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Review: That Tracks (2026)

October 31, 2026 5 Minutes Leave a comment

In my house, trivia-based party games are king. In fact, they’re one of the very select few types of games that even the wives enjoy, so any opportunity to introduce a new one into the mix is always welcome.

That Tracks, however, was one of those games I approached with a bit of caution because I wasn’t entirely convinced the concept was actually going to work. Mostly because, despite appearances, That Tracks isn’t really a trivia game.

Hitster is a great example of the sort of game that has that universal trivia thing going for it that just works with everyone, always. It’s a party game and a trivia game, a perfect combo.

The basic gimmick here is that players are asked to remember the popularity of various trends and then make educated guesses about where they belong on line and pie graphs.

Yeah… graphs.

It’s a strange concept for a party game and, frankly, a difficult one to even imagine being fun. Nothing gets a gaming group fired up quite like someone slapping a pie chart down on the table and saying, “Alright everyone, party time!”

Still, test it we did.

So today we’re going to talk about That Tracks, a party game that asks just how much you really know about the trends, fads, and cultural nonsense that have surrounded us over the years.

Overview

Final Score: (2 out of 5) Poor

That Tracks has a very simple premise. Players are split into two teams and presented with either a dot or pie graph alongside four popular trends, fads, musicians or whatever else the game decides to throw at you.

The goal is to correctly figure out which part of the graph belongs to which trend. You do this over six rounds, scoring points for the answers you get right, and naturally, the team with the most points at the end wins.

Looking at graphs like this gives you the sense of this being more of a corporate presentation than a game, but there is some fun in trying to figure out the popularity of pop culture fads.

There is, however, some procedural stuff designed to make this a little more involved and introduce a bit of mind gaming into the proceedings.

Each team gets two turns every round to make their guesses. Your team picks two trends, then the opposing team does the same, after which you go back and forth picking the remaining ones.

The interesting part of this is that while the other team is making their decisions, they’re inevitably debating their reasoning out loud. You’re sitting there listening to them argue about whether something was popular in 2005 or 2015, whether everyone actually watched some TV show or whether it just seemed that way, and whether some ridiculous fad was genuinely a thing or just something that happened in their particular corner of the world.

All of that is information you can use when it’s your turn.

Each team also gets a bonus tile that can be placed on a guess they feel particularly confident about. Get that one right and you double the points for that trend.

I wouldn’t exactly call any of this strategy, but these two mechanics prevent the game from simply being one team doing its thing, followed by the other team doing its thing, and then everyone checking the scores to see who did better. There is some actual back and forth here, and it’s partially within those little gears that the party game atmosphere starts to emerge.

One important caveat here is that each round is timed, so all of these debates and decisions are done in a pressure cooker, which is fitting for a party game.

People argue about these trends. They try to convince their teammates that their memory is correct. They listen to the other team and suddenly start second-guessing themselves.

It’s particularly entertaining when you have different generations at the table because their perspectives can be wildly different. Something one person remembers as an absolutely massive cultural phenomenon might get a blank stare from someone ten years younger, while another player is utterly convinced something was huge simply because everyone at their school was doing it.

That’s really where That Tracks starts to reveal what kind of party game it actually is.

The question is, does all of that make it a fun one?

Well, let’s get into it.

Components

Score:
Tilt:

Pros: The game is very inexpensive.

Cons: While some of the components are fine, the problem areas are painful and disruptive.

Unfortunately, we’re going to have to start out negative here because, to be frank, the components and component design in That Tracks leave a lot to be desired.

First, there is this contraption that holds the graph cards on the table, along with sliders designed to hide the answers until they’re revealed.

It’s terrible.

Pictures don’t really tell the story here, but I can tell you from our handling of the game that this setup is extremely fragile. One bump and this whole thing will collapse.

The stand itself quite literally fell apart the first time we handled it. It constantly tipped over, the sliders were awkward to use and the whole thing just feels incredibly cheap.

This actually impacted the game quite a bit because we were constantly accidentally revealing the answers printed at the bottom of the cards. You’re trying to carefully manipulate this flimsy little stand without exposing anything and the whole thing is threatening to collapse in your hands at the slightest touch.

And somehow, that wasn’t even the worst part.

This is a party game, so presumably you’re going to have five or six people sitting around the table. We had three people on each team, but the cards are printed extremely small. You need to be fairly close to actually read them and, because the stand faces in one direction, half the table can’t see it without moving it.

Naturally, you want to move it around so everyone can see. Except you can’t because if you so much as breathe on the damn thing, it falls apart.

It became a real nuisance.

It’s just cheaply made and poorly designed, which is particularly frustrating because the entire game revolves around everyone being able to clearly see and interact with these cards.

Now, the game does come with whiteboard pens, boards and tokens you can write on, which is nice. Those work perfectly well and make everything easy to manipulate and reuse, but as a whole, the component experience was terrible.

Then we get to the rulebook.

The instructions are awful, which is kind of crazy because you can explain how to play That Tracks in about thirty seconds. Somehow, however, it took us nearly twenty minutes to grasp the language utilized in this rulebook; it was frustrating.

They took what is an incredibly simple game and seemingly found the most complicated possible way to explain it. Eventually we gave up, went on YouTube and found a tutorial video.

Thirty seconds later, we understood the game.

Afterwards, going back and reading the rules, they made sense, but the language and structure used to explain everything was unnecessarily confusing. When your game can be verbally explained in less time than it takes to make a cup of coffee, there is really no excuse for a rulebook making it feel complicated.

I don’t normally completely flunk a game on components, but That Tracks comes about as close to an F as you can get without actually getting one.

They really need to rethink the components and component design here because I genuinely don’t understand how this setup made it through playtesting in its current form. For us, the problems were obvious the moment we opened the box.

These components actively got in the way of playing the game and sabotaged the experience.

Theme

Score:
Tilt:

Pros: Pop culture fads are familiar, fun, and often surprising; it’s fun to muse about them during the game.

Cons: When answers are revealed, there is a lack of impact, it’s kind of a meh.. experience.

The theme in That Tracks is actually kind of clever and fun, far more than I imagined it would be when you consider that the main gameplay loop involves analyzing pie graphs!

There is something strangely satisfying about knowing these fads and trends. You get that same little burst of satisfaction you get from a trivia game when you know the answer and everyone else at the table is looking at you like, “How the hell did you know that?”

More importantly, though, there is a surprising amount of deduction involved.

If you’re reasonably confident about two of the four trends, the other two suddenly become a matter of educated guesses and process of elimination. You start talking it through with your team, everyone adds their two cents, someone remembers some obscure detail and gradually you piece together what you think the answer must be.

There are plenty of cool topics, from music pop star popularity, to weird YouTube fads. Things I think most people will find familiar, and even if you’re not, as it’s a team game there, it’s not really something that gets in the way of the fun.

It becomes this kind of collective problem-solving exercise, and that part of That Tracks actually works quite well.

My issue is that none of this really adds much “party” to the concept.

I mean, it’s a game. You’re playing it together, you’re talking, arguing and having fun, but it doesn’t really generate those funny moments and quotable outcomes that I typically associate with a great party game.

The whole thing is just a little dry.

You’re essentially solving a communal problem together rather than being given a setup designed to create comedy, chaos or memorable moments. There can certainly be some entertaining conversations, particularly when people have wildly different memories of how popular something was, but the game itself isn’t really creating those moments.

I think the theme works. In fact, I think it works considerably better than “the pie graph game” has any right to.

Calling That Tracks a party game, however, feels like a bit of a stretch. It’s a light team-based deduction game that happens to work with a larger group.

I thought it was fun enough, but it certainly didn’t blow the doors off. The theme and concept fell into the “meh” category, not disappointing; I have a fun time playing it, but I’m itching to bring it to my next dinner party.

Gameplay

Score:
Tilt:

Pros: There is some entertainment and satisfaction to be found in trying to maximize your points based on guesses you feel certain about.

Cons: The reveal at the end of a round falls on deaf ears, even when something interesting happens, it’s mostly interesting in a sort of academic, abstract way, not a fun party way.

In terms of gameplay, That Tracks has that straight-to-it quality that makes party games the delight they can and often are. You explain the rules in a minute or so, everyone immediately gets it, and you’re off and running.

In that regard, That Tracks handles itself quite well.

While the theme is interesting and I think will work with most people, it doesn’t necessarily surprise or delight. The actual gameplay loop falls somewhere between “just fine” and “a bit static and uninteresting”.

Party games should absolutely be simple, but there really isn’t much between the pages here, so to speak.

The only semi-interesting wrinkle is that each round is split into two parts. You pick two topics, the opposing team does the same, and then you go back around for the remaining choices. This gives both teams an opportunity to undermine or challenge each other’s decisions, while introducing a little strategy regarding which topics you want to grab early and which ones you’re willing to leave until later. You also get to listen in on the opposing team, which can give you some added insight you might not otherwise have had.

The booster token adds a little tactical oomph as well. All it is is a frame you place on one of your choices, which doubles your score if you get it right. It gives you an opportunity to manipulate the score when you’re particularly confident about an answer.

Unfortunately, none of that really saves That Tracks from what is ultimately a pretty lackluster gameplay loop.

When you get right down to it, you’re looking at charts and guesstimating which trend belongs to which pie or line on it, often in a way that feels fairly arbitrary. Sometimes the answer is obvious, but quite often, even when there is an unexpected surprise when the answer is revealed, there still isn’t much of a party payoff.

It sort of feels like discovering that the pie of 38 is 119.38.

I don’t know what that means either, but that’s kind of the point.

The reveal isn’t some endorphin-infused event where everyone screams, laughs or throws their hands in the air. It’s more like, “Oh… Taylor Swift was less popular than Pink in 2015. Weird. Interesting… I guess.”

Then everyone kind of stares at the card for a second or two and moves on.

You don’t really know what to do with that information; it’s not funny, even if sometimes it’s surprising, and I’m not entirely convinced anyone cares. The only thing giving the reveal any weight is whether you guessed correctly and scored some points.

That’s the fundamental problem I had with the gameplay.

There is no real entertainment payoff, it’s a party game that isn’t much of a party and it doesn’t really hit any sweet spots in any other reckognizable genre.

A great party game takes a ridiculously simple mechanic and somehow turns it into a machine for creating moments, laughter, banter, that sort of thing. That Tracks has the simple mechanic, but it never really finds the second half of that equation. You guess, you reveal, you score, and you move on to the next graph.

Whatever else That Tracks might be as a game, I just don’t think statistics make for a particularly exciting reveal.

There’s no pizzazz, no real tension, and very little excitement. It’s all just a bit static and mundane. Worse is that if a team gets ahead on points, there is no real catch-up mechanic, so at the midpoint it can feel quite hopeless if someone gets ahead and you’re not going to care about it much.

It didn’t really do anything for me or anyone I introduced it to, as a game mechanic and as a method to entertain guests and family, it was pretty forgettable.

Replayability and Longevity

Score:
Tilt:

Pros: There is plenty of content in this box to entertain people who like this game.

Cons: Sadly, the first playthrough won’t motivate you to play again.

There are a lot of cards in the deck, and you’re really only using six over the course of a game, so from a purely content perspective, there is quite a bit of replayability in the box in principle.

You might assume there is a natural limit here because eventually you’re going to see every card, but that actually amounts to quite a few games. Even if you eventually swing back around and start seeing cards for a second time, chances are pretty good you will have forgotten most of the information anyway because it wasn’t that interesting the first time around.

It’s a bit like playing Trivial Pursuit. Even when a question comes up that you know you’ve seen before, there are so many cards and so much random information floating around that actually remembering the answer is another matter entirely.

So I don’t think running out of content is really the issue.

The bigger question when it comes to longevity and replayability is whether That Tracks is fun enough as both a novelty and as something you actually want to keep playing because you enjoyed it so much the first time.

Sadly, I think the answer is probably no. In fact, I never managed a single time when I brought the game out with my various social circles to get a second game going. Once was enough, and I doubt anyone will ever ask to play it again in the future.

In a sense the replayability score is kind of the domino effect of the rest of the review, if you didn’t really hit any marks anywhere else worth speaking of, by the time you get here, the conversation kind of repeats itself. You certainly can play this game many times, I’m just not sure who would want to.

There weren’t any hidden layers that revealed themselves once we understood the game better, nor did familiarity with the mechanics make things more interesting.

It was kind of meh the first time and remained kind of meh afterwards.

I will say that if That Tracks clicks with your group and you enjoy what it’s doing, there are plenty of plays in this box. You’re certainly not going to burn through the content quickly.

For us, though, the limiting factor wasn’t the number of cards. It was the desire to keep playing.

Conclusion

I think it’s fair to say that my experience with That Tracks was pretty lackluster. It’s always sad to give any game a negative review, but if you know gamersdungeon, we are generally a pretty positive voice. You really have to miss the target by a wide margin to end up with a score in the 1-2 star zones, Unfortunatetly That Tracks just doesn’t have the juice to punch through even my relatively generous barrier.

It started off on a negative note with component issues, both in terms of quality and design, and followed that up with a game that was, at absolute best, a mediocre experience and not much of a party.

The strange thing is that I don’t think there is anything fundamentally wrong with the rules or even the premise here. Some games just don’t work, and That Tracks doubles down and also fails to entertain.

I absolutely think there are people who will enjoy That Tracks. In fact, I suspect there are plenty of groups for whom the relaxed, collaborative deduction and nostalgia surrounding the various trends will be exactly what they’re looking for.

For me, though, it’s a pretty hard pass.

Unless you have a particular fascination with statistics, trends and fads, I just don’t see a compelling reason to choose That Tracks over the mountain of genuinely great party games already competing for space on the table.

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On The Table: Mini Boardgaming Weekend

October 21, 2026 5 Minutes Leave a comment

This weekend a few of my friends and I got together for a two day blowout where we did pretty much nothing but eat, drink and play board games.

As is always the case when this particular group gets together, we had a blast. There was too much food, probably too much alcohol and absolutely too many board games crammed into too little time.

In other words, a pretty damn good weekend.

Of course, we are here to talk about the games.

The cool thing about this particular weekend was that we played almost exclusively new stuff. Games that, for one reason or another, had been sitting on our collective radar but had never actually made it to the table.

So this list is effectively a collection of first impressions. Some good, some bad and, as you will soon discover, some that landed squarely in the great kingdom of “it was fine.”

Here we go!

Star Wars Outer Rim

We kicked things off with Star Wars Outer Rim, a 2019 Fantasy Flight Games release that has picked up some notable accolades over the years, including a Golden Geek nomination for Best Thematic Board Game.

This one has been on my must try list for quite a while, so when it finally hit the table I was genuinely excited to give it a go.

In Outer Rim, each player takes on the role of one of the many rogues, scoundrels and bounty hunters floating around the Star Wars universe. You have characters like Boba Fett, Han Solo and, naturally, one of my all time favorite smugglers, Lando Calrissian, who I immediately snatched up.

Nobody else was getting Lando.

The game itself is a competitive adventure game in which you travel around the Outer Rim delivering cargo, hunting down bounties, taking jobs and trying to avoid, or occasionally confront, patrols belonging to the various major factions. All of this earns you fame, which is effectively the game’s victory point system. Get enough fame before everyone else and you win.

Pretty straightforward stuff.

The production, as you might expect from Fantasy Flight Games, is completely over the top. There are cards everywhere, piles of tokens, character sheets, ships, markers and enough gorgeous Star Wars artwork to wallpaper a small apartment.

Fantasy Flight Games never disappoints when it comes to production values, all of their games look amazing on the table and Outer Rim is no exception.

Visually, the game absolutely delivers.

The gameplay itself is a little harder to pin down.

I would describe it as unique and interesting, but not particularly groundbreaking or deep. In fact, underneath all of the cards, tokens, characters, abilities, and various moving parts is actually a fairly simple game.

It is simple in that wonderfully overcooked Fantasy Flight Games sort of way.

There is a lot going on, but that does not necessarily mean there is a lot going on.

Outer Rim is clearly designed primarily as an entertainment experience rather than some deep strategic puzzle, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. There are plenty of decisions to make and certainly opportunities to play well, but at least in our game, luck played a pretty significant role in determining how things ultimately shook out.

I won, for example, and while I would love to sit here and explain how my brilliant tactical mind and mastery of intergalactic smuggling carried me to victory, the reality is that Lando caught some very fortunate breaks.

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

The game was also a bit too long for what it was. Again, this is something I have come to expect from Fantasy Flight Games. Outer Rim has enough going on to keep you entertained, but not quite enough going on to justify how long it takes to reach the finish line.

That said, I had fun.

I would certainly play it again and I think there are still plenty of characters, ships, jobs and strategies I would be curious to explore. I do suspect, however, that Outer Rim has a relatively short shelf life. This does not strike me as the sort of game you are going to pull out twenty or thirty times and continue discovering new layers.

It’s a fun Star Wars adventure game with great production values, plenty of theme and enough randomness to produce some memorable moments.

It was entertaining. It looked fantastic. I won.

It was… fine.

World Order

Definitely the highlight of the weekend and, judging by the reaction around the table, I suspect not just for me.

World Order comes from the same team that gave us the absolutely fantastic Hegemony, so expectations were pretty damn high going into this one. It did not disappoint.

In fact, I would argue that it exceeded my expectations in just about every way.

In World Order, each player takes control of one of the major powers of our modern world, China, Russia, the United States or the European Union, and then proceeds to do what major powers do best. Compete for influence, manipulate everyone around them and generally make the world a worse place in the name of national interest.

You know, geopolitics.

Mechanically, World Order is effectively a card driven deck builder, but describing it that way really undersells what is going on here. Deck building is the engine that makes the machine run, but wrapped around it is resource management, area control, economic competition, political maneuvering and a mountain of player interaction.

Like Hegemony, World Order blew the doors off almost immediately. Just from the rules explaination, I already knew I was going to love this game. It was everything I hoped it would be and more!

This game is a well of asymmetrical strengths and weaknesses, clever plays and wonderfully vicious gotcha moments.

Like Hegemony, however, the real magic is how perfectly the mechanics capture the theme.

You genuinely feel like you are engaged in this constant geopolitical tug of war where everything you do affects someone else. Every action feels meaningful, every play creates an opportunity for someone to respond and every mistake feels like an opening your opponents can exploit.

It doesn’t take long before this turns into a competitive grudge match.

Exactly as it should.

There are also so many clever little ways World Order tweaks familiar deck-building concepts to fit the game. One of my favorites is incredibly simple. When you purchase a new card, rather than putting it into your discard pile as you would in the overwhelming majority of deck builders, you put it directly on top of your deck.

That sounds like a tiny change. It isn’t.

It means that every card you purchase is effectively a card you are buying for your next turn, essentially planning your next move. You are not just improving your deck at some vague point in the future. You are making a strategic decision about what you are going to be able to do next.

This becomes even more important because World Order is an incredibly tight game. You play six rounds and, in each round, you play just four cards. Do the math.

You effectively get 24 actions in the entire game.

That is not a lot of time to establish global economic and political dominance.

Worse yet, there are only two scoring rounds, which means timing is absolutely everything. You can’t simply build some magnificent engine and assume that eventually it will pay off. Eventually may be too late. You need the right cards, in the right place, at the right moment and you need to understand exactly what everyone else is trying to accomplish while you are doing it.

That creates an enormous amount of tension from surprisingly few actions.

The production also deserves some praise, not because it is extravagant, but because it is incredibly clean. Almost everything you need to understand the current state of the game is right there on the board. Who controls what, where influence is building, where the money is flowing and where the next fight is likely to break out is all immediately visible.

The only truly hidden information is the cards in your opponents’ hands and even that mystery only goes so far.

World Order is a highly deterministic game. Luck exists, naturally, but this is very clearly a game that rewards good planning, good timing and, perhaps most importantly, understanding what the other players at the table are trying to do.

I absolutely loved it. There are games you play once and think, “Yeah, that was pretty good.”

Then there are games where you finish and immediately start thinking about what you would do differently next time.

World Order was very much the latter.

Without question, one of the best games I have played all year.

Meeples and Monsters

Released in 2022, Meeples and Monsters seems to have fallen between the cracks of the board gaming world, which is a little surprising given the caliber of its designer, Ole Steiness.

This is the same guy who gave us sleeper hits like Champions of Midgard, Altay: Dawn of Civilization, another really clever game that seems to have largely fallen through the cracks, and the visually stunning Deep Rock Galactic.

That said, after playing Meeples and Monsters, I kind of get it.

There is quite a bit of Lords of Waterdeep DNA here, but Meeples and Monsters is a considerably simpler worker placement game, lighter and executed with far less flair.

In Meeples and Monsters, you collect and upgrade heroes, whose various strengths and abilities you use to fight monsters and score points. As the game progresses, increasingly powerful monsters appear, eventually leading to final showdowns with end-game bosses. Manage your little army of wooden heroes better than everyone else and, presumably, you walk away with the most points and win the game.

The theme is actually quite fun, built around the gag that your heroes are literally wooden meeples. It is colorful, bright, very easy to learn and there is something inherently satisfying about upgrading your little wooden adventurers and sending them off to murder monsters.

The problem is that there really isn’t a tremendous amount to think about.

Unlike Lords of Waterdeep, where you are constantly weighing different options and trying to figure out how to squeeze the most out of each turn with a fair amount of player interaction, Meeples and Monsters has a tendency to present you with several options where one is very obviously better than the others.

Here are the things I can do. That one is clearly the best. So I do that.

Next.

Upgrading and finding interesting combo’s for your heroes is probably where the game was most interesting; there were certainly many ways to go, but really the game was kind of one-dimensional. If you played it once, you have seen everything your going to see.

The fact that it’s a worker placement game where after you place your workers down you remove them, means that blocking actions isn’t a thing, so there is considerably less interactions if any at all between players.

That is really the issue with the game. It is not that there are no decisions to make, it is that too often the game effectively makes the decision for you and it really doesn’t have much impact on the other players.

The main gimmick is that the heroes you have available for this worker placement game are drawn randomly from your bag. Part of the strategy is building the contents of that bag so that the heroes you draw work together and support whatever strategy you are pursuing.

In theory, that should create an interesting puzzle.

In practice, I think there is just a little too much luck involved in what actually comes out of the bag.

As a result, much of the game felt less like I was deciding what to do and more like I was drawing meeples from a bag to discover what the obvious best move was going to be that turn.

Draw your meeples. Look at the board. Spot the obvious move. Execute it.

Occasionally you might have two choices that are equally appealing and you actually have to stop and think about what you want to do, but those moments were the exception rather than the rule. Most of the time the game felt strangely scripted, despite the fact that the script itself was being randomly generated by whatever came out of your bag.

That is not necessarily terrible. There is something pleasant about the whole experience. You are upgrading heroes, killing monsters, getting stronger and watching increasingly ridiculous creatures appear on the board. The game moves along nicely and there is enough going on to keep everyone engaged.

It just never really challenged me.

Meeples and Monsters was fine, but I can understand why it disappeared under the radar despite having a recognizable designer behind it. This is certainly not Ole Steiness at his best.

I do think there is an audience for it, however.

If you have younger kids who are ready to move beyond basic family games and into proper hobby board games, I could actually see Meeples and Monsters being a pretty great step up. The colorful presentation, fun theme, straightforward decisions and constant sense of progression would probably go a long way with that audience.

For my group? It was fine.

Cascadia: Landmarks

Cascadia was the only game in our lineup that I had actually played before, but this time we added the Landmarks expansion and bumped the game up to five players.

Cascadia is, by just about any reasonable measure, one of the premier board games of 2021. It’s sitting pretty in the 61st spot on the 100 games of all time on BoardGameGeek list as of this writing and has collected awards from just about every place you can collect an award from.

At this point, I think it is fair to call Cascadia a modern classic.

I’m a pretty late bloomer here. I only played it for the first time this year and, apparently, I am considerably less impressed with it than the rest of the board gaming world.

Don’t get me wrong. I think Cascadia is a very clever puzzle game. There are plenty of interesting decisions, it moves at a brisk pace and there is something genuinely satisfying about watching this little ecosystem slowly come together in front of you.

When you pull off exactly what you were trying to do, it feels great.

For me, though, the whole experience is just a bit too benign.

We are all sitting around the same table, supposedly playing a board game together, but really everyone is off in their own little corner playing their own private game of Cascadia. The entire scope of player interaction basically boils down to someone taking the tile or animal you wanted.

You bastard. Then you move on with your life.

It reminds me quite a bit of Wingspan, which falls into a similar category for me. Everyone is technically playing the same game together, but most of the time we could probably erect little privacy screens around our play areas and it wouldn’t dramatically change the experience.

I’m just not a huge fan of games like that.

That said, I completely understand why so many people are.

In Cascadia, the basic premise is that you are placing habitat tiles and populating them with wildlife, trying to arrange everything into particular patterns that score points. Each turn you select a habitat tile and an animal token and add them to the growing puzzle in front of you.

At the end of the game, whoever has done the best job putting all of this together scores the most points and wins.

What keeps the puzzle fresh is that the wildlife scoring conditions change from game to game. You randomly select scoring cards that determine what arrangements of bears, salmon, elk, hawks and foxes you are actually trying to create.

It is simple, elegant and very easy to understand.

The Landmarks expansion adds another layer to that puzzle by rewarding you for building sufficiently large connected habitats. Put together enough of a particular terrain type and you can place a landmark, which gives you access to additional scoring opportunities unique to you.

It is certainly interesting and gives you one more thing to consider while constructing your little wilderness.

I’m just not convinced Cascadia needed it.

The additional ways to score points in the Landmarks expansion is a kind of benign way to approach extra scoring. You sort of did whatever you were going to do anyway for your main scoring and then grabbed things when the opportunity presented itself. I’m sure more advanced players will find better ways to use this expansion, but for me that approach worked fine.

For me, one of the game’s greatest strengths is how clean the original puzzle is. Landmarks adds another decision point and another scoring consideration, but I’m not sure it actually makes the game better. It makes it more complicated, certainly, but those are not the same thing.

I suspect this expansion makes considerably more sense for people who play Cascadia all the time. If you have played the base game twenty or thirty times and know its puzzle inside and out, adding another layer probably gives you exactly the sort of additional complexity and variety you are looking for.

For someone like me, who is going to pull Cascadia out once in a long while, I think I would rather just play the base game.

Ultimately, I walked away with pretty much the same impression I had the first time.

Cascadia is clever, polished, easy to teach and beautifully paced. I completely understand why people love it and I certainly wouldn’t object to playing it again.

It’s simply not the kind of board game that gets me excited. I liked it. It was…

You guessed it.

Fine.

Hamlet: The Village Building Game

The last game on my list is Hamlet: The Village Building Game, which is a clever little puzzly game about, as it says right there on the tin, building a village.

Who says board game names need to be complicated?

This very colorful and incredibly busy game has players collectively constructing a village out of awkwardly shaped tiles, connecting buildings with roads and creating a network through which resources can be transported.

The ultimate goal is to use those resources to construct the central building of the Hamlet, the church. Once completed, your humble little Hamlet officially becomes a Village and the game ends.

Apparently all that separates a Hamlet from a Village is a church. Who knew?

Along the way, everyone scores points for their participation in this increasingly chaotic group construction project, with each player trying to make sure that their contribution to civic development is considerably more valuable than everyone else’s.

Of all the games we played this weekend, I think Hamlet was the only one besides World Order that really got my attention.

There was something going on here.

The village is technically a shared construction project, but everyone is naturally trying to shape that village to benefit themselves. You want roads going where you need them to go, resources available where you can reach them and buildings entering play that support whatever little economic empire you are trying to construct.

The village tiles are oddly shaped; there was no real symmetry to how the village comes together, which creates a lot of weirdness when trying to put different buildings into play. At first I saw this as a drawback, but the result was actually kind of interesting because you really couldn’t make a definitive plan on where you are going to put stuff. You sort of shoved it in where you could.

That creates some surprisingly interesting interaction because when you add something to the village, you are not simply improving your own position. You are changing the board for everyone.

Sometimes that means helping yourself. Sometimes it means accidentally helping someone else.

Sometimes it means putting something somewhere specifically because you know it is going to be a pain in the ass for one of your opponents.

Now we’re playing a board game. There were also clearly layers here that a single play did not fully reveal.

Certain buildings, for example, do not produce resources at all but can score you a considerable number of points. Building them, however, means making sure you can actually get the required resources to the right place. That requires planning your routes, understanding what resources are available and making sure you don’t stretch yourself too thin trying to accomplish everything at once.

There is a surprisingly delicate balance to all of this.

You need to pay close attention to which buildings are available, where resources are being produced and how the growing network of roads connects everything together. It is very easy to get ambitious, overextend yourself and suddenly discover that what looked like a brilliant plan two turns ago now requires you to spend several turns recovering while everyone else happily gets on with scoring points.

I did that. More than once.

That is probably what I liked most about Hamlet. When I made a mistake, it generally felt like my mistake. I could look back at what I had done and see where I had overextended, failed to plan properly or misunderstood how the village was developing.

That immediately makes me want to play again.

I also suspect there is considerably more strategy hiding underneath the colorful presentation than we uncovered during our first game. I came away thinking about different approaches I could take, different ways I could manipulate the village layout and, most importantly, things I would do differently the next time it hits the table.

That is usually a pretty good sign. I liked Hamlet.

It was clever, interactive, pretty to look at and had enough going on beneath the surface that I genuinely want another crack at it.

So after an entire weekend filled with games that were mostly some variation of fine, Hamlet managed to climb a few notches above that.

Not World Order good. But definitely better than fine.

Conclusion

This was a really fun-filled weekend; the truth is that even when games aren’t blowing your mind, it’s hard not to have a good time surrounded by friends.

I will say, however, World Order was the unquestionable king of the hill this weekend. It was a robust, clever, and deeply interactive game that really triggered an unquenchable urge to get it back to the table as soon as possible!

Gaming Articles, In Theory

In Theory: When Star Wars Lore Becomes a Rules Engine, Not Decoration

September 18, 2026 5 Minutes

–By Søren Kamper

Søren is a guest writer here at Gamersdungeon, and we are thrilled to have him. It’s been a well-established goal that I have wanted to achieve to have more voices speaking through the Gamersdungeon platform, so big thanks, Søren, for your contribution. You’re always welcome!
– Gamersdungeon

The best licensed games do not merely put familiar names on cards and miniatures. They ask a harder question: what should this universe force the player to do?

Star Wars is unusually easy to decorate a game with. Put Darth Vader on the box, scatter a few TIE fighters across the table, add a Wilhelm scream at a suitable moment and the licence is immediately doing visible work. The harder part begins when the box is open. A game can look exactly like Star Wars and still behave like something that could have been about medieval merchants, colonial railways or highly competitive turnip farmers. Theme is cheap when it only changes the nouns. The interesting licensed games are the ones where the verbs change too.

That is one reason Trials of Maya is such a useful recent example of the broader problem. A MOBA-inspired tabletop game cannot simply borrow colourful heroes and lanes as scenery; it has to translate a genre built around unique abilities, pressure, positioning and team roles into decisions that survive contact with cardboard. Star Wars tabletop design faces the same test. The galaxy already arrives with forty-nine years of expectations attached. The rules either turn those expectations into pressure, or they leave them sitting politely in the artwork.

The most interesting Star Wars games usually choose the former. Star Wars: Rebellion makes the Empire and the Rebel Alliance feel different before anybody quotes a film. Outer Rim turns the scoundrel fantasy into an economy of fame, jobs and people who are angry with you. Armada makes commanding a capital ship feel like issuing an order to something too large to change its mind quickly. The Clone Wars takes the relentless spread of a galactic conflict and turns it into cooperative triage. And, now, Zero Company shows that the same philosophy works when the table becomes a screen.

Rebellion: asymmetry does the storytelling

Rebellion works because its two sides are not simply different colours with slightly different unit values. The Empire has ships, troops, production and enough plastic to make the table look as though somebody has emptied a military warehouse onto it. The Rebels have a secret. Their base is hidden, the Empire has to find it, and almost every major decision follows from that imbalance. One side occupies space and gathers information. The other side survives by being difficult to locate, disrupting plans and making every Imperial deployment feel faintly suspicious.

Star Wars Rebellion is often described as “Star Wars In a Box”, a sentiment I fully agree with. It truly captures the sensation of watching A New Hope, with every mechanical and thematic detail perfectly captured. I fully agree with Soren here; it’s almost a magic trick what they manage to pull off with this game mechanically.

-Gamersdungeon

That sounds obvious because it is exactly how the original trilogy works, but that is the achievement. The hidden base is not flavour text explaining why the Rebel player starts with fewer pieces. It is the central engine. Probe cards eliminate possibilities. Imperial fleets spread out because ignorance is expensive. Rebel missions create diversions because a weaker military force cannot afford to play the same game as its opponent. Even the victory conditions are telling different stories: the Empire needs to discover and crush the base, while the Rebels need to outlast the machine long enough for resistance and reputation to grow.

There is a useful comparison with War of the Ring, another licensed design where asymmetry is not a balance problem to be sanded down but the entire point. Sauron should have armies the Free Peoples cannot sensibly match. The Fellowship should have a different route to victory. In both games, the source material gives the designer permission to make the players uncomfortable in different ways. Balance does not require sameness. In fact, sameness would destroy the fiction.

Rebellion is not beyond criticism. Repeated play can expose its structure, and the hunt for the base can occasionally end with the strategic equivalent of opening the correct cupboard by accident. But even those weaknesses reveal how completely the theme and mechanism are fused. If the search loses tension, the game loses Star Wars with it. That is a far more interesting failure than a game whose theme could be replaced by changing the card art.

Outer Rim: Han Solo is a job description

Outer Rim operates at the opposite scale. There is no galactic command chair, no Death Star to position and no reason to care which government controls the Core. The fantasy is smaller and, in its own way, more recognisably Star Wars: get a ship, find work, improve the ship, hire somebody useful, annoy the wrong faction, and become famous enough that people eventually stop asking whether the hyperdrive was legally acquired.

Never had the pleasure, but it’s been on my radar for a long time. I have an affinity for Corey Konieczka’s work, in fact, looking at my gaming shelves, this designer takes up a lot of shelf space. I believe it’s his attention to detail when it comes to linking theme and mechanics together flawlessly that sets him apart as a designer.

-Gamersdungeon

The goal is fame, but the important part is how many roads lead there. Bounties ask you to hunt people. Jobs turn the map into a chain of opportunities and complications. Cargo can be profitable until a patrol takes an interest. Reputation with the Empire, Rebels, Hutts and crime syndicates changes how safely you can move through the same space. The result is that being a scoundrel is not communicated by a portrait of Han Solo grinning from a card. It is communicated by the fact that your best plan is often profitable, questionable and likely to create a second problem before it solves the first.

That is what good thematic design does. It asks what behaviour the fiction should produce. Star Wars smugglers are not interesting because they own fast ships. They are interesting because they live inside networks of debts, favours, employers, rivals and authorities. Outer Rim turns those relationships into a playable economy. A patrol is not just an enemy token. It is a reminder that your previous decisions have a memory.

Armada: a Star Destroyer should not corner like a shopping trolley

Armada may be the purest example of a physical mechanism explaining fictional scale. Star Wars has always told us that capital ships are enormous, but film can cheat. A camera cuts, John Williams does the heavy lifting, and suddenly several kilometres of metal seem perfectly nimble. A tabletop game has to make mass something you can feel.

Soren is absolutetly correct here that Star Wars Armada captures the sensation of what we see on screen mechanically. The added magic trick is that Armada is a deep well of strategic possibilities. This is a war game in the purest sense, with a tremendous amount of Star Wars-based sci-fi realism assumptions that work as strategies. It remains one of my favorite miniature games of all time, a true masterpiece.

-Gamersdungeon

The command stack does exactly that. Larger ships plan commands in advance, with orders buried in a queue before they are executed. A navigation command chosen now may be the thing that saves you later, assuming you guessed correctly about where the battle would be by then. That delay creates command friction without requiring a thirty-page subsystem about naval bureaucracy. The Star Destroyer feels large because your intentions take time to travel through it.

Movement reinforces the same idea. The manoeuvre tool does not merely measure distance; it gives large ships arcs, inertia and commitments. You are steering a capital vessel, not dragging a miniature to a convenient spot because the ruler says it fits. The contrast with the movement-first design of Star Wars: X-Wing is instructive. X-Wing uses hidden manoeuvre dials to create the uncertainty of a dogfight, where reading an opponent matters because fighters can change the geometry of a battle in seconds. Armada slows that thought process down. Both games are about Star Wars ships, but they are not asking the same question.

This is where a licence becomes useful rather than restrictive. The designer does not need one universal movement system for every spacecraft. A TIE fighter and an Imperial-class Star Destroyer should not feel related simply because both have engines. One is a knife fight. The other is urban planning with turbolasers.

The Clone Wars: Pandemic becomes a war

Star Wars: The Clone Wars takes a more visible shortcut because its foundation is the Pandemic System. That could easily have produced a reskin: replace disease cubes with battle droids, rename outbreaks, put a Jedi on the cover and go home early. Instead, the useful question is what the Pandemic structure already understands. Pressure spreads. Problems multiply while you are solving different problems. No player can be everywhere, and ignoring one region because another looks more dramatic is exactly how a manageable board becomes a disaster.

I’m going to have to take Soren’s word on this one; I have neither played Star Wars Clone Wars, nor am I a particularly big fan of the Pandemic series in general. For me, the issue that Soren suggests is not a problem in this variant of Pandemic games is that it suffers from “Alpha Gamer Syndrome,” where a single, experienced player is pretty much going to dictate the decisions for the less experienced players.

-Gamersdungeon

That rhythm fits the Clone Wars remarkably well. Jedi move from planet to planet, droids accumulate, blockades obstruct routes, missions demand attention and villains push the game toward specific kinds of trouble. The system creates the feeling that the Republic is permanently short of time. Winning is not about clearing the map and admiring a clean galaxy. It is about deciding which crisis can be allowed to remain ugly for one more turn.

The best cooperative games understand that cooperation needs adversity rather than politeness. The appeal of designs built around genuine shared pressure is that the table has to negotiate priorities, not merely distribute chores. The Clone Wars inherits that strength from Pandemic and gives it a particularly suitable costume. Ahsoka, Obi-Wan and their allies are powerful, but the war is larger than any one of them. A Jedi can solve the problem in front of them. The rules make sure there is always another planet on fire.

Zero Company: the rules engine leaves the table

The interesting thing is that this design philosophy no longer stops at the edge of the table. Star Wars Zero Company is a single-player turn-based tactics game rather than a board game, but it is wrestling with the same question: how do you make the Clone Wars behave like more than a backdrop for blaster fire? Its answer is to make people, time and preparation into resources.

Everyone is talking about this game right now, it’s being hailed as one of the best Star Wars Games ever made by some reviewers, a claim I have heard many times said about many Star Wars Games. It does look awesome, and it’s definitely on the list!

-Gamersdungeon

On the battlefield, operators spend action points to move, attack, assist, use abilities and hold positions with overwatch. That is the familiar tactical layer. The more interesting translation happens around it. At the Den, the company chooses between missions and non-combat operations, and it cannot do everything in a cycle. Injured operators may be poor choices for dangerous deployments. Relationships between squad members can strengthen or weaken, with bonds unlocking combat synergies. Optional permadeath means a bad decision can become a permanent absence rather than a quick reload-shaped inconvenience.

A complete Zero Company guide quickly becomes less about listing guns and more about explaining those interlocking systems: squad builds, bonds, recovery, resources, the Den and the consequences of deciding who goes where. That is precisely why the game belongs in this conversation. The Clone Wars are not only represented by clone armour, familiar planets and a Jedi in the squad. The fiction is asking the player to behave like the commander of a small organisation operating inside a conflict far larger than itself.

There is a faint tabletop logic to the whole thing. You look at a roster, weigh limited actions, accept that one objective may have to be sacrificed for another and then live with the state you created. The computer handles the arithmetic, animation and line-of-sight calculations, but the dramatic mechanism is familiar: scarcity turns lore into decisions. The player does not merely watch a squad become close. The rules pay out when those relationships become tactically useful, and punish you when people are injured, unavailable or dead.

The real question is what the licence makes you do

Licensed games are often judged first by recognition. Does Vader look right? Are the miniatures detailed? Is the terminology correct? Those things matter, especially with a universe as obsessively catalogued as Star Wars, but they are the easy part. A game can pass every visual inspection and still feel strangely hollow once the first turn begins.

The stronger test is mechanical. The Empire should make you feel powerful and blind at the same time. A smuggler should make money by creating future complications. A Star Destroyer should force you to think several minutes ahead because several kilometres of warship cannot simply perform a tidy little U-turn. A Jedi in the Clone Wars should be extraordinary and still unable to be on six planets at once. A mercenary squad should become more valuable, and more frightening to risk, as its people develop relationships and history.

One example I think could have been part of this list to make the point is Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit. Strangely, the game does such an amazing job of linking theme and mechanics that it’s gained cult status among board game and Star Wars fans alike, and this is despite the fact that it’s actually not a particularly good game. It just nails that connection so well that it becomes “good” despite its flaws. It nails the point home that when theme and mechanics are synced up, even a mediocre game becomes good.

This is also why thematic games can survive long after the pleasure of recognising the artwork has faded. Star Wars: Destiny and Star Wars: Unlimited approach the licence through another design tradition entirely, but the same tension remains: familiar characters can attract us to the table, while the system has to give them something meaningful to do once they arrive. Theme is not the presence of Luke Skywalker. Theme is the set of pressures that makes a player understand why Luke Skywalker matters here.

That is the difference between Star Wars as decoration and Star Wars as a rules engine. A TIE fighter is a miniature; uncertainty and speed make it a dogfighter. A bounty hunter is a portrait; fame, contracts and faction heat make it a career. The Clone Wars is a logo; cascading crises make it a war. When the design gets that translation right, the game stops asking us to admire the galaxy from outside. It makes us obey its logic for a few hours.

And that may be the finest trick a licensed game can pull. The box eventually closes, the miniatures go back into their trays, and somebody spends ten minutes looking for the one token that has somehow migrated under the sofa. But for the length of the game, the rules made the galaxy exist.

–About the author–

Søren Kamper is the editor of Star Wars: Gaming, an independent site covering the history, design and present-day world of Star Wars video games. He has been writing about Star Wars games since 2009.

Crowdfunder, Gaming Articles, Kick-Starer, News

Support Gamers Dungeon & Get Free Stuff!

September 8, 2026 5 Minutes

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to find some way to monetize Gamers Dungeon.

There’s just been one rather large problem.

I hate ads.

I also hate the idea of pushing random “stuff” at you that I wouldn’t buy myself just because someone is willing to pay me to do it. That’s never really been what Gamers Dungeon is about, and after 12 years, I’m certainly not going to start turning the place into a billboard now.

There is, however, an unavoidable reality to running a website for 12 years: it costs money. And those costs have continued to creep up year after year.

Gamers Dungeon has reached the point where I’d really like the site to start paying for at least some of itself.

Well, I think I’ve finally found a way to do that.

The Gamers Dungeon Affiliate Program

Over the years, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have publishers and designers send me games to review. That certainly helps with the cost of running the site, but I’ve always felt a little weird about selling those review copies afterward.

I don’t know…. It just feels wrong somehow.

At the same time, when I find a great game and spend countless hours playing it, and writing about it and ultimately recommending it, that recommendation has value.

So I thought: why not put those two things together?

Going forward, when I find a game I really like, I’m going to try to establish an affiliate relationship with the publisher, crowdfunding campaign, or online store selling it.

That means that if you read one of my reviews, think “damn, that sounds awesome,” and decide to buy the game through a Gamers Dungeon affiliate link, I’ll receive a small cut of the sale.

It won’t cost you anything extra.

More importantly, the affiliate relationship isn’t what gets a game recommended. I’ll still review games exactly as I always have. If I think something sucks, an affiliate link isn’t going to magically make it good.

But there’s another part to this.

You Get Something Too!

Every month, I’m going to hold a raffle for readers who purchased games through Gamers Dungeon affiliate links.

And the prizes?

Games!

Specifically, games I’ve reviewed here on Gamers Dungeon over the years.

If you purchase a game through one of our affiliate links, you’ll have a chance to win something from the ever-growing Gamers Dungeon review collection. Winners will only need to cover the cost of shipping.

That means your purchase helps support Gamers Dungeon, helps support the designers and publishers creating the games we love, and gives you a chance to get another game out of the deal.

Meanwhile, I get to reclaim a little shelf space.

Everybody wins!

At least, that’s the idea.

Hopefully, this feels like a fair and unobtrusive way to help keep Gamers Dungeon alive without filling the site with ads or turning every article into a sales pitch.

If you’re going to buy a game I’ve recommended anyway, using one of the affiliate links is a small way to support the site, and it genuinely helps.

Thanks for reading Gamers Dungeon, whether you’ve been here for 12 years or stumbled through the door yesterday.

Here’s to another 12 years of playing far too many board games.

Board Game Reviews, Boardgame Review

Review: Ninjago: Destiny’s Bounty Adventure

August 10, 2026 5 Minutes

I took a shot at reviewing what really amounts to a proper “kids’ game” by any definition, but more specifically, a game designed exclusively for kids and their parents. Ninjago: Destiny’s Bounty Adventure falls squarely into that category and, by that categorization, needs to be reviewed accordingly.

I say that here and now because I generally review all games by the same standard. I try not to make a lot of exceptions to that rule, but there are two types of games where I think it makes sense to bend it a little: party games, like the recently reviewed Hitster: Battle of the Generations, and kids’ games, like Ninjago.

With that said, there is still a standard you can apply to kids’ games. Plenty of great games work perfectly well for younger players, especially around the 8+ age range that Ninjago is targeting, so there is definitely something to work with here. Being a kids’ game isn’t a free pass.

A good example of a classic kids game is The Game of Life, which to me kind of sets the standard for kids games. Nice art, pretty components, a bit of randomness with a fun theme.

LEGO has made plenty of attempts in the past to blend building LEGO with playing board games, but I would argue that the results have been less than stellar. In fact, most have been pretty forgettable.

There is always hope, however, especially when you’re working with a popular franchise like Ninjago which, I’m told by some of the younger members of the family, is “kind of a big deal.”

In fact, they were the reason I chose to review this game in the first place. They were sort of the target audience I hoped I could reach with it, and ultimately, their reaction was always going to matter more than mine.

One big exception when it comes to LEGO games is Creationary from 2009. I remember getting this for my kids and playing it over and over again. They really nailed it with this one.

Alright, here we go. Let’s take a look at Ninjago: Destiny’s Bounty Adventure.

Overview

Final Score: (3.15 out 5) Fun Kids Game

Ninjago: Destiny’s Bounty Adventure is a cooperative family game in which players control Ninjas from the Ninjago universe with the goal of defending a ship called Destiny’s Bounty from a pirate attack. Players move around the ship fighting pirates, upgrading their Ninjas, and doing some silly stuff like drinking tea and reading comic books, which is something I presume is normal in Ninjago, but admittedly I know very little about this universe.

The premise is simple, easy to establish, and sufficiently exciting when properly voiced in a grim gargle to young kids amped up to play a game that combines two fun activities: Fighting imaginary battles with LEGO people and boardgames.

There are no issues with the sales pitch here. This is a very easy game to get to the table with kids.

When it comes to kids games, it needs to look fun, and Ninjago: Destiny’s Bounty certainly does that very well. The game looks very nice laid out on the table.

One of the big standouts, perhaps unsurprisingly, is how well LEGO knows its audience. I think only people with kids in the 8–10 age group will truly understand this, but no matter how much money you spend on LEGO, in the end, your kids are mostly going to play with the little LEGO people. That is what they want. The rest of the stuff inevitably goes into a box to be forgotten until they get much older and building LEGO becomes a thing again.

LEGO for an 8-year-old is about those little plastic men that you can dress up, equip with cool weapons, and pretend to fight with.

Ninjago gets it and plays full service to this shared mentality.

You’re not asked to build any complex structures or vehicles. What you’re going to do is build your Ninjas, give them cool weapons and equipment and then have fights with them. It’s the literal joy center for LEGO lovers in this age group.

The rules for the game itself are relatively straightforward, though I can’t help but think one big opportunity was missed here mechanically, namely in the way fights are resolved.

LEGO understood the assignment here. This is a game about playing with Ninjago figurines; that is your bread and butter.

There is a cooperative element where Ninjas need to work together to take down enemies, but fights are deterministic. Each Ninja has a “strength,” which is more often than not insufficient to take down an enemy alone, so your teammates have to jump in and help you.

Mechanically, this is fun and encourages cooperation, but the deterministic nature of combat feels like a bit of a misreading of the audience’s desire.

At 8 years old, kids want risk versus reward. They want the unknown. They want, for the most part, to roll dice. This is why games like King of Tokyo are such smash hits with a younger audience: big monster fights with lots of dice, yes please!

What makes this omission particularly strange is that LEGO has a potentially brilliant solution sitting right in front of them. They can create dice out of LEGO with unique faces, faces that could potentially be upgraded and changed because the entire die is basically built out of LEGO.

I’ve seen them do this in other games and I was half-expecting it here.

The deterministic method works fine, but it lacks the excitement and unpredictability you get from a die roll. At 8 years old, randomness and luck are exciting prospects. It’s your turn, you get to roll the die, and everyone watches to see what happens. That’s fun.

Ninjago really could have used one of these as part of the game mechanic.

Making strategic decisions and trying to beat a number by positioning Ninjas accordingly on the board? It’s great for a more strategic experience, but it’s not particularly exciting for an 8-year-old.

Most of the game boils down to running into rooms, discovering what enemies are in there, and trying to beat them as a group. It’s a simple, straightforward, and very easy-to-understand premise. Periodically, you get to upgrade your Ninja and, while I think the game is generally fairly easy to win for an adult, for 8-year-old kids it can actually be pretty difficult.

Which is fine.

Eight-year-old kids love to win, but losing is what gets them to try again and again, so I think a bit of difficulty is a good thing.

There are several different “adventures” included in the game that progressively increase the difficulty. They don’t alter the game in any significant way beyond adding more enemies and the occasional special rule that can make previously successful strategies more difficult.

It works fine as a difficulty progression. When the kids figure out how to beat an adventure too easily, you simply move on to the next one. There are also bonus adventures available online that you can print out, extending the game further.

Altogether, I think Ninjago: Destiny’s Bounty Adventure is a game for kids and their parents, but I think that is about as far as it goes as a game. It’s far too simple to entertain adults on its own.

Besides, the fun of this game isn’t really the game.

It’s the activity of pushing around little LEGO Ninjas, making fighting noises and having a bit of fun being silly with the kids for half an hour before they get bored and bugger off to do the next thing.

And frankly, for a game like this, that’s probably exactly the point.

Components

Score:
Tilt:

Pros: Great value for LEGO fans, quality components, everything is up to specs.

Cons: Beyond the LEGO miniatures, there is nothing that will wow you.

LEGO is expensive. The obvious statement is obvious, but considering this is both a LEGO product and a board game, at around $45 it’s actually pretty reasonably priced. At least comparatively.

I say this up front because most of what is in this box feels like a carefully considered compromise between cost and value.

The LEGO pieces themselves are the obvious winners of the package. You get four minifigures along with all of their equipment pieces, which comparatively speaking already accounts for a decent chunk of the value in the box.

Then you have the actual board game components, which are all of good quality. There are two boards, several decks of cards and a healthy pile of tokens. Combine all of that with the LEGO pieces and I think you’re getting pretty good value for your money.

The LEGO artwork on the cards is well done, colorful and fun. The cards themselves are very good quality, which is good, because kids are rough with games.

The artwork has that classic LEGO look and connects nicely to the Ninjago theme. It’s colorful, clean and immediately recognizable for what it is. As a whole, the component package is quite good.

There really isn’t much else to say about it.

Nothing in the box blew me away, but nothing disappointed me either. Remove the LEGO branding and you’re looking at about what you would expect from a typically packaged and professionally published board game today.

The LEGO pieces are ultimately what elevate the package, both in terms of presentation and value. They give the game its tactile charm and, considering what LEGO sets cost these days, make the $45 price tag feel surprisingly reasonable.

Theme

Score:
Tilt:

Pros: Great art, fun theme, and of course LEGO’s!

Cons: There is a bit of a disconnect between the audience’s expectation and the somber way the game plays out. Not quite the action-packed game it could have been.

I’m not going to feign interest here. Ninjago is a theme I don’t know much about, nor particularly care about. What I can say is that I recognize the excitement surrounding the franchise for a younger audience and, in that regard, I think this game kind of nails it.

The fun of Ninjago is in the characters. Each has a unique style, with their own equipment, weapons and power upgrades, and the game leans heavily into all of that.

Ninjago is a fully original franchise created by LEGO, supported by cartoons, video games, books, comics and a theatrical movie, not to mention a considerable library of LEGO sets.

There is no question about Ninjago’s popularity.

It’s also worth noting that Destiny’s Bounty isn’t some invention created for the board game. This is effectively the flying headquarters of the Ninja team in the lore and has appeared in numerous LEGO sets over the years. Kids who are into this franchise will know exactly what it is.

Having the game take place aboard Destiny’s Bounty is right on theme.

From that perspective, I think Ninjago: Destiny’s Bounty Adventure is pretty spot on. It hits all the beats you would expect out of a game like this. You have the familiar location, the characters, the equipment and, of course, plenty of Ninja fighting.

Ninjago is not some small franchise; this is a major production at this point and very popular. I think they could have gone a lot bigger with this game.

Simply playing with the LEGO is already fun for kids, so the question is whether imposing rules on that experience adds something or gets in the way.

I think that will land differently with different kids, but most kids understand games and the basic premise of winning and losing. Giving their imaginary Ninja battles some structure, objectives and a sense of risk doesn’t really take anything away from the LEGO experience. If anything, it gives everyone around the table a reason to play together rather than simply smashing minifigures into each other.

Quite possibly the biggest challenge with this game will be holding on to all the pieces because, undoubtedly, kids are going to want to break this box out like any other LEGO set and play with it as a toy.

I suspect more than a few copies of Ninjago: Destiny’s Bounty Adventure will eventually be missing a sword, a helmet, or an entire Ninja because someone needed it for a completely unrelated LEGO battle three weeks earlier.

Gameplay

Score:
Tilt:

Pros: Simple rules, lots of fun ways to upgrade your Ninja with a great focus on teamwork.

Cons: Lacking a bit in the fun factor area, a bit slow and methodical for a game about Ninja fighting.

At the center of Ninjago: Destiny’s Bounty Adventure is a cooperative game in which players must strategically position their Ninjas so that, on any given player’s turn, they can jump in and assist in taking down enemies that inevitably pop up as event cards are drawn.

In a way, the game is a kind of tower defense game, fitting because as you progress you will be able to upgrade your Ninjas and get better at taking down enemies faster, which becomes something of a necessity for success.

On each turn, a player can make a move and activate a clear action, which lets them pick up any benefits in a room as well as fight any enemies there. If other Ninjas are nearby, they can jump in and help with the fight.

The combat mechanic is very simple and deterministic. You take your Ninja’s strength, add the strength of any other Ninjas participating in the fight, and compare the total to the enemies in the room. If you have enough strength to take them down, you remove their token and put it on the victory track.

Each round, however, the enemies move around the board on predetermined paths that eventually lead them to certain areas where they score for the bad guys, forming the serpent, which acts as a sort of timer.

If the players manage to complete the adventure before this timer is filled, they win. Otherwise, they lose.

Along the way, players will get opportunities to upgrade their Ninjas with special gear that can give them a wide range of advantages, from increased strength and movement to special abilities like being able to ignore bad guys and move past them.

I think I would describe this game as pretty basic from a gamer’s perspective. I doubt anyone accustomed to playing strategy games is going to have much trouble crushing this game, even on their first go. For 8 to 10 year olds, however, it might not be so easy, as it does require a bit of planning, positional thinking and anticipation of enemy movement.

It’s strategically simple for a gamer, but perhaps not so obvious for a kid.

There is a puzzle to solve here, this is not going to be something 8-10 year olds are going to find easy to win, which I think is a good thing; it will help with it’s longevity a bit.

To me, this is really the only sensible way to design a game like this, so I don’t see anything wrong with the approach in terms of difficulty or depth. Even if, from my perspective as an adult and a gamer, the experience is very surface level, there is enough here to challenge younger players without overwhelming them.

My issue with the game is really the fun factor.

If you’re going to make a silly LEGO game about Ninjas fighting pirates for kids, I’m not sure “strategy,” per se, should be such a major factor in the gameplay.

The deterministic nature of the game suggests that strategy, tactics and a deeper understanding of the game’s rhythm are how you unravel the puzzle and succeed. That can certainly be its own kind of fun, but with a bunch of 8 year olds sitting around the table looking forward to Ninja fights, it feels a little at odds with the premise, or perhaps more accurately, with the kind of fun the premise promises.

To put it plainly, I think the game should have more luck.

Specifically, and preferably, it should have you throwing some dice.

You want those little moments of anticipation. The cheers when someone rolls exactly what they need, the groans when everything goes horribly wrong and the inevitable “oh no!” when a Ninja completely whiffs an attack. Those are the sorts of moments I expect from a silly LEGO game aimed at kids.

As it stands, Ninjago is a little too somber and calculated for what it’s trying to achieve as a gaming experience.

Don’t get me wrong, I think 8 year olds can absolutely learn a strategy game like this. My experience, however, is that kids are generally more interested in roleplaying their Ninjas and having fun fighting with them than they are in thinking several moves ahead about positioning and tactics. A simple luck based mechanic like rolling a die would have gone a long way toward meeting those expectations.

Beyond the basics, Ninjago does have a really nice tactile element, and I think that elevates the gameplay considerably. It’s fun to move your LEGO Ninjas around Destiny’s Bounty and imagine them leaping into fights, kicking pirates off the ship and coming to each other’s rescue.

The ability to upgrade your Ninja’s with weapons and equipment is the big sales pitch here mechanically. This is what the kids are going to want to do; it’s the most exciting moment in the game when you get to pick your upgrade.

You can almost hear “Kung Fu Fighting” playing in the background as you play this one.

There is a fun game here, and mechanically I think it is pitched at about the right level for its intended audience. I just wish the gameplay embraced the chaotic, energetic spirit of LEGO Ninjas fighting pirates as enthusiastically as the presentation does.

Replayability and Longevity

Score:
Tilt:

Pros: The LEGO figures will still be fun even if you get bored of the game.

Cons: A bit too slow for kids, a bit too simple for adults.

The mileage on replayability here is going to vary quite a bit. As a board game, Ninjago is very clearly aimed at a younger audience, perhaps with a parent or two joining in, and I think that fairly niche situation is ultimately the only place where the game belongs.

This is not a game you’re going to pull out with your typical hobbyist group, and I can’t imagine many people outside of younger kids having much interest in returning to it.

How long Ninjago entertains those kids, however, is probably going to depend a lot more on how much they enjoy playing with Ninjago figures than how much they enjoy the actual game.

That distinction is important because, as a game, even among a group of kids I think the shelf life here is fairly limited.

There is some variability in how things play out and the upgrades give the Ninjas a sense of progression, but once you’ve figured out the basic rhythms of positioning, cooperation, and dealing with enemies, there isn’t a whole lot more for the game to reveal.

This is not the first Ninjago game, I actually remember this one. A much smaller production, but it had a die, and I think probably this one should have had one as well.

I think the biggest contributing factor is that Ninjago never quite delivers the exciting fun factor its theme suggests. This is a rather somber little strategy game about positioning, and while I think that can entertain, it’s caught in an awkward middle ground. It’s too shallow to hold the attention of most adult gamers for very long, yet perhaps a little too calculated and predictable to generate the kind of excitement that keeps kids demanding another game.

The LEGO pieces themselves may ultimately have more longevity than the game they’re packaged with, and that’s not necessarily a terrible thing. Kids can take the Ninjas out, play with them, incorporate them into their LEGO collections and continue enjoying that part of the product long after the board game has stopped hitting the table.

I don’t think any of this significantly devalues Ninjago: Destiny’s Bounty Adventure as a package, particularly given the reasonable price point, but strictly in the longevity department, I think Ninjago as a game is going to come up a bit short.

Conclusion

Ninjago: Destiny’s Bounty Adventure is a very simple, deterministic game that incorporates a beloved kid-friendly franchise and the always fun hobby of building and playing with LEGO.

It’s a game for kids, and I think that is ultimately all the game set out to be. On those terms, I think it largely succeeds. It’s approachable, easy to teach, offers just enough strategy to get younger players thinking and makes good use of the LEGO pieces and Ninjago theme.

If anything, my disappointment with Ninjago is less about what it is and more about what it could have been.

The biggest thing missing for me is that fun factor sweet spot you’re kind of hoping a LEGO game about Ninjas fighting pirates is going to hit. There aren’t many big moments or exciting outcomes, and the deterministic nature of the game takes some of the wind out of what should be a fairly energetic premise.

A little randomness, some dice chucking and a bit more drama could have created those cheers, groans and ridiculous moments that kids tend to remember after the game is over.

That said, I don’t think Ninjago is a bad game. Quite the contrary, I can easily imagine a few rounds around the table with some wide-eyed kids who love the franchise, moving their Ninjas around Destiny’s Bounty and having a great time doing it. There is charm here, the production is good, the price is reasonable and the game is pitched at an appropriate level for its audience.

I just don’t know that the game itself has enough staying power to become one of those childhood board games that gets pulled off the shelf again and again for years.

Ninjago: Destiny’s Bounty Adventure does what it sets out to do and does it reasonably well. I just wish it had been a little less careful, a little more ambitious and, perhaps most importantly, a little more willing to embrace the wonderfully silly chaos of kids, LEGO and Ninjas.

Overview

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Gameplay

Replayability and Longevity

Conclusion

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Conclusion

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