Whistle Mountain

EvEvanstar7,2

In this game players collectively build a central grid of tiles full of resource gathering spots and or special action buildings. When a player's airship is deployed to the grid it generates one of each thing it's orthogonality next to, including the effects of buildings. The game begins with players putting down basic tetris shaped scaffolding tiles that only yield resources, but as the game progresses more powerful and interesting buildings get built on top of the scaffolding with the additional effect of making the basic resources more scarce. Additionally, once the grid of buildings pokes above the bridge line, the water level rises from the bottom of the grid serving to disable any buildings that get partially submerged. The game has a lot of fun tension. You get a single airship worker in three sizes, 1x1, 1x2 and 1x3. Placing your worker in the grid reserves that space for a future build as no player can build on top of workers. You need to split your actions between gathering the resources to buy the tiles you need, getting powerful card draws, gaining new ongoing ability tiles. This timing is crucial as the effect that gets your airships back is also your build opportunity. A lot of the iconography is unclear or misleading. Cards in your hand need to be checked against the card manifest in the rulebook even if you think you know what the card does. The same is true for ability tiles and building effects. Even then some building effects are unclear. The player board leaves a lot to be desired as well. Endgame scoring is printed on the back of the board, and there's no reminder in the build section of the player aid that you gain VP for building scaffolding tiles. Card plays are also deceptively important. Each turn you get to play a single card and the effects of those cards can massively shake up the tempo of the game, allowing you to immediately claim a building tile or a build without taking a reset turn. Having a card engine tends to make your turns at least twice as efficient, yet the space to gain cards is just one slot regardless of player count. Ultimately I do enjoy this game a lot, I think it does a lot of interesting things. It's unfortunate that the icon design isn't better, or that there isn't more help text as passing the rulebook around drags the pacing down, and inevitably someone has a bad time when they misplay something and don't realize it until turns later. ☆ Art, Iconography and components functional ★ Clever or interesting mechanisms ★ Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players ★ Multiple plays stay interesting ★ Low or mitigatable luck elements ★★★★☆ Raw enjoyment