is every possibility that six months from now I will discover some fatal flaw and wonder what I was thinking.
That said, based on what I have seen so far, I really like it.
What immediately stands out is how unique the game feels; it’s not a mechanic I have seen before. There are plenty of games that ask players to plan ahead, but Middle Ages builds its entire identity around that concept.
The core mechanic is a bit odd, but ultimately fairly simple. Each round, you choose the action you will perform next round while simultaneously resolving the action you selected during the previous round. The action you choose next round will determine the turn order and will determine which building you put into play, how you score, and what special action you can take. You can see what buildings will be available 4 rounds in advance. The trick to the entire game is knowing how to navigate a clean path that yields the most victory points through building combinations by predicting what your opponents are going to do and what will be available on your turn. Do that well consistently and you are going to wint his game.
If that explanation sounds confusing, it’s because it is, and this game will seem very complex the first time you play it. It’s really not; that impression fades quickly.
One of the tricky parts about Middle Ages is that it will punish you severely for not having a building of each type (each missing building is -10 points), so whatever your strategy is, it has to include completing your medieval town, else you’re kind of screwed.
In fact, learning and teaching the game is probably harder than actually playing it. I remember being thoroughly confused the first time I sat down with it. Thankfully, once you get over that first game hump, everything clicks surprisingly quickly. Beneath the awkward explanation lies a remarkably straightforward game.
The real magic comes from the timing.
Many of the actions are surprisingly confrontational, creating plenty of opportunities to disrupt plans, steal opportunities, and generally make life difficult for everyone else at the table. It creates a wonderfully dynamic experience where long-term planning is important, but short-term flexibility is equally valuable.
Of course, if everyone else is trying to do the same thing, things can get delightfully messy. Which is where much of the fun comes from.
Four games is hardly enough time to form a definitive opinion, but Middle Ages has already made a strong impression on me. It is clever, interactive, surprisingly tense, and refreshingly different from many of the other games currently making the rounds.
Ask me again after ten more plays…but yeah, for now, I think it’s good.
6. The Castles of Burgundy
This is another game that firmly belongs in my “great on Board Game Arena, probably not for my collection” category.
The Castles of Burgundy hardly needs an introduction. For more than a decade, board gamers have been singing its praises from every rooftop available. It remains one of the hobby’s most celebrated Eurogames and continues to sit comfortably among the highest-ranked games of all time on BoardGameGeek.
To be fair, I completely understand why.
In Castles of Burgundy, it’s not just about building that perfect hex board, but doing it in a timely fashion. When you do stuff often matters a lot more than what you do.
The game is incredibly clever. Every turn presents you with a simple challenge: here are your dice, now figure out something smart to do with them. It sounds straightforward, but the sheer number of options available creates a deeply satisfying puzzle, and a puzzle is exactly what this game is.
Unlike certain other famous dice games (fuck you Catan!) that I could happily launch into the sun, The Castles of Burgundy never feels like it is actively trying to ruin your day. Yes, the dice can be frustrating. They will occasionally betray you. They will occasionally mock you. But the game gives you plenty of tools to manipulate results, mitigate bad luck, and salvage a plan that has gone horribly wrong.
I’m not saying that Catan is a bad game; its popularity is clearly established. I’m just saying, “please trade with me so I can win” is a stupid concept, as is any game where you roll dice to get resources. Combined, I find the game annoying to play.
Success comes from finding opportunities, building combinations, and squeezing as much value as possible from every action. Like any great point salad game, there are dozens of paths to victory and just as many opportunities to accidentally wander off a cliff.
What I find particularly amusing is that, despite genuinely enjoying the game, I have yet to finish anywhere other than last place.
Normally, that would be a warning sign. Instead, I find myself wanting to play more.
Every loss feels less like a defeat and more like a challenge. Somewhere inside this elegant machine is a strategy that works. Other players seem capable of finding it with alarming consistency. One day, I intend to join them.
Until then, while I’m late to the party, The Castles of Burgundy remains a great BGA discovery. I’m not sure I will ever own a copy, but I can fully understand why people love this game.
It vexes me.
And I shall prevail.
7. Beyond The Sun
Beyond The Sun is another game on this list that falls firmly into the “I keep playing it because I find it fascinating” category, but I doubt I would ever buy it.
Whether I actually love it or not remains an open question.
What I can say with confidence is that it is… interesting in an academic, connoisseur of board games kind of way.
The best way I can describe Beyond The Sun is that it feels like two only vaguely related games somehow got stitched together and, against all odds, the result actually works.
On one side of the board, players compete over a sprawling technology tree through a worker placement system. Researching new technologies unlocks powerful abilities, creating entirely new worker placement spaces that only the player who discovered them can use. Much of your overall strategy is shaped by how you navigate this constantly evolving network of technologies.
On the other side of the board, there is a surprisingly aggressive little space conquest game taking place. Fleets move around the galaxy, players compete for influence, and planets are eventually colonized for valuable rewards and endgame objectives.
What makes it all work is that both halves of the game share the same economy. The actions you take on the technology board fuel your expansion efforts in space, while success in space provides resources and opportunities that feed back into your technological development.
This game looks super fiddly to me, I suspect that playing it on BGA is probobly takes considerably less time to play, which is the case with most games, but the fiddlier it is, the more valuable a BGA implementation becomes.
The whole experience feels like an enormous efficiency puzzle.
There is player interaction. In fact, the space board can become downright hostile at times. Yet somehow, despite ships moving around and players competing for territory, most of your attention remains focused on optimizing your own engine and finding the most efficient sequence of actions possible.
That contrast is part of what makes the game so interesting. It feels interactive without being overly confrontational. Competitive without being particularly emotional.
And fascinating throughout.
The funny thing is that I am still not entirely sure whether I would call Beyond The Sun “fun.” I know that sounds absurd, given the amount of time I have spent playing it, but there is a difference between enjoying something and being intellectually captivated by it.
Beyond The Sun falls into that second category for me.
Every game leaves me wanting to explore a different technology path, try a different strategy, or see how another combination of systems might unfold. It is the kind of design that keeps provoking questions long after the game is over.
That curiosity alone has earned it a place on this list. I don’t know if I would recommend it as a purchase, but on BGA you should definitely try it, especially if you have an academic curiosity about board game design.
8. Aquatica
Aquatica occupies a similar space on this list as Beyond The Sun, an academic curiosity more than a fun game.
I am not entirely convinced that I love it. I am not even completely convinced that I would describe it as fun or even a good game.
And yet, I keep playing it.
That probably sounds like a terrible endorsement, but hear me out.
Again, as a self-proclaimed connoisseur of board game design, I find Aquatica fascinating. There is something about its unusual approach to engine building that continues to pull me back in. I have logged over a dozen games so far, and I am still trying to fully wrap my head around what makes it tick.
At its core, Aquatica is a tableau-building card game where players are constantly trying to create temporary engines from whatever cards happen to be available at the time. The experience feels less like constructing a finely tuned machine and more like creating temporary boosts that you hope will have a domino effect.
This is a very pretty game; the artwork is fantastic. It may ultimately become the reason I want a real copy.
I think that is the unique spark here that your tableau, the cards you buy, is a temporary resource in your engine. Unlike many engine builders, where you gradually assemble a powerful machine that produces increasing returns throughout the game, Aquatica lets you use a resource once, and then you kind of have to start over. Your engine is constantly changing shape, firing off effects, collapsing, and being rebuilt into something entirely different.
The result is a game that feels surprisingly dynamic. Every turn becomes a puzzle involving the cards in your hand, the cards available for purchase, and the opportunities hidden within your tableau. Plans rarely survive intact for very long, and adaptation is often more important than execution. Other players can also alter the board state in front of you, which creates another uncontrolled layer to the puzzle.
It is a strange design that sort of skirts expectations.
One thing I have heard repeatedly, although I cannot personally verify it, is that Aquatica can be somewhat fiddly when played physically. If true, it is exactly the sort of game that benefits enormously from Board Game Arena handling all the bookkeeping behind the scenes. Though I have to say this is not the best interface on BGA, it can be a bit fiddly here as well.
Whether Aquatica ultimately becomes a favorite of mine remains to be seen. What I can say is that very few games have managed to keep me this curious after so many plays.
That alone makes it worth trying.
Give it a shot. It might not capture your imagination the way it has captured mine, but if it does, do not be surprised if you find yourself queueing up “just one more game” while trying to figure out what on earth makes it so compelling.
9. Harmonies
Harmonies is a perfect example of a game I would never buy, but am more than happy to play on Board Game Arena.
That is not a criticism of the game. Quite the opposite, actually. Harmonies is an excellent design. The reality is simply that it lives well outside my usual gaming preferences. An abstract puzzle game about building habitats for animals is not exactly the sort of thing that normally finds its way onto my shelf.
More importantly, I know my gaming group.
If I brought Harmonies to game night, everyone would give it a fair shot. We would play a game, nod appreciatively, make a few comments about how clever it is, and then immediately return to conquering empires, managing medieval economies, or fighting over cubes. The game would quietly disappear into the collection and never see daylight again.
Board Game Arena changes that completely.
Online, Harmonies becomes the perfect middle-weight filler game. It is quick, engaging, easy to set up, and delivers just the right amount of brain burn without demanding an entire evening. It is the kind of game I am always happy to squeeze in between heavier titles.
If it looks puzzly, believe it, it is very puzzly; it should come with a warning label, because this game will melt your brain.
The gameplay itself is wonderfully clever. Players build habitats using colorful terrain pieces while drafting animal cards that reward specific patterns and arrangements. Every turn feels like a small puzzle, with multiple competing priorities fighting for space on your board. There are animal objectives to complete, bonus scoring opportunities to chase, and just enough point salad sprinkled throughout to keep you second-guessing every placement.
It is thoughtful, satisfying, occasionally frustrating, and surprisingly addictive. The kind of game that makes your brain hurt just enough to remind you that you are having fun.
I may never own Harmonies, but I am always happy to see it hit the virtual table.
10. Lost Ruins of Arnak
I feel obligated to include Lost Ruins of Arnak on this list. I am doing so under protest.
Let’s get this out of the way immediately: it is a good game. In fact, it is probably a very good game. The design is clever, the decisions are meaningful, and there is clearly a tremendous amount of depth hiding beneath its relatively approachable exterior.
The problem is that Lost Ruins of Arnak and I are currently involved in a bitter personal feud. After eighteen plays, I have yet to win a game.
Not only have I failed to win, but I have rarely come close. At this point, I am less an explorer searching for ancient ruins and more an archaeologist excavating the remains of my own shattered confidence.
I’ve heard the claim that this game is like Dune Imperium, and while I can see why people might say that, it’s not nearly as streamlined, and this has a far bigger learning curve.
What makes this particularly frustrating is that the game does not appear especially complicated or novel.
Mechanically, Arnak is built from familiar ingredients. There is deck building. There is worker placement. There are tracks to move up. There is resource management. None of these concepts are new, and individually they are all things I understand perfectly well.
Yet somehow, when combined together, they form a mysterious puzzle box that my brain simply refuses to open.
I watch other players effortlessly chain actions together, convert resources into other resources, advance research tracks, discover sites, recruit assistants, and somehow continue taking turns long after I have passed and started questioning my life choices.
Most of the time I don’t even understand how I lost. I simply know that at the end of the game everyone else has more points than I do.
Repeatedly.
To be fair, I completely understand why Arnak has such a devoted following. It is one of the most celebrated games of the last several years, and an incredibly polished design. Every mechanism feels carefully crafted and intentionally connected to the others. It is easy to see why so many people consider it a modern classic.
I just happen to be standing outside the secret clubhouse, pressing my face against the window and wondering what everyone else is so excited about.
Eventually, I will return. I will once again venture into the jungle. I will once again attempt to decipher its mysteries.
And perhaps one day I will finally discover the ancient secret that allows a player to score points.
Until then, Lost Ruins of Arnak sits at the bottom of this list as punishment for being naughty and refusing to let me win.
Finspan is the third entry in the growing and rather oddly named “Span” series, following award-winning Wingspan and the more fantasy-leaning and complex Wyrmspan. This time, instead of birds or dragons, the focus shifts underwater to diving and collecting fish.
Before getting into it, a bit of transparency. I came into this review without any real attachment to the series. I had not played Wingspan or Wyrmspan beforehand, so I am not coming at this as a long-time fan or someone already invested in what these games are trying to do. For me it’s a new game and a first go at the series, open mind, no preconceived notions.
That said, I did spend some time with Wingspan while preparing this review. I felt it was important to have that point of comparison, a bit of context for this review, as clearly, fans of Wingspans are going to be eyeing this one. If I were to summarize that experience, I think the best review I could give it is that it left me…. wanting. I will talk a little bit about why that is later in this review, as we make some comparisons between Wingspan and Finspan.
Wingspan was a runaway hit in 2019, winning a laundry list of awards and rising to the status of “classic” in a short span of 5 years. (no pun intended). It is a bona fide success story in the world of board games and continues to be one of the most talked-about and often played games in the hobby.
Finspan, however, is where things get interesting, albeit only slightly. While Wingspan and Finspan share a lot of the same core ideas and structure, they do not necessarily deliver the same experience. For better or worse, Finspan is a much simpler game, focused on being a kind of more accessible version of Wingspan with its own unique theme, and this is quite obvious from the onset. In fact, it could arguably earn the label of a gateway game were it not for a couple of quirky elements.
There are, however, other more subtle differences beyond the simplified gameplay and approachability of the game; the most notable thing that stood out to me is why Finspan is not just simply a 2-player version of Wingspan with a different theme. I can’t stress how different the experience is between a 2-player game and a 3+ player game.
I think the strangest thing about my experience with Finspan is how vastly worse the game got with more players. My initial experiences with the game were a two-player affair, and I have to admit, while the game was simple and a little outside of my genre preference, I still enjoyed it. It was a pretty quick, fun little engine builder and victory point salad with a charming theme and colorful components. It was… simply put, kind of fun.
Then I tried Finspan with 4 players, and it was like being run over by an ice cream truck. I like ice cream, just not from this angle. It was a dismal slog that overstayed its welcome by nearly an hour, and there was quite literally no payoff to it, not just because there is virtually no interaction between players, but there was a ton of downtime, and it swallowed up a stupid amount of table space. It was just outright boring and slow.
One thing I can say is that when playing Finspan, due largely to the lack of interaction between players, one way you can expedite a game with more players like this would be to just have everyone do their turns simultaneously. Rarely will anything anyone does on their turn affect you, so there is no logical reason why you couldn’t do this.
That contrast is difficult to review because I want to tell you that I really like Finspan, my daughter and I have played it several times, we had a lot of fun, and it continues to hit the table long after my obligation to write this review ended. That said, there is absolutetly no way I will ever play this game with more than 2 players again, because that was a truly painful experience. So does that make Finspan a good game or a bad one? It’s tricky.
I think to tackle this review, we have to answer some questions here to put things into context. Does Finspan stand on its own within this series? Is it different enough to justify a place alongside the other games? And perhaps more importantly, who is it really for?
Spoiler alert! While Finspan does look a bit complicated in a screenshot like this, the reality is, it’s mechanically a fairly simple game, something you can teach to just about anyone.
Today, we sort all that out. Let’s get into it!
Overview
Final Score: (3.05) Good Game!
The first thing that struck me about Finspan was how bold and vibrant it looks on the table. The colors really pop, and once everything is laid out, the game becomes a genuine visual feast. It immediately made a stronger impression on me than Wingspan ever did in that regard.
Bright, colorful, beautiful! The importance and impact of eye candy as a part of a game’s appeal should not be underestimated. Finspan sticks the landing here without question.
Now, to be fair, I do enjoy fishing as a hobby, so I was naturally more drawn to the theme here than Wingspan’s birds. Drawing a fish card you have caught and eaten before adds a kind of charm to the experience. There is also the fact that my experience with Wingspan was digital, played on Board Game Arena, which I personally think is not a great way to get the right first impression of a tabletop board game, while Finspan was played physically at the table. That difference alone likely plays a role in how each game landed for me. Fortunately, I’m not here to review Wingspan; we are here to talk about Finspan, and while I think a comparison is a valid addition to a review in a game in a series, I don’t think it matters how much I did or didn’t like Wingspan.
In Finspan, each round you take one of two actions. Either you play a fish card from your hand into your player board or you go diving down one of three columns representing, I guess, different types of dives (reef, coast, and open ocean?).
When you play a fish card, you typically get a one-time “when played effect,” or you get an ability you will activate each time you make a dive in the zone that the fish is in.
Additionally, each fish is worth a certain amount of points and has a wide range of potential attributes that are sort of collected for certain types of scoring opportunities that are available each round of play.
When you dive, you activate all the fish in the column that you activated, gaining various rewards like drawing cards, laying fish eggs, and stuff like that. All the little point scoring levers.
There are, of course, a few other little auxiliary things to the game, but that is more or less the gist of it. A lot of this probably sounds very familiar to Wingspan players because it’s mostly the same routine.
Beyond the much-improved presentation, Finspan felt noticeably smoother to play than Wingspan. The game is more streamlined and easier to grasp, both when learning it yourself and when teaching it to others. It takes several of the core ideas from Wingspan, trims away some of what I feel were rough edges, and presents them in a cleaner, more efficient way. The result is a game that flows better and gets out of its own way. Perhaps more accurately, the game is a lot more newbie-friendly, being the lightest variant in the series.
That said, like Wingspan, Finspan is a very solitary experience. While there are occasional moments where another player’s action might give you a small incidental benefit, there is little reason to pay close attention to what others are doing. For the most part, you are focused entirely on your own board, your own cards, and your own engine.
For me, this is probably the game’s biggest weakness, especially when playing with more than one other player. Player interaction is extremely limited, but the downtime and the length of the game increase dramatically with each added player.
At three to five players, it often feels like you are playing a solo game where you simply wait for others to take their turns, even though what they do has no impact on your own decisions.
That may not be a flaw for everyone, though. In fact, I suspect this is exactly what fans of Wingspan enjoy. Finspan delivers that same kind of energy, a quiet race to build the most efficient engine and score the most points. As a 2-player game, a race to victory points like this, where you have quick back-and-forth uninteractive turns, makes sense, but in a 3 or 4 player game, it’s just painful waiting for your turn.
I recently discovered White Castle, an amazing worker placement game that utilizes dice, and this is exactly the sort of interaction-based victory point salad I’m talking about. This game has tension, moves, and counter moves; it’s a race, and it’s super tight. This is one of those games where something someone else did on the board can ruin your day or open an opportunity that might end up winning you the game. I love that kind of tense exchange.
Despite the simplicity of the actions you can take on your turn, the game offers a fair amount of depth as a puzzle. There is a huge variety of fish (cards), each with unique powers that create lots of interesting engine puzzles to solve. Figuring out how to make the most of what you are given is where the game finds its replay value; it’s a very addictive and repeatable experience.
One area where Finspan clearly improves on Wingspan is resource management. Wingspan uses a dice tower as a shared pool of food, which introduces a level of randomness that can feel out of place in an otherwise controlled system. Finspan shifts the focus to cards as your primary resource (discarding cards to play other cards), which reduces both luck and downtime. It becomes more about planning and decision making, and less about hoping for the right roll.
In Wingspan, I thought the dice tower, while cool aesthetically, was the weakest part of the game. The impact of randomized resources really shifts Wingspan from a deterministic strategy game to a bit of a gamble. I wasn’t a fan of it at all.
I prefer games with more interaction, a bit of tension, and at least some level of confrontation. When I sit down for a board game night, I want a reason to react to what the people around the table are doing. Finspan, for all its strengths, leans more toward a personal puzzle than a shared experience. That lack of impact of other players being at the table with you weakens the experience a great deal for me, especially in larger player counts.
Bottom line is that it’s an engine-building victory point salad game, with minimal interaction and zero confrontation. Because it’s easy to learn and teach, being a much lighter game than Wingspan, it’s kind of a perfect introduction to the series and a great introduction to board games in general.
Components
Score: Tilt:
Pros: Bright, colorful, and altogether a visual feast. Great rulebooks!
Cons: With larger player counts, this game takes up a lot of relestate
Finspan is a very pretty game. It looks fantastic on the table, and the components, especially the iconography, are exceptionally well executed. As a whole, it is a pleasure to lay out and play with.
I am a bit of a stickler when it comes to iconography. When done well, it is far superior to heavy text, making games faster to learn and easier to read at a glance. That said, there is definitely a tipping point where too much iconography becomes overwhelming. A perfect example is Race for the Galaxy, which remains one of my least favorite games to teach for exactly that reason.
Fortunately, Finspan finds the right balance. The iconography does a lot of the heavy lifting, but never feels cluttered or confusing. It makes learning and teaching the game remarkably smooth, supported by a rulebook that is clear, concise, and refreshingly easy to follow. I can comfortably teach this game in about five minutes and have everyone up and running without any friction.
Iconography can be a curse or a blessing. I really love playing Race For The Galaxy, but teaching it is a nightmare, and overkill on iconography is the root cause. Once you get it, it’s fantastic, but if you want to play it with me, watch a YouTube video!
My biggest gripe with this game’s components is their size; again, this applies only to games with more than 2-players, but the amount of table space it takes up is kind of insane. I shit you not to play this 5-player game; you will need about as much room as you would need for a 6-player Twilight Imperium game. I assure you, most people do not have a big enough table to play this game with a full player count. I’m not sure how this didn’t come up during play testing.
I’m not sure “taking up too much space,” however, is a rating-reducing offense. For the most part, this game is beautiful, as a gamer, that counts for a lot in my book.
Theme
Score: Tilt:
Pros: While marine enthusiasts and divers might not agree, I think Finspan nails a fun, gratifying fishy theme
Cons: The enthusiasm for the theme gets dragged down by larger player counts.
I was not expecting Finspan to be particularly thematic when I opened the box, and I am still not entirely convinced that it is in the traditional sense. That said, there is a certain charm to it that just works.
Every card represents a unique fish, and that alone gives the game a subtle collectible feel. Playing them onto your board and then activating them as you dive adds a layer of satisfaction that is hard to fully explain, but easy to appreciate once you are in it.
When it comes to theme, Finspan sticks the landing like an Olympic gymnast; I’m not sure how you would improve it, considering the subject matter, but it’s fair to say I’m no expert in diving or fish, so I’m speaking mostly to the aesthetic.
Whether that qualifies as “thematic” is up for debate. I am no expert on diving or marine life, but the combination of the theme and the simple, approachable gameplay creates an experience that feels cohesive and inviting.
This is also the kind of game I could comfortably put in front of non-boardgamers without much hesitation. It is easy to grasp, visually appealing, and does not come with the usual baggage that might scare people off. It feels like a family game, though probably best suited for a smaller group.
That is really where the theme feels strongest. At two players, and to a lesser extent three, the rhythm of drawing cards, diving, and scoring points flows nicely. The game moves at a pace where the experience feels engaging, and before anything becomes repetitive, you are already wrapping up and counting points.
Once you push beyond that player count, the experience starts to lose some of that charm. Drawing a card and being excited about the fish you got kind of loses its luster when you’re doing it once every ten minutes. The pacing slows so much at higher player counts that whatever thematic immersion the game builds begins to fade.
So yes, I would say Finspan does deliver a thematic experience, but much like other aspects of the game, it works best at two players, maybe three. Beyond that, the magic starts to slip away.
Gameplay
Score: Tilt:
Pros: Solid, easy to learn and teach engine builder with a very streamlined and satisfying game loop.
Cons: Lacks meaningful interaction and is an absolute drag at larger player counts.
Finspan does several things that I think are genuinely clever, but three elements in particular stand out as major improvements over the original concept established by Wingspan. Now, I have not played Wyrmspan, so I cannot say how much of that game carries over here, but it is very clear to me that Finspan aims to be a more streamlined and accessible version of the same core design philosophy, and for the most part, I think it succeeds.
After trying Finspan and seeing some potential in the series, despite my less-than-stellar experience with Wingspan, I think Wyrmspan is worth a go. Who doesn’t love dragons?!
The first thing that stands out is the sheer variety of beautifully illustrated fish cards. Every fish feels distinct, and there are countless combinations and strategic uses for them. Building your engine by carefully adding fish to your board is consistently satisfying, and watching those synergies come together is where much of the game’s appeal lives.
I would actually argue that Finspan handles this far better than Wingspan. The strategic role of each card is more intuitive and immediately understandable. You can glance at a fish and quickly grasp what it is trying to accomplish, both the short-term boost and how it fits into a long-term strategy. Wingspan’s cards are not necessarily more complicated, but I often found their place within the broader strategy less obvious and harder to piece together naturally. Admittedly, my experience with Wingspan is limited, but when playing Finspan, it was so obvious and easy to decode that it all just felt more intuitive. I did not have that experience with Wingspan.
The second major improvement is resource management. Finspan feels far more deterministic, which makes it feel like a strategy game first and a gamble second.
I do not mind randomness in games when it creates tension or memorable moments, but my experience with Wingspan was that the randomness often blocked me from executing the strategy I actually wanted to pursue. The dice tower resource system felt clumsy to me because the unpredictability existed in the worst possible place, resource generation itself. It constantly interrupted planning. It reminded me a little too much of Catan, and that is not a compliment coming from me.
I love dice towers, I’m using the word love here! But it has to be executed in a way that doesn’t undermine the game’s core decision-making. In Dirk Henn’s Shogun, the dice tower is used to determine who wins the fight. It’s used at a time when all of your strategy and planning is already in place; now it’s time to see if it works. That’s exciting, it’s fun. Rolling a die to see if you get the resources you need to execute a strategy you want is less strategy and more gambling. I just don’t think it works in Wingspan.
Finspan handles this much better. Your cards and your board effectively become your resources, and there is far less randomness interfering with your plans. You are making deliberate decisions instead of simply hoping things line up correctly. When your strategy works, it feels earned. It feels like good planning rather than good luck.
The third improvement is how the game handles scoring objectives and long-term planning. In Wingspan, I often felt that bonus objectives came down to luck. You could not reliably plan around them because card access and resource access were too inconsistent. Even when you got the cards you wanted, you still had to hope the resource system cooperated enough to let you actually play them in time for it to matter.
In Finspan, those same goals feel much more achievable and controllable. The bonus objectives are clearer, more direct, and easier to intentionally build toward. Because the game gives you greater control over your resources and a wider range of useful card options, planning ahead becomes far more rewarding. You are rarely forced into awkward short-term plays simply to chase points. Instead, your decisions feel connected to a broader strategy.
While fish cards score their share of points, one of the primary ways you are going to dramatically increase your score is by completing the weekly objectives (each round). This is a key to the game, and it’s what you are building your engine for primarily.
From beginning to end, Finspan simply feels more like a true strategy game than Wingspan ever did to me.
That was a lot of comparison, though, so let’s talk about Finspan on its own terms.
One of the game’s greatest strengths is its streamlined gameplay loop. On your turn, you are essentially making one of two choices: play a fish card or go diving, a strength it shares with the rest of the series. I love it when games with genuine strategic depth keep their core actions simple and easy to understand. It allows new players to grasp the structure quickly and start thinking about meaningful decisions almost immediately.
Finspan excels here. It is lightweight, approachable, and easy to teach, but those two simple actions create a surprising amount of depth over the course of the game. The pacing feels clean and efficient, and mechanically, I think the game absolutely sticks the landing.
That said, I have already touched on what I see as the game’s biggest issue, the lack of interaction between players. At two players, I find this much easier to tolerate because the game moves quickly enough to maintain momentum. But even then, what other players do on their turns rarely matters to you in any meaningful way.
The bigger issue is not just the lack of interaction, but the inability to affect another player’s progress at all. If someone builds a stronger engine than you, there is essentially nothing you can do about it. You cannot interfere, slow them down, block them, react, or force them to adapt. Everyone is simply building their own machine in parallel.
Because of that, playing with other people often feels functionally identical to playing solo, only slower. That is probably my biggest criticism of the game because it undermines some of the excitement generated by the otherwise excellent engine-building mechanics.
I also found the game strangely lacking in tension. Since scoring is mostly hidden until the end, you rarely have a sense of whether you are winning or losing during play. Combined with the lack of player interaction, the entire experience can feel a little too gentle and detached for my tastes.
Hidden scoring, I think, in general, is a bad idea in all games. Seeing the numbers go up is not only satisfying but also creates a natural tension between the players. In a game with so little interaction, having a score tracker on the board was one place the game could have benefited greatly.
That alone is not enough to keep the game off my table. I still enjoyed Finspan, and I do not mind playing it. But when I compare it to other games in the same general space, games with similar complexity and strategic depth that also include meaningful interaction, Finspan struggles to stand out for me personally.
At the end of the day, I think Finspan is a good game. In many ways, it is a very smartly designed game. It just never fully grabbed me because the experience feels so isolated. The mechanics themselves are solid, often excellent even, but the lack of interaction keeps the game from reaching the next level, resulting in a kind of average Euro.
Replayability and Longevity
Score: Tilt:
Pros: As a 2-player joust, it feels quick and dynamic, with plenty of strategies to explore.
Cons: This is a solo game you can play around the same table; there is so little interaction that there is no reason to play this in turn order.
This was probably the hardest category for me to judge when it comes to Finspan.
On one hand, the game taps into a very satisfying formula. There is that familiar rhythm of drawing cards, getting them into play, and watching your engine slowly come together and generate points. It is a system that is undeniably compelling, no doubt, while Wingspan is so popular. Many of my favorite games follow this variation on this pattern, and I have played some of them so much that I have quite literally worn out the components.
The difference between those games and Finspan is that those games usually include some level of interaction. Whether it is indirect pressure through shared spaces, like in worker placement, or more direct forms of disruption, other players create tension. They force you to adapt, rethink, and respond; they threaten your engine and your plan. Without that, a lot of the long-term appeal starts to fade.
With more solitary engine builders like Finspan, I tend to feel that the game gets “solved” over time. Even with variability from card draw, there is nothing actively pushing back against your strategy. No one is getting in your way, no one is forcing you off your plan. And for me, simply chasing a higher score, even with solid play like this, is not always enough to keep me engaged once the novelty wears off.
That said, I have seen the other side of this, probably something akin to what is happening with Wingspan in the wider community. My daughter really enjoys Finspan and regularly asks to play it. From her perspective, the lack of interaction does not seem to matter at all. She is fully engaged in building her own board and improving her score, and that is enough.
Finspan, I think, would have done much better as a two-player game, especially if you added some interaction between players with card selection and competition for point scoring, akin to something like 7 Wonder Duel. Trying to turn Finspan into a 4-5 player game, I think, was a bad idea; it’s clearly not a good fit for that.
My point here is that whether or not this game has staying power, that all-important replayability is not inherently a problem for this game. This puzzle has many functioning solutions, and it’s sufficiently dynamic for each game to be a unique experience. The absence of interaction, that’s a matter of preference as to whether or not that kills it for you. I recognize that my view, that a lack of interaction and contention hurts replayability, is not shared by everyone. In fact, quite to the contrary, Wingspan is proof of that. It remains hugely popular and widely loved.
For that reason, I do not see any obvious barrier to Finspan having strong replay value for the right audience. It may not be my personal preference, but if you enjoy this kind of low-interaction, engine-building experience, there is no reason to think Finspan would not hold up over time any more or less than Wingspan has. There is plenty of mechanical depth to explore a wide range of strategies, and it has the advantage of being an easier game to get into.
Conclusion
Finspan is a bit of a quandary for me. I genuinely like it, and I do think it is a good game, but it falls firmly into that category of “good, but flawed.”
The good is easy to identify. The game is simple, mechanically polished, visually appealing, and genuinely enjoyable to play. It is streamlined without feeling shallow, approachable without feeling dull, and there is a satisfying rhythm to building your engine and watching it come together over the course of a session.
The flaw, at least for me, is the near-complete absence of player interaction. In a board game, I personally want tension at the table. I want players affecting each other’s plans, forcing reactions, creating moments of triumph and frustration. That push and pull is a huge part of what makes board games exciting to me.
At the same time, I recognize that this is ultimately a matter of taste rather than an objective design failure. A lot of players don’t want confrontation in their games. They don’t want their plans disrupted or their strategies blocked. The very things I see as essential to a great board game are, for many people, the exact things they try to avoid.
So while I have to judge Finspan by my own standards, because this is my review and not a committee decision, I also understand why games like this resonate so strongly with such a large audience. This is not a problem unique to Finspan either. I often feel this same disconnect with many highly regarded Euro games.
At the start of this review, I asked three important questions, and I think now is the right time to answer them directly.
Does Finspan stand on its own within this series?
Absolutely. In fact, I think Finspan is probably the best entry point into the Span series. It feels like the most approachable and newcomer-friendly version of the formula. If you enjoy Finspan, there is a good chance Wingspan or Wyrmspan will appeal to you as deeper and more complex variations on the same core ideas. If Finspan does not work for you, I am not convinced the others will change your mind.
Is it different enough to justify a place alongside the other games?
I definitely think so. In fact, I suspect many Wingspan fans may actually prefer Finspan’s more deterministic style of strategy. The cleaner resource management and more controlled gameplay give it a very different feel, even if the foundation is familiar. I see no reason why Wingspan and Finspan cannot comfortably exist on the same shelf, and for some players, I could easily see Finspan replacing Wingspan entirely. Personally, I think it is the stronger game.
Who is it really for?
Unsurprisingly, Finspan is clearly aimed at fans of Wingspan and Wyrmspan, but I do not think that is where its audience ends. I think Finspan works very well as a light, accessible Euro game that requires no prior knowledge of the series at all.
It’s easy to teach, easy to learn, visually inviting, and mechanically satisfying. While I personally find the lack of interaction holds it back, I suspect that will not be a major issue for the audience this game is targeting. If anything, that relaxed and low-pressure style may be exactly why so many people will enjoy it.
At the end of the day, I think Finspan is a fun game. More importantly, my daughter enjoys it, and honestly, that alone probably guarantees it a permanent place on the shelf. Any game you can get to the table and entertain people with is a good game, and Finspan definitely falls into that category.
When Dewan first landed on my table, my eyes didn’t go to the rulebook, the components, or even the promise of gameplay. They went straight to that absolutely mesmerizing cover art by Arthus Pilorget. It’s surreal, vibrant, and just the right kind of strange, like a dream you can’t quite explain but don’t want to wake up from. There’s an immediate sense of identity here, a bold, artistic swagger that practically demands your attention. And yeah… I love it.
Beneath that dazzling, slightly offbeat exterior lies something far more restrained: a deeply abstract puzzle game. There’s nothing wrong with that, far from it, but when the art sets the stage this dramatically, part of you can’t help but expect something equally theatrical underneath. Maybe that’s unfair. Maybe that’s just the spell the artwork casts. Either way, I always like to capture my raw, first impression, the unfiltered “wow” before the mechanics settle in. So yes, let the record show: very cool art.
Anyway, enough gawking, consider me thoroughly impressed, and let’s dive in.
I feel compelled to put this piece on my blog; it really defines the term, artwork! Anyone who says that A.I. will replace artists is kidding themselves, a machine can copy it, but nothing like this will ever originate from a machine, no matter how much we invest in them.
Dewan sits comfortably in that delicious design space of deceptively simple mechanics wrapped around a surprisingly deep strategic core. At first glance, it feels approachable, almost gentle… but give it a few plays, and suddenly you’re in deep waters, wrestling with decisions that feel sharper, tighter, and far more consequential than expected. It’s a slow burn in the best way, subtle at first, then steadily revealing layers of tension, bite, and competitive edge. And make no mistake, this game can get spicy once players find their footing. It’s a lot more confrontational than it appears or the rules suggest; there is strong, in-your-face interaction here.
What really elevates Dewan, though, is its ever-shifting landscape. The game is map-based, and crucially, you build that map yourself at the start of each session. The result is that no two games feel remotely alike. Forget rehearsed openings or safe, go-to strategies; this is a game that thrives on adaptability. You’ll need to think on your feet, pivot constantly, and embrace the chaos of a board that refuses to play by familiar rules. I really liked that a great deal; it speaks to replayability and longevity, so we are off to a great start.
I find it interesting how wildly different I saw this map during the first 3 plays of this game and how I see it now. The learning curve is not steep, but there is understanding and meaningful knowledge, a transition that takes a few plays to appear.
I also struggled to pin down a clean comparison, and that’s a fantastic thing. In a hobby full of echoes and iterations, Dewan feels refreshingly, confidently unique.
So right out of the gate, we have a strong opening and a lot of great potential. The question is, does Dewan deliver on the promise? Let’s find out!
Overview
Final Score: (4.05 out 5) Outstanding Game!
If you really want to get a grip on Dewan, the cleanest way to unpack it is to think in three interlocking layers: the razor-thin scoring system, the slick card-driven action engine, and the ever-present, quietly cutthroat area control on the map. The game demands that a player be efficient, which, coincidentally, is how I would describe the way the game was designed.
Let’s start with the path to victory, because this one is tight. Points are scarce, precious, and just a little bit elusive. You’re not racking up big numbers here; instead, most of your scoring trickles in through the completion of story cards (think elegant little objective puzzles). These ask you to control specific terrain types, mountains, forests, and deserts, and convert that control into a sort of resource checkbox. There are a few bonus avenues for points, plus a shared scenario card that sweetens the pot for everyone, but the real magic lies in efficiency, not overwhelming acquisition.
The trick is to chain your story cards together so they overlap in clever, satisfying ways, squeezing maximum value out of minimal effort on the board. It’s less about doing more and more about doing just enough, brilliantly. If that sounds like a hobbit riddle, well, the game kind of is that.
The Story cards tell you what resources you must collect, but you unlock these as you go, and there is no telling what cards will be available when it’s your turn to pick one. This might be the only time a bit of luck can help you. Finding a way to make use of the same resource in more than one story is key to a successful run.
Actions are governed by the card system, the pulsing, strategic heartbeat of the game. Each round, you’re faced with an illusively tense choice: play cards to move across the board and establish settlements (your claim to territory), or pause to draft new cards from a constantly shifting market. It’s simple on paper, but in practice every decision feels like a tiny, meaningful gamble. Efficiency, again, is everything. Waste a move, and you’ll feel it, and while you may have a plan, opportunities difficult to pass up come up all the time, and knowing when to take them and when to pass is kind of the key to the game.
At the start of the game, the board feels wide open, brimming with possibility. Resources seem plentiful, and on the dynamically built map, opportunities are abundant. You might even think, “Hey, this isn’t so hard.” The game will correct that perception rather quickly.
Because Dewan hides a beautifully designed rule at its core: connected territories of the same type only count as one terrain type. I would imagine when the designer came up with that, the rest of the game laid out for him like a solved puzzle.
You might think that having 5 deserts so close together is a lucky break; it will make checkboxing deserts quick and easy, but the reality is that you are looking at one big desert, which is catastrophically bad. It not only forces you across it, meaning you need to collect desert cards to move through them, but settling more than one of these deserts is useless.
Those four cozy mountain tiles clustered near your starting position look like a goldmine… but mechanically, they’re just a single, lonely mountain. Suddenly, the board shifts from inviting to demanding. That one rule, simple, elegant, slightly cruel, completely reshapes how you approach the game. You can’t just carve out a neat little slice of the map and call it a day. You’ll need to spread out, stretch your reach, and compete across the entire board, and you can be certain your opponents will be doing the same.
And here’s the kicker: moving across that board costs cards. Every step, every expansion, every ambitious grab for territory eats into your limited hand. So once again, the game whispers its central mantra, do more with less. The game could have been called “Optimization,” and that would have been on point.
There’s a lot more bubbling beneath the surface, layers of nuance, timing, and tactical brinkmanship, but even at a high level, you can feel it: Dewan is one of those games where the rules are deceptively simple, but the decisions are gloriously, brain-meltingly complex.
And that’s fascinating. Genuinely.
But also very abstract, and if I’m being honest, just a little outside my personal taste. I can absolutely appreciate what it’s doing; there’s a deep, rewarding well here for players who want to dive in, explore, and master its many subtleties. This is a game that could easily sustain dozens, maybe hundreds, of plays for the right audience. It’s well designed, well balanced, everything you could want as a general board game fan, but general is not my sweet spot.
Three times during the game, you will be allowed to slip a card under your board, which gives you both the terrain and resource on that card. This requires good timing and preparation, but is quite important for scoring purposes.
For me, Dewan lands squarely in that familiar category of: “This is excellent… just not entirely my thing,” which simply means I’m happy to play it, but it won’t necessarily find its way into my permanent collection.
It’s not so much a judgment as it is a preference, but I will say that games like Dewan sometimes win me over, over time. I’m not in a rush to cull it. I recognize that while I have my preferences, sometimes these sorts of puzzly games win me over, and Dewan certainly has the potential to do just that.
Components
Score: Tilt:
Pros: Outstanding quality through and through, the art is just a cherry on top!
Cons: I would have liked to see a rules reference for this one.
The component quality, judged across my three core pillars: physical durability, artistic execution, and clarity, puts Dewan on a clear path toward a perfect score.
Frankly, there’s very little to criticize here. The components are crafted from thick, resilient stock that feels built for countless plays. Visually, the game leans fully into its charming, whimsical art style, maintaining a cohesive and inviting aesthetic across every piece. The iconography does present a slight learning curve at first, but once it clicks, it reveals itself to be clean, intuitive, and thoughtfully placed; everything communicates exactly what it needs to, exactly where you expect it. And the box insert is exceptionally well-designed, snug, practical, and oddly satisfying in its precision.
The rulebook, however, is where things get a bit more nuanced. My initial instinct was to criticize it. It adopts a “teach-as-you-play” approach rather than functioning as a structured reference guide. While this makes onboarding smooth and approachable, it becomes less convenient when you need to answer a specific question mid-game. Instead of quickly locating a rule, you may find yourself digging through the flow of the gameplay explanation to uncover it.
The vivid and colorful art make this game a pleasure to look at, but I have to say it again, art this good belongs on something less abstract; this artist should be working on RPG’s!
This is a hill I will happily die on: every game should include a dedicated rules reference for quick lookups, especially for edge cases and commonly misunderstood elements.
In Dewan, those questions will most often revolve around iconography and scenario cards, which can feel slightly opaque during your first few plays. That said, this is far from a dealbreaker. The game itself is elegantly simple, and once those early uncertainties are resolved, you’re unlikely to revisit the rulebook at all. The rules are streamlined, logical, and easy to internalize.
Overall, this is a beautifully produced, impressively polished game, one that doesn’t just meet modern board game production standards but confidently exceeds them.
Theme
Score: Tilt:
Pros: If we were judging the theme on art alone, this would be 5 stars!
Cons: The theme is mostly irrelevant to the game, but as an abstract game, it doesn’t really need a theme.
The theme isn’t exactly the beating heart of Dewan, in fact, it barely registers as a pulse. Outside of its enchanting, fairy tale-inspired art style, there’s very little here to anchor the experience in a meaningful narrative, leaving me with surprisingly little to dig into.
Beyond a scattering of light flavor text in the rulebook, the game offers only the faintest hint of context. You’re… expanding a village, exploring, for reasons that remain charmingly vague and conveniently unexplained. It all feels more like a decorative backdrop than a driving force, pleasant to look at, but ultimately insubstantial. It’s an abstract game, plain and simple.
What this game lacks in theme, it makes up for in great gameplay and, more importantly, amazing style. The vivid use of light here is amazing!
I’m not even sure what else can be said. This is precisely where my tilting system earns its keep. While Dewan’s theme is undeniably thin, almost ethereal in its absence, it also doesn’t detract from the experience in any meaningful way. The game isn’t trying to tell a story, and it doesn’t need to.
So yes, the theme may be wispy, but crucially, it’s also harmless, an aesthetic flourish rather than a foundational pillar in an otherwise abstract puzzle game beautifully executed.
Gameplay
Score: Tilt:
Pros: Fantastic design, I foresee this game winning some awards.
Cons: Can be quite unforgiving, takes a few plays before it clicks.
While the theme in Dewan barely leaves an impression, the gameplay is the undeniable centerpiece, the beating heart and razor-sharp mind of the experience.
For a game with such elegantly simple rules, Dewan hides a remarkable amount of depth beneath its surface. It’s one of those deceptively “light” designs that quickly reveals a dense, cerebral core the moment you start making meaningful decisions.
If I had to distill what makes Dewan stand out, it’s that it belongs to a lineage of games rooted in mathematical integrity. This is a design built on balance, probability, and precision rather than flashy mechanics or familiar systems. It feels engineered in the best possible way, echoing the philosophies of designers like Reiner Knizia, Vlaada Chvátil, and Alexander Pfister. In that sense, Johannes Goupy and Yoann Levet have crafted something that feels refreshingly deliberate and structurally sound, without the usual copy/pasting that makes it easily definable as “just like X game”.
Where many modern games lean on familiar frameworks, worker placement, deck building, and action selection, Dewan confidently carves its own path. It doesn’t rely on genre shorthand. Instead, it builds tension and decision-making from first principles, and the result is something that feels both fresh and intellectually satisfying.
From the very start, variability defines the experience. Randomized terrain, shifting board layouts, and scenario (or “story”) cards ensure that no two games unfold the same way. Yet impressively, this randomness never undermines balance. The scenario cards feel meticulously tuned, difficult to achieve regardless of your starting position. You won’t luck into an easy 8-point score just because the board happened to favor you. That level of consistency in a dynamic setup is no small feat; it’s careful, disciplined design. Anyone who has ever tried to design a game knows just how painful balancing dynamic mechanics can be. It’s clear this game went through rigorous testing to achieve this result.
The pacing is another standout strength. Every village placed tightens the board, increasing both spatial pressure and urgency. The game subtly transforms into a race, not just to score efficiently, but to act before opportunities disappear. You want to craft perfect, optimized turns… but the game rarely affords you that luxury.
This is a pretty fast-paced game, you’re going to take maybe 12-15 actions before the game ends, and you know you’re doing well if you are the one putting the pressure on other players to keep up. There is definitely a race here; faster is in fact, better. The result is that in a typical game night, you are probably going to play this more than once.
This creates a fun and sometimes frustrating tension. Dewan is a puzzle under pressure, a game where careful planning collides with the constant need to adapt and race to the finish. Mistakes are not easily forgiven; there just aren’t enough turns for you to course correct a mistake.
Player interaction is also more pronounced than it first appears. This isn’t a solitary optimization exercise; it’s a shared, contested space. You need to track opponents closely, anticipating their moves, disrupting their plans, and adjusting your own strategy accordingly. Blocking becomes just as important as building, and though this skill takes time to develop, it is more often than not the key to a tight victory.
One particularly elegant design choice is the terrain drafting system. When selecting terrain cards, you must take two adjacent cards rather than freely choosing any combination. It’s a small rule with enormous implications. Even when the exact pieces you need are visible, they’re often just out of reach. This forces compromise, sacrifice, and creative problem-solving, adding another layer of often painful decisions to the puzzle.
Drafting cards in Dewan is really very key. I’m not even exaggerating that one bad decision, especially when playing with experienced players, can make the difference between winning and losing. It’s very unforgiving, which I actually liked quite a bit.
And that’s really the magic of Dewan. With only two types of actions per turn available, the game manages to feel surprisingly weighty, filled with difficult choices. Every choice ripples outward, interacting with the board state, your objectives, and your opponents’ plans. It’s tight, demanding, and deeply engaging.
That said, this style of design comes with its trade-offs. There’s no real catch-up mechanism. Strong, optimized play is rewarded, and mistakes can be costly. In fact, the game is so tight that even a single bad call can and often will cost you the game. It is a puzzle game that demands perfection. In many games, you may find yourself identifying the likely winner well before the final turn. Fortunately, Dewan keeps things brisk, typically wrapping up in 30–45 minutes, so even a losing position never overstays its welcome. You won’t have to wallow in your defeat for long.
At its core, the gameplay loop is beautifully simple: control space, match terrain to objectives, and position your camps to maximize scoring opportunities. But the path to doing so is filled with clever constraints and constantly shifting decisions that keep every turn engaging.
Dewan succeeds because it embraces one of the purest goals of game design: when you lose, you know exactly why, and you immediately want to try again with a better plan.
That’s not just good design. That’s great design.
Replay-ability and Longevity
Score: Tilt:
Pros: Dynamic starting setup and unique scenarios make this game very replayable. Works with all player counts equally well.
Cons: Playing with new players can be a little unfair; it’s not that much fun until it clicks for everyone.
The first couple of plays of Dewan, I have to be honest, felt a little… samey. Not bad, not boring, just oddly flat. The competitive edge hadn’t quite surfaced yet, and I struggled to see where the long-term excitement or replayability was supposed to come from. It all felt a bit too neat, a bit too contained, like a clever puzzle that might not have much more to say after a few rounds.
And then, somewhere around the third or fourth play, it clicked for me and I’m glad I stuck around to see it.
That’s when it hit me: everything I thought I had learned was not nearly as useful as I expected. The game’s dynamic, randomized setup completely reshuffles the puzzle every single time. What worked before doesn’t necessarily work again. There’s no “perfect opening,” no reliable flowchart to follow, no cozy strategy to fall back on. Dewan quietly pulls the rug out from under you and says, “Figure it out… again.”
And that’s where it comes alive.
Each session feels like a brand-new puzzle with familiar rules but a wildly different personality. The structure stays consistent, but the execution constantly shifts. The game is constantly demanding adaptation. It’s like solving a new riddle using the same language, recognizable, yet endlessly surprising.
Now, sitting here after about a dozen plays, I feel pretty confident saying this: the replayability here is, for all practical purposes, limitless. You might eventually step away from it, but it won’t be because you’ve “solved” it or fallen into repetitive patterns. This game doesn’t let you do that.
You’re not going to score a lot of points in this game, and most end-of-game scoring is going to be very tight. Every point matters in this game; you have to squeeze it for everything you can get out of it, there is no room for sub-optimal play.
If you have a soft spot for light, puzzly Euro games, the kind that reward clever thinking, efficient play, and a willingness to adapt on the fly, then Dewan is going to feel right at home on your table. It’s a sharp, thoughtful design with a wonderfully dynamic core, and that ever-changing setup does a ton of heavy lifting when it comes to keeping things fresh.
A great design, a tight balance, and endlessly shifting starting conditions, together, give Dewan a replayability that feels not just strong, but effortlessly alive.
Conclusion
I always find games like Dewan uniquely difficult to review, and not because they’re flawed, but because they’re so clearly, so quietly excellent. After decades of playing board games with near-obsessive enthusiasm, and more than ten years of dissecting and reviewing them, you develop an instinct for design, an ability to recognize when something is finely tuned, meticulously balanced, and thoughtfully constructed.
And make no mistake: Dewan is exactly that. It is subtly, almost deceptively, brilliant.
But the beauty of a conclusion is that the analysis is done. The score is set. The critical lens can finally be set aside, and I can just speak as a player.
And as a player, I can say Dewan is a game I deeply respect more than I personally love. It’s excellent, I’m just not its target audience.
It’s an elegantly engineered experience that will absolutely resonate with the right audience. For me, though, it sits just outside my usual preferences. That said, I have no doubt it will continue to hit the table. Its quality all but guarantees it, people will discover it, appreciate it, and want to play it again and again. And importantly, I never found it frustrating or grating in the way more abstract, puzzle-heavy games sometimes can be. It’s thoughtful without being exhausting, challenging without being punishing.
In the end, Dewan is a game I would confidently recommend to players who appreciate clever, finely crafted systems and enjoy abstract, brain-burning puzzles wrapped in a clean, distinctive design.
It may not be my perfect game, but it is, without question, a remarkably well-designed one that will make it someone’s top 10 list.
I do enjoy a good civilization game. In fact, if one were to casually browse my gaming shelves (an expedition not unlike cataloguing a particularly nerdy wing of the British Museum), one would find no shortage of grand historical ambitions neatly packed into cardboard. Titles such as Through the Ages, Western Empires, and Nations just to name a few sit there rather smugly, silently judging lesser boxes. One might even say, though only after a modest pause for dramatic effect, that I am something of a connoisseur.
I know, more or less, what I want from a civilization game, but I do delight in being surprised by games in this genre, providing something unexpected. This is precisely where Epoch: Course of Cultures emerges, like a well-dressed time traveller stepping out of a slightly unreliable machine. It presents a civilization-building experience that feels comfortingly familiar, yet curiously novel, an impressive feat that would likely earn a small, approving nod from Sid Meier himself. I would even argue this game has done more for the genre itself than the latest PC disappointment, Civilisation 7, though that is not as extraordinary feat as you might imagine it to be. A topic perhaps for another day.
Overview
Final Score: (3.6 out 5 Stars)
Epoch: Course of Cultures is, at its heart, an action selection civilization builder, which is a wonderfully polite way of saying, “you will spend a great deal of time making big key decisions and then immediately wondering if they were terrible ones.” Beneath the surface, it carries many of the familiar mechanical bones of the genre, but with just enough curious mutations and original ideas to keep things feeling fresh, competitive, and pleasantly tense in that “I may have just doomed my people” sort of way.
Now, civilization games do have a reputation for being… Chronologically challenged. In that context, Epoch sits comfortably in the middle ground. When compared to titans like Through the Ages or Western Empires, a four-hour playtime feels almost refreshingly restrained, like a historical epic that politely ends before your snacks run out. That said, it’s quite the affair compared to your standard board game play time, especially at the preferred 4 player count.
One of the central concepts behind a good civilization game in my opinion, is that it should feel massive, epic.. sprawling even. That approach however, usually comes with several drawbacks, the time needed to play often being one of the primary reasons you rarely get to play them. I love my Western Empires, but getting 5+ players together for a 12+ hour game is exceedingly rare, so it becomes a beloved dust collector instead.
What Epoch does rather cleverly is take a seemingly simple action structure and quietly turn it into something far more devious. On your turn, you’ll do something wonderfully straightforward: play a card representing a development in your civilization, and then choose an action, settling new lands, advancing culture, investing in science, and so on. All very reasonable, yet that play of a card leads to all the actions that include all the core ideas of civilisation building. Production, technology, construction, trade, etc.. All very civilised. And yet, beneath this calm exterior lurks a deeply strategic, wonderfully thinky puzzle that will have you staring at the board as though it has personally offended you.
And there is quite a lot of board to stare at. The game comes with an impressive collection of pieces, icons, tracks, and other paraphernalia that suggest great complexity. But in truth, mechanically speaking, especially by civilization game standards, Epoch is surprisingly approachable. It’s less “arcane ritual” and more “well-organised chaos.”
There is so much built into your action selection card play in Epoch that it feels wonderfully intuitive and powerful each time you pick something. It’s a decision that will pay out over the course of the entire game, making each action central to a larger, grand strategy.
What truly elevates the experience, however, is how tight it feels and how interactive it is in a way modern games in general have been gradually pulling away from. Every action matters. Every decision nudges your civilization forward in a way that feels tangible and earned, with an impact on the other players directly. This subtle but blatant interaction makes you constantly aware of your opponents, because unlike many modern civ builders, Epoch is not afraid to let you go to war. In fact, escalation towards war is one of the core features of the game. Each player’s choices ripple into yours, shaping your next move, whether you like it or not, it’s really only a matter of time before you clash. This is a refreshing change from many civilization games, which can sometimes feel like a group of people politely playing solo games in the same room, with occasional brushes like “oh no, you took the card I wanted”. Here, the interaction is real, the tension is present, and the consequences are just inconvenient enough to be delightful.
Civilization: A New Dawn shares a lot of similarities as a design with Epoch, both games feature an explorable terrain board and an action selection system that drives the game forward, but unlike Epoch, A New Dawn landed rather flat with me and it was the shortage of meaningful interaction between players that I would blame as the root cause for it.
In its own way, Epoch will challenge classics like Through The Ages, though the question remains, where does it rank in the great scheme of this very robust genre? I don’t think you can get away with making a Civilization builder without comparisons, so we will be doing a bit of that in this review.
Components
Score: Tilt:
Pros: Very flashy and usable. Things are easy to find the iconography is exceptional.
Cons: There are a lot of pieces to this game, and you’re going to need a larger-than-standard table to play it, especially 4 players.
I consider component quality to be important in a civilization game only because these games are, at their core, sprawling puzzles masquerading as historical progress. You are expected to maintain a bird’s-eye view of everything at all times, an impressive feat, given that your brain is already busy calculating the long-term consequences of a decision you made fifteen minutes ago involving what seemed, at the time, to be a perfectly innocent grain surplus.
Analysis Paralysis is not just a possibility here, it’s more of a lifestyle choice. When a single action can ripple five to ten turns into the future, you need clarity. You need visibility. You need iconography that doesn’t require a degree in interpretive archaeology to understand. In short, you need the game to communicate with you clearly, ideally without muttering cryptic symbols like an ancient alien artefact.
Traditionally, this clarity comes from strong, simple rules, but equally important is how the components themselves convey information. After all, if the board looks like a tax form designed by chaos theorists, no amount of good rules will save you and this tends to be the case in many civilisation-building games.
Fortunately, this is where Epoch positively beams with competence. From the cards to the player aids, from the iconography to the general visual presentation, everything is crisp, readable, and, dare one say, rather attractive. It carries a certain aesthetic familiarity that fans of Sid Meier’s work will recognise immediately, as if the game itself quietly aspires to be invited over for tea with Civilization and not embarrass itself.
And it succeeds. This is a production that balances beauty with functionality in a way that feels almost suspiciously well thought out. You will, after all, be staring at this game for several hours, possibly long enough to begin assigning personalities to your resource tokens, so it’s rather important that the experience is visually pleasant. (There are, one suspects, entire galaxies that have been abandoned for less.)
There is no question that Epoch is a sprawling game with tons of “things” on the board, which can be quite intimidating for the average board gamer. This is rather misleading because, despite the very busy board, Epoch is a pretty straightforward game you might compare to your average Euro in terms of complexity.
Like most civilization games, Epoch isn’t something you’ll casually throw onto the table on a whim. It demands time, attention, and a willingness to explain rules to your friends that may, at some point, sound like you are describing the tax policies of a small but determined nation. However, thanks to excellent organisation and intuitive design, the learning curve is far gentler than it could have been. The same game with lesser components would have been far more complex.
In fact, during my very first play, I already felt surprisingly in control, an unsettling sensation in a genre that usually delights in making you feel like a confused ruler shouting at maps. By the second play, it was all strategy, all the time. And much of that ease comes down to components that are not just well-designed, but designed for use.
Well done indeed. Top marks here, no need to consult the Guide on this one.
Theme
Score: Tilt:
Pros: It nails civilization building with class while including things that are often omitted in other Civilisation-building games.
Cons: It’s missing historical figures, with technological progress being a heavily abstracted concept that has little impact on the game beyond resource collection.
I suspect this section can be handled with the sort of efficiency normally reserved for highly competent civil servants and improbably well-organised galaxies.
The theme of Epoch: Course of Cultures is civilization-building and history, and I’m pleased to report that it achieves this with very little fuss and a reassuring amount of success. It looks like a civilization game, it plays like a civilization game, and, most importantly, it feels like a civilization game while you’re sitting at the table making questionable long-term decisions. In short: it does exactly what it says on the tin, which is more than can be said for a surprising number of things in the universe.
That said, there is a small crack in the otherwise polished marble.
One of the great joys of the genre is the sense that each civilization has its own identity. That playing Persia should feel meaningfully different from playing Egypt, beyond simply having a different colour and a slightly more exotic name to mispronounce.
Epoch gestures in this direction, offering each nation a minor, slightly quirky advantage you can develop over time. It’s a nice touch, pleasant, even, but its impact on the actual gameplay is… modest. So modest, in fact, that you may find yourself forgetting who is playing what entirely, which is rarely a good sign in a game about civilizations and their supposedly rich identities.
These differences don’t meaningfully steer your strategy, nor do they create distinct playstyles. You won’t find yourself passionately debating the merits of one civilization over another, or dramatically declaring, “Ah, but you see, this is exactly what the Persians would do.” Instead, everyone is essentially playing the same game with very slightly different accents.
There is also a noticeable absence of historical figures. No great leaders, no visionary scientists, no wildly overconfident generals making bold claims about invading Russia in winter. It’s a small thing, perhaps, but these human elements often provide a strong sense of connection to history, anchors that make the experience feel less abstract and more alive.
I think Through The Ages is the king of themes when it comes to Civilization builders, mainly because it’s so all-inclusive of the tropes that you hope to find in a Civilization building game. From the people, wonders, techs and buildings, everything has that Sid Meier feel to it, and this is despite the fact that the game doesn’t feature a map at all.
Here, the world of Epoch is curiously… people-less. Civilizations rise, expand, and occasionally go to war, but they do so without the guiding presence of anyone you might recognise from a textbook, or indeed, from a particularly enthusiastic documentary narrator.
It’s not a dealbreaker by any means. The theme works. It lands. But it never quite reaches that smile-inducing moment where everything clicks and you feel like you’re part of a grand historical tapestry. It doesn’t have that “role-playing” aspect of running a personality.
It’s more… a very well-organised spreadsheet of history. Perfectly functional. Just missing a few memorable personalities and faces.
Gameplay
Score: Tilt:
Pros: Solid, streamlined framework that makes the game easy to teach and learn, making it a far more approachable civ builder than the vast majority of its competition.
Cons: It doesn’t really compete with the classics, it’s a fun alternative, but it’s not going to replace anything.
A proper civilization game, in my view, must achieve three things, rather like a good cup of tea, except vastly more complicated and with a higher likelihood of military conflict.
First, it must deliver a genuine sense of growth and expansion. Not just numbers going up (though we do love a good number), but a feeling that your civilization is becoming something distinct. Your choices should matter. Your path should diverge. You should feel, at least in some small but satisfying way, that you are carving your own slightly questionable decisions into the annals of history.
Second, it ought to feel grounded in history, or at least in something that politely waves in history’s general direction. Playing as different civilizations should feel different. Whether you lean into military dominance, technological supremacy, or industrial might, there should be a strategic identity to your choices, and ideally a way to feel quite smug about them when they work.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, it needs to hold up over repeated plays. A civilization game that can be “solved” is about as useful as a guidebook that confidently tells you the restaurant is at the end of the universe but forgets to mention it’s closed on Tuesdays. There must be room for variation, for adaptation, for strategies that evolve based on circumstances rather than habit. There has to be a way for a local meta to form, and the game must have built-in ways to challenge and reforge that meta without expansions. That is the only way to get replayability long-term with a Civilization game.
Now, achieving all of this in a single board game is, frankly, a bit unreasonable. But that is the burden of the genre. When you are competing with giants like Through the Ages and Western Empires, the inevitable closing line of any review tends to be, “It was very good… but X or Y Civ Builder does it better.”
So, where does Epoch land? Well, rather respectably, actually.
It doesn’t kick down the doors of the genre and declare itself emperor, but it does bring enough interesting ideas to justify its place at the table. One of the most notable things it does is reintroduce something many modern civilization games have quietly abandoned: the map.
Not having a map as part of a Civilization building game was a trend created by Through The Ages, and for a time it caught on, which included games like Nations and Age of Innovation, for example. A map brings a much higher level of design complexity, eliminating it is a clean way to avoid some of those traps. It works for some games, but it does feel like something is missing from the experience, even when it works.
It is not just a decoration here. This is, gloriously, a game about actual presence, about being somewhere, owning territory, and occasionally sending small, determined groups of people to stand on it and argue with other groups of people. Much like Western Empires, there is very much a “dudes on a map” experience.
This is important because somewhere along the way, designers occasionally forget that Sid Meier’s Civilization, the grand inspiration for much of the genre, is, in many ways, also a war game. Position matters. Resources matter. Territory matters. And, crucially, these things can be taken away from you by someone who has decided your empire looks a bit too comfortable.
Epoch understands this, it embraces it.
War is present, impactful, and, importantly, expensive. Starting a conflict is not something you do lightly, unless you are either (a) winning and feeling confident, or (b) losing and feeling vindictive. Both are valid historical precedents.
Dudes on a map are handled quite simply with cubes in Epoch, as the actual military strength elements are driven by cards you can purchase. This makes the execution of war simple, but the strategy behind it, when you should do it, how you should do it etc.., that is an entirely different question. Even after several plays, it was not clear to me where war falls in Epoch so far as strategy goes.
There are two main approaches: a more measured declaration that gives your opponent time to prepare, or a full “I have made a terrible decision and will now commit to it immediately” war-monger stance that lets you attack anyone at once. Both options carry consequences, both reshape the board, and both inject the game with a delicious sense of tension.
Now, a brief warning: Epoch has what might be described as an “old-school personality.” Player interaction can feel… direct. Occasionally pointed. At times, even a bit mean. If you are accustomed to modern board games where conflict is more of a polite disagreement than a full-blown geopolitical incident, this may come as a shock. Personally, I think it’s wonderful. But consider yourself warned, this is less pillow fight, more street brawl conducted with spreadsheets.
Perhaps the most elegant part of the design, however, is how it condenses the entire 4X experience, explore, expand, exploit, exterminate, into a single, streamlined core game loop.
You play a card. You take an action. That’s it.
And yet, that one action encapsulates everything: production, development, technology, expansion, trade, governance, and the general sense that you are somehow both in control and one poor decision away from ruin. Each move feels significant. Each turn alters the board in a meaningful way. You are not idly passing time; you are doing things, and they matter.
I especially liked the handling of government in Epoch. Each government type comes with unique benefits ot the exclusion of other possible selections. It’s a tough choice and needs to be made in cohesion with the rest of your general strategy. There is no going back and making a mistake here can be quite costly.
It’s immensely satisfying.
More importantly, it’s intuitive. Unlike some of its more illustrious cousins, Epoch doesn’t require a lengthy lecture on “how to actually play well” after you’ve learned the rules. You understand what you want to do almost immediately. By your second game, you’re strategising with confidence rather than fumbling through historical guesswork.
This is, frankly, one of its greatest strengths as it is often a key weakness in even the best of the civilisation-building genre games. I love my Western Empires, but unless you have played it a dozen times, I’m going to crush you so badly you’re going to think the game is broken, and there is no shortcut to that education but repeat plays. Epoch is clever enough to avoid that problem.
Randomness, another traditional troublemaker in the genre, is handled with a commendable degree of restraint. Yes, the map can favour some players over others (as maps, and indeed life, tend to do), but the advantages are never so overwhelming that you can predict the winner from the opening placement. The game provides enough tools for clever play to overcome a less-than-ideal start, which is exactly how it should be.
That said, no civilization game escapes compromise, and Epoch is no exception.
The most noticeable absence is the tech tree, that beloved web of dependencies where one discovery unlocks another in a satisfying chain of progress. Here, technology is far more abstract. You invest in it, you gain benefits, but you’re not building toward specific unlock paths in the traditional sense. There’s no “research pottery to unlock granaries” moment. It’s more fluid, less structured, and for some players, that will feel like something is missing.
While I was not a huge fan of Fantasy Flight Games, Sid Meiers Civilization, it did include the tech tree in a hierarchy, and that felt quite right to me. You got a strong sense of progress, and “tech advantage” was a concept built into the game.
Wonders, too, lack a certain… well, wonder. Rather than grand, multi-turn projects that define your civilization, they are more transactional, appearing, being purchased, and providing benefits without much ceremony. There is no standing atop your cardboard empire declaring yourself a golden god of architecture. It’s all a bit more… efficient.
War, while excellent in concept, also carries an interesting limitation: it is often too expensive to be used as a precise strategic tool. Instead, it tends to emerge at the extremes, either from a dominant player pressing their advantage, or from a struggling one lashing out in desperation. The nuanced, tactical “check your opponent” war is less common, simply because your resources are usually better spent elsewhere as this is still a game about victory points.
And yet, despite all of this, it works.
The game remains deeply strategic, richly interactive, and thoroughly engaging. Resource management is meaningful, positioning matters, and the sense of building something over time is both tangible and rewarding. It ticks a remarkable number of boxes for a 4X civilization game, even if it approaches some of them from unusual angles.
There is certainly room for expansion, perhaps a bit more depth in certain systems, a touch of refinement here and there, but what’s already here is compelling.
In short: it’s a civilization worth building again.
Replayability and Longevity
Score: Tilt:
Pros: Plenty of reasons to play it several times, lots to explore.
Cons: There is a cap somewhere, some limit before you shelv it and never come back to it, this is not an instant repeatable classic.
It may not be entirely fair, but civilization games carry with them a certain grandeur. They are not simply games; they are events. And when you reach for one on the shelf, you are not just picking something to play, you are making a decision of mild historical importance.
That decision, in my experience, is governed by two variables: How much time do you have, and how many players are involved?
Tell me those two things, and I will tell you which civilization game to play with the quiet confidence of someone who has spent far too long thinking about this.
Many of these “slots” are already occupied by titans. Large group, plenty of time? Western Empires, no hesitation. Small group, plenty of time? Through the Ages, a masterpiece. Large group, limited time? Nations will do the job admirably.
The awkward gap, the one that has always been a bit of a problem, is small player count with limited time. This is the Bermuda Triangle of civilization games, where ambition goes in and slightly disappointing “filler” experiences come out. Sadly, Epoch doesn’t quite solve this particular cosmic mystery either.
Instead, it settles into the 3–4 players, ample time category, which places it in direct, and rather bold, comparison with Through the Ages and Nations, just to name a couple.
Now, this might sound like a dangerous place to be, but here’s the interesting part: Epoch holds its ground surprisingly well.
In fact, it has a distinct advantage. Games like Through the Ages, as brilliant as they are, can be notoriously unforgiving to new players. Your first few games often feel less like building a civilization and more like being politely but firmly dismantled by someone who understands the system better. Nations can suffer from a similar issue.
Epoch, on the other hand, is refreshingly approachable. It’s intuitive. New players can sit down, grasp the flow, and feel competitive far more quickly. With a bit of light strategic guidance, you can have a genuinely good experience right out of the gate, which is, frankly, a rare and valuable trait in this genre.
It also tends to run a bit shorter than both Through the Ages and Nations, making it a strong candidate when you want something substantial, but not life-schedulingly so. And compared to other games attempting to fill this niche, such as various adaptations of Sid Meier’s board game, it stands out as the more compelling option.
Epoch is a very busy game with a lot of levers, it certainly falls into the “heavy” category by most people’s standards, but I would argue for how involved the game looks, it’s considerably simpler than that. If you’re accustomed to playing Heavy Euro’s, you’re not going to find this game complicated at all. It’s actually pretty straightforward.
So yes, there is absolutely a place for Epoch on the shelf.
The more difficult question is: how long does it stay there?
After three plays, I found myself in an interesting position. I hadn’t exhausted the strategic possibilities, nor had I identified any clearly dominant paths to victory. The game is dynamic enough to keep things engaging, but at the same time, the overall experience didn’t vary as dramatically from session to session as one might hope.
The map provides the most noticeable variation, but not to the extent that it fundamentally reshapes your approach. You adapt, certainly, but you don’t reinvent.
My instinct, always a slightly unreliable but occasionally insightful companion, suggests that after perhaps six to ten plays, the game may begin to lose a bit of its novelty.
Now, to be fair, that is not a damning criticism. Most games do not survive more than a handful of table appearances. In fact, if a game sees five plays, it is already outperforming a significant portion of the hobby.
But civilization games are not most games.
This is a genre where longevity is king. Where titles like Through the Ages can be played a hundred times over a decade, and Western Empires, despite requiring what feels like a small lifetime to complete, still returns to the table again and again because of that glorious grandeur.
By that standard, Epoch may fall just short of true immortality.
It is absolutely replayable. It is enjoyable. It earns its place. But whether it will still be called upon ten years from now, with the same enthusiasm reserved for the genre’s greatest legends, I find unlikely. It lacked that true… umpf! A terrible description, but fans of Civ games know what I’m talking about here.
Conclusion
Epoch: Course of Cultures is, without question, a very good game. If what you’re after is an engaging, strategic experience wrapped in a historical civilization-building theme, and you don’t necessarily feel the need to compare everything to the sacred texts of the genre, then this is an easy recommendation. Particularly for Euro game fans, it delivers exactly the sort of tight decision-making, meaningful trade-offs, and competitive race for victory points that keeps the brain pleasantly occupied and occasionally mildly distressed.
It is thoughtful. It is strategic. It is, in all the right ways, a game that asks you to care about what you’re doing.
However, and this is where we gently adjust our monocle, if you are a full-fledged civilization-building enthusiast, the sort who speaks reverently of Through the Ages and Western Empires as though they were ancient and slightly temperamental deities, then Epoch may feel like it falls just short of true greatness.
Not because it does anything wrong, but because it doesn’t quite ascend to that rarefied level of “instant classic.” It is not, at least not yet, a card-carrying member of what can only be described as the Civilization Building Illuminati, a shadowy group of games that have achieved long-term dominance over gaming tables everywhere, and possibly influence global events (though this is difficult to verify).
That said, there is something important to note: I still very much want to play it again.
Epoch is a very engaging puzzle; there are plenty of moving parts that create depth in the strategy to keep you invested. I think its a good civilization game. It does not, however, dethrone any of the classics in my opinion. It’s kind of doomed to be an alternative to other Civ games I would rather play, given an allotted amount of time. No objections to playing Epoch, but if you ask me “What Civ Game do you WANT to play”, by default answer is not going to be Epoch.
After multiple plays, it hasn’t worn out its welcome. It hasn’t been solved, shelved, or quietly judged. It remains engaging, inviting, and, perhaps most importantly, fun. And in a genre that can occasionally take itself a bit too seriously, that counts for a great deal.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that Epoch feels almost tailor-made for digital play. A platform like Board Game Arena would suit it perfectly. Its streamlined action system, relatively low mechanical overhead, and clean structure would likely translate into a smooth online experience, one where a full game might be completed in about an hour, rather than requiring the careful scheduling of one’s social calendar and possibly a packed lunch.
And really, any civilization that can be built in an evening, or a very long lunch break, is doing something right.
So no, Epoch may not rewrite the history books of the genre. But it absolutely earns its place among them, and for many players, that will be more than enough.
