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Ipso Game Review
by Justin Bell on August 25, 2026
I appreciate that the game Ipso (2026, Gigamic) reveals itself immediately…because it is not great. That’s not to say that it’s a complete negative, though. A deck of 90 cards, spread across five suits (and, importantly, NOT in numerical order) is used to seed the play area. Each player gets 14 cards dealt face down, which are then used to build a pyramid. A 15th card, represented by a single, bright, very large star, sits at the top of this pyramid. A market of two cards from the deck is built in the center of the play area, then the game begins. On a turn, players select one of the two face-up market cards to replace one of their face down pyramid cards. That replaced card is never technically owned by the pyramid’s owner; it is simply moved, face-up, into the market, so that the next player always has two cards to choose from. Choose your face-up card wisely, because scoring is tied to three simple elements. The first is the easiest: at the end of the game, only rows that feature cards in ascending order will score any points. Second, if the row is eligible to score, each card is worth a single point, but if the entire row is made up of only one color, each card… The post Ipso Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.
Haunted Mouse Game Review
by Andrew Lynch on August 24, 2026
Haunted Mouse is a hard game to write about, because it falls perfectly into the gap between the good, about which there is much to say, and the bad, about which there is often even more to say. Jonathan Cox’s shedding game, a reimplementation of his own Spring Cleaning, is a perfectly alright time at the table. People talk about their days, the weather, the latest gossip. The game goes on quietly around this, undemanding and unobtrusive. The goal of the game is to empty your hand by playing sets of increasing size and strength. Every trick-taking and shedding game has its gimmick(s), and Haunted Mouse is no exception. It joins the rapidly expanding field of shedding games in which you cannot rearrange the cards in your hand, and are forced to make sets out of adjacent cards. This has been used to marvelous effect in Scout, Jungo, and dnup, and works just fine in Haunted Mouse. A common mechanic between these games, though it works differently in each, is the ability to add cards to your hand, putting them anywhere you want. In Haunted Mouse, this idea is combined with allowing players to shed troublesome singletons from their hands to make… The post Haunted Mouse Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.
Rocking Raft Game Review
by Justin Bell on August 23, 2026
“I wish we still had our copy of Flotsam Float.” This was the response from one of my kids after my third and final review play of the new family-weight title from our friends at Horrible Guild, Rocking Raft. Flotsam Float—a game so nice we actually reviewed it twice—was a big hit at my house for a couple years, in part because it was so much fun to stack things on raft and play through one of the best dexterity challenge games I’ve had the chance to review here at Meeple Mountain. Both my kids and I thought that Rocking Raft might recreate some of that fantastic Flotsam Float magic. Sadly, we were wrong. Gemboree Rocking Raft is a dexterity-based order fulfillment game for 2-4 players that plays in 10-20 minutes. For this review, I played Rocking Raft once at four players with my review group, then twice with my 12-year-old, the latter because our two games took about 15 minutes in total. The raft in question is a 3x3 grid of space on a square cardboard raft, supported by a plastic base with four flat edges. It stands comfortably in the middle of any play area. In the grid, a number of small gems in four… The post Rocking Raft Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.
Maestro Game Review
by Justin Bell on August 22, 2026
The cover for the new strategy game Maestro is a fun one: it’s the early 1500s, and the painter Leonardo Da Vinci is staring menacingly at the sculptor Michelangelo as they work in their respective workshops. The game’s manual details more about this famous feud between star artists, and in the game, players take on roles in the workshop of one of these two Renaissance geniuses as they compete to get centerpieces into Italy’s most famous galleries. I learned about Maestro during our meeting last year with the team at publisher Board&Dice, admittedly one of my favorite publishers because they have released a string of bangers over the course of their company’s history. A few are some of my all-time favorites—Tiletum, Nucleum, and Teotihuacan: City of Gods—while a half-dozen others include titles I am happy to play, from Reef Project to Tabannusi: Builders of Ur to last year’s Tianxia. This means that any time a new Board&Dice game is announced, I have to at least know if it will eventually make my “shelf of fame.” Maestro had a great cover, and it was designed by Andrea Robbiani, the co-designer of ANTS and Timeless Journeys: The Italian Grand Tour. On its own, that’s not an endorsement; I was not a fan of… The post Maestro Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.
The Monolith Game Review
by Andrew Lynch on August 21, 2026
We did it, folks. Humanity has invented—nay, perfected—time travel. They said it couldn’t be done. They were wrong. The scientists at publisher Plaid Hat Games figured it out. It’s less complicated than I’d have expected time travel to be, requiring only that you set up a copy of The Monolith and sit down. The technology also seems to be fairly limited in its applications, since The Monolith only has the ability to transport players back to the summer of 1993. Picture it: Fireball Island is in the rearview mirror, the Euro revolution is but a faint glimmer on the horizon, and sweet sweet Ameritrash rules the roost. There’s wood panelling on the walls, left over from when your parents had the basement finished in ’86. Breathe in the aroma of freshly-toasted Bagel Bites, taste the corona of blue Squeezeit around your lips. Hear the faint sounds of “I’ve Been Thinking About You” and Mary Chapin Carpenter’s cover of “Passionate Kisses” waft in from a nearby radio. That’s The Monolith. Everything about The Monolith as an object was seemingly designed to evoke a previous era, if not always the same one. The table presence is the maximalism of… The post The Monolith Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.
Quick Peaks – Inca Empire: The Card Game, ARDEVUR: The Game of Resources, Exactly as Planned , Grimcoven, Vanuatu (first edition)
by Justin Bell on August 21, 2026
Inca Empire: The Card Game - Thomas Wells At some point I’ll have to review Inca Empire, as it’s a pretty neat take on a cube rail, shared incentive track-building game. Inca Empire: The Card Game, in the storied tradition of X: The Card Game, is less than a pale imitation of its predecessor. It’s a game with some novel mechanisms, but because of turn order problems and really uninteresting cardplay, because essentially Inca Empire: Munchkin Edition. You have a hand of multiuse cards, which can be used for four things. You expand the shared card tableau, using cardboard chits to mark routes you claim. You’re limited by available chits, Hansa Teutonica style. You can play one-shot cards, you can add cards to an income tableau for yourself (called terraces) or you can play a trade agreement card between you and another player, which give you both a special rule and you an extra action at the end of the round. To win, you’re trying to plot down tons of chits and score the best 3 of 5 secret goal cards at end of game. The rules for expanding the card tableau are pretty restrictive, and the goals arbitrarily reward players who’ve drawn ones that don’t interfere with… The post Quick Peaks – Inca Empire: The Card Game, ARDEVUR: The Game of Resources, Exactly as Planned , Grimcoven, Vanuatu (first edition) appeared first on Meeple Mountain.
Gazebo Game Review
by Andrew Lynch on August 20, 2026
I’ve spent much of my time with Gazebo, publisher Bitewing Games’s update of Reiner Knizia’s cult release Qin, appreciating the humble domino. Why is it so good? Is it the heft? Unexpectedly heavy tiny objects are disarming, after all. There’s the abnormally smooth texture and the rounded corners, the clack—not a click, but a clack—every time you put one down on a hard surface. Maybe it’s a shared cultural memory of the nearly 1,000 years we’ve been playing with them. Whatever the reason(s), dominoes are enchanting. They’re one of the few objects that suggest and immediately invite play of all sorts for people of all ages. The youngest children know to construct with them. A love of dominoes seems to be hardwired into us from the jump. While Gazebo is one of the thinkier applications of dominoes I’ve ever come across, the magic is still very much there. Rather than two sets of pips, these dominoes—or regular-degular cardboard tiles if you don’t opt for the upgraded components—show two squares of color. Players take turns placing one tile down on the cloth board with the goal of creating groups of the same color. Well, that’s not entirely true. The goal isn’t to… The post Gazebo Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.
Gingham Game Review
by Andrew Lynch on August 20, 2026
Human memory is a funny thing. Every time I sit down to play Gingham, the latest collaboration between designer Robert Hovakimyan and publisher Bitewing Games, the song “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” rises like a leviathan from the depths of my memory. “If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure for a big surprise,” I sing as I lay out the checkerboard picnic blanket and organize the ants. “If you go down to the woods today, you’d better go in disguise,” as I set out the sweet treats across the map and set my score counter to 0. My only exposure to “Teddy Bears’ Picnic,” a popular children’s song in the U.K., was a 1986 VHS tape documenting a live concert on Boston Commons by the musical duo Rosenshontz. I have not seen, let alone thought about, that VHS tape in over three decades. Nevertheless, here we are. Again, and again, and again. But what of Gingham? We can’t speak of obscure regional concert films forever, though I could probably pitch that to Pitchfork as a series. What about Gingham indeed. It’s a bit of a funny game to describe. I would call it an abstract game centered around route-building with a clever sort of auction system for figuring out turn order. The BGG entry suggests the publisher more… The post Gingham Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.
Chai Garam Game Review
by Kevin Brantley on August 19, 2026
Imported from Abroad It’s nice to see a foreign game company pop its head up, especially when it comes from a country not often represented in the gaming community. Mozaic Games, from India, made its convention debut at Gen Con last year, bringing over numerous titles centered around the country’s rich heritage and culture. The company had sold out of nearly all its inventory by the show’s end, which is outstanding for an indie publisher at such a large convention. Chai Garam, with its charming art and colorful presence, puts players in a busy mala, or market, running a chai tapri, or tea stand. I always think of the line from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse that goes something like, “Chai is tea. Why would you call it chai tea? It’s just saying tea tea.” Players spend their turns gathering ingredients, serving customers, upgrading their tapris, and completing goals in an effort to reign supreme over the world of chai. Top Tapri Players continue taking turns until someone reaches 10 stars at the top of the favor track. On each turn, a player chooses one of two main actions: collect three ingredients from the market or serve customers using tea they have already brewed. The post Chai Garam Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.
Out of Sorts Game Review
by Andrew Lynch on August 18, 2026
Out of Sorts is now the second memory game I’ve played in the last few years that isn’t really a memory game at all. Like Wilmot’s Warehouse, which uses the façade of memorization to trick players into collaborating on a story, the memorization in Out of Sorts is a distraction, a means to an end rather than the end itself. Do you want to spend twenty or thirty minutes memorizing the order of numerous abstract symbols? No, of course you don’t. That sounds awful. Do you want to spend twenty or thirty minutes in passionate debate with your friends about how a set of abstract symbols relate to one another based on three arbitrary criteria, to argue about whether and why that set of squiggles with a line through it feels more like a Reptile than it does Travel? Of course you do. That sounds joyous, and it is. Out of Sorts is a cooperative game in which players work together to organize an alien’s library. The lot of you have been abducted for the purpose by this seafoam green monstrosity, who sits in a chair reading while you do all the work. The alien starts out not paying much attention to you… The post Out of Sorts Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.
Oasis: New Life on a Distant World Game Review
by Thomas Wells on August 17, 2026
My view of criticism is that, when done well, it is generative and contextualizing to the form it critiques. Having the privilege of reviewing and analyzing games comes with a degree of responsibility. Don’t misunderstand me—there is zero responsibility to a corporation, a designer, and anyone else who has made the business of games their business. My responsibility is to the mysterious and magical mental maneuver that allows a game to become more than pieces and rules and become something that facilitates agreement between people. Lofty, I know. In my mind, players of games are akin to guests. Sure, a guest can be a big ol’ jerk, but when you’re playing a game, you’re stepping into an experience that is supposed to connect you to other people, to new ideas, interesting decisions, new concepts. You’re not a line item in a budget spreadsheet. This perspective, coupled with some professional jealousy (I think I have some really cool game designs of my own that are worth sharing) can lead me to be seemingly harsh about a game that another critic might deem “acceptable” or “fine.” But I’m not that other critic. Enormous amounts of resources go into the creation of a mass market game, and when the product is derivative… The post Oasis: New Life on a Distant World Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.
Euphoria Essential Edition Game Review
by Justin Bell on August 16, 2026
Euphoria Essential Edition (2026, Stonemaier Games) is the updated version of 2013’s Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia, a game that I had heard about over the years but never played myself. That’s not because the game isn’t easy to understand; featuring a rulebook with a linen finish and lots of clear ways to understand the game’s mechanics (both in multiplayer and for its automa rules), Euphoria Essential Edition is easy to parse. And, like other Stonemaier products, Euphoria Essential Edition is beautiful—save for dice that feature pips that are just a little too cute for their own good, everything about this production whoops the old production’s behind, based on pictures I have seen of the original version. The board layout, in particular, is a big change and I like the look of this newer edition. But Euphoria Essential Edition suffers because it doesn’t appear to have aged well. Players are collectively running a society that seems to have some rough edges, and keeping workers unaware of their surroundings is a critical part of the gameplay. As play begins, each of the 1-6 players at the table has a worker pool of two, represented by dice that can be sent out into the world to gather resources, collect artifacts, and… The post Euphoria Essential Edition Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.