Whistle Mountain

This is such a great worker placement game! You build the locations that you place your meeples while flying your airships around to gain resources to spend!

Rating based on one part play on Tabletopia, which was a bit of a struggle. It seems convoluted, so I feel generous giving it a 7 on the basis that I'd like to try it in real life (but I'd never want to play again on Tabletopia). Still, feels like in real life it is going to be much longer than 60-90 mins and a lot of downtime due to analysis paralysis. I don't relish playing it.

Players place polyominoes on a shared board to build machines on, which can later be activated through worker (airship) placement. Unique theme which oddly ties well into the mechanics. Various different tiles, cards and abilities to keep each game fresh.

I don't know if my brain was hazy when I first tried this, but I just could not get this. I even started thinking, "That's it, heavy Euros aren't for me anymore." We played most of a single game and then called it because Stephen had to work the next day.

Second time around, everything 'clicked' much more easily for me! I think with 3 players I was overwhelmed by how quickly the board state of the structure could change -- 4 would be even worse.

Really liked this at 2, and it played in about an hour besides, which almost pulls this out of heavy Euro territory. Second play improved my opinion of the game -- I'd wager this has room to move upwards if I ever get back to it.

Nov '21: Rated 6 Dec '24: Rated 5 — we haven't felt the need to come back to it in 3 years.

The excessive downtime and fiddly components is enough to make this a miss for me. A game with such light rules and randomness does not warrant the amount of AP it seems to generate. The game on the whole, is actually quite enjoyable with a good amount of cooperative and competitive interaction, and a palpable tension as the water level rises.

There's just something special with this game, it really is fantastic... it's tactile, it's fun, it's great looking, and it scratches a sort of unique itch. Love it.

First play impressions. Solid game with a nice acceleration. I worry certain combos may simply be too strong. Also, people covering your workers is very impactful.