World Wonders

I like tile placement games and I would easily play more of this. Simple to learn and much stuff around.

Drawn in by the bling and stayed for the gameplay. It’s not a top tier polyomino, but good enough to keep in rotation for now.

It lacks the elegance of Patchwork and it’s also a little fiddly but it’s still a good, challenging puzzle.

We were totally confused about the wonders - thinking that was the big motivation, then after walking away in frustration realized "Oh - face palm," they're really just bonuses. Pushing resources up is the main way to get points, and provides the fun arranging your tableau. Update: played a 2-player game with a better understanding of our goals and had a lot of fun.

Multiplayer patchwork... Great fun

1 play / 4 players

LIKE: I liked how tight the market is when played at 4 players, because buildings were not refilled until the next round. I enjoyed the race for placing wonders, because the balance of when to grab it was key: trying to decide if it was better to act quickly and sacrifice a few coins to grab one early, or to wait and see if I could get one for a cheap 1 coin. I also liked the road restrictions and how scarce the towers were. Roads became more valuable at the end which gave the game some interesting points. Easy teach. Looks good, nice wooden components.

DISLIKE: When the wonders ran out, it did make the game slightly less interesting, only because a choice was removed, but this happened at second-to-last round so was not largely impactful. Also the scores were very close at the end, only a single point difference, so I think the goal cards are needed for score variety. For example, we all scored our max nature squares, and found it fairly easy to do. The game can drag a bit between turns, I don't think 5 players would be good.

OVERALL: A nice polyomino game, I think the expansion is needed to add more monuments and building variety. For me, I immediately thought of Barenpark, which I enjoyed for the first plays, but after a few more plays became bored with it, because I was able to complete a perfect park. In World Wonders, I feel creating a perfect board is much more difficult, and might not always be the best score. I will need more plays to determine this. I feel the strategy of grabing first player marker and making sure my loan was paid off so I could grab another loan in the next round was interesting.

I want to try with the goal cards, but as a set: one for most resource, one for longest road, and then one more. I'm not convinced the goals should be completely random.

+Mondo expansion

Similar games I've played: Barenpark

gra

Fun little city builder. Perhaps a little drawn out at higher player counts. Also absolutely brutal and luck dependant and most strategies can go out of the window depending on what's drawn/turn order. Great component wise however and good overall

Fun with a slow boils up of tension. It is so good!

• Super easy to teach and get rolling on right away, regardless of the gaming group; The visual appeal of the wonders themselves is great but it's the tactical decisions of how to maximize and puzzle out your player board that keeps things interesting.

• I don't like that in the games we've played so far, the wonders themselves run out a round or two before the actual end... it seems that with a small expansion of extra wonders, things would be perfect.