Panda Spin - Andrew Lynch

There is a lot of promise in the core idea of Panda Spin, a shedding game with upgradeable cards. When/if you pass during a trick, you reclaim all of your played cards and turn them from their weaker side to their stronger side. Theoretically, this should cause hands to ramp ever-upwards as the game progresses and players start playing out massive set after massive set. It should also make the decision of whether or not to play something interesting, a game of chicken in which your desire to empty your hand of cards clashes with your desire for the stronger versions of things.

The reality falls short. Hands last too long. The rules are too clunky to explain to new players, with the juice rather immediately not worth the squeeze. The decisions aren’t particularly interesting. Many of the extra bits and bobs don’t feel like they enrich the game half so much as they complicate it, and therein lies the real rub: why play a somewhat inconveniently complex shedding game when I could either play a divine complex shedding game (like Tichu) or a terrific straightforward shedding game like Jungo or Scout?

Ease of entry?
★★★★☆ - The odd bump or two
Would I play…

The post Quick Peaks – Panda Spin, Disney Villainous: Treacherous Tides, The Color Monster, Crokinole, S-Evolution appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Aeon’s End: The New Age - Andrew Lynch

Indie Board & Card Games took their foot off the gas just a little with The New Age, by which I mean it isn’t nearly as punishing as War Eternal. The New Age introduced Aeon’s End’s campaign system, which would become de rigueur for their future releases, and those of us who’ve played Aeon’s End before will know that that’s a mixed blessing. The constant injection of new cards and powers is great, but the writing…well. Nobody plays Aeon’s End for the quality of the writing. You win some and you lose some. If you play Aeon’s End enough, you’ll lose quite a bit, in fact.

Ease of entry?
★★★★☆ - The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?
★★★★☆ - Would like to play it again

Read more articles from Andrew Lynch.

Kraken Skulls!  - Kevin Brantley

Kraken Skulls! puts 2–5 players at the helm of a pirate ship, chasing the most fame to become the king (or queen!) of the pirates.

Players bounce between a random selection of dice mini-games (via cards) laid out in a circle, mixed with open-water cards that house the dreadful…

The post Quick Peaks – Aeon’s End: The New Age, Kraken Skulls!, War of the Ring: The Card Game – Fire and Swords, Lords of Vegas, The Guest appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Windmill Valley: Blooming Sails - Justin Bell

On my way out of my meetings with Board&Dice at last year’s SPIEL Essen 2025, our marketing contact asked if I wanted a copy of the new Windmill Valley expansion, Blooming Sails. I thought the base game was fine, certainly not at the top echelon of Board&Dice’s other, better, more combotastic Euros such as Tiletum, Nucleum, or even recent hits like Reef Project and Tianxia. Still, I love games, and one player from my review group really enjoyed Windmill Valley, so I agreed to bring a copy home.

The expansion addresses what most players I know agree to be the weak link in the base game’s design: the Foreign Trade action, where players would drop a tulip bulb to get two meager bonuses—maybe a tool, a point, maybe another tulip bulb—or take all the bulbs on a card to get a lot of bulbs at once. I’m not a Windmill Valley expert, but it was always the action I would cover with another action tile first because I used Foreign Trade so infrequently. The expansion blows that portion of the game up, using a new side board, new Crate bonuses, and a separate boat token used to…

The post Quick Peaks – Windmill Valley: Blooming Sails, Aeon’s End: War Eternal, Rise of Babel, The Pirate Republic: Africa Gambit, Golem Run appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Mission: Red Planet - Andrew Lynch

The trick with Mission Red Planet, an area control game that comfortably sits 4-6 players and takes about 60-90 minutes, is to not take it too seriously. The good news there is that the game helps with that. You can’t take any of this too seriously. This isn’t El Grande. There’s no illusion of grand strategy. Mission Red Planet is a goofy, swingy, occasionally violent area control game in which a little too much is left up to chance. On the bright side, that makes it zippy. Nobody gets too bogged down in their decisions. The downside is that you can’t get particularly invested in your decisions either.

I like the minis, and I like the art. The docks for the space ships are both delightful and practical, the ideal combination. If I have a group of 6 who need to scratch an area control itch, I’m more than happy to bring Mission Red Planet back out onto the table. But that doesn’t happen too often.

Ease of entry?
★★★★☆ - The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?
★★★☆☆ - Wouldn’t suggest it, but would happily play it

Read more articles from Andrew Lynch.

[mm-productlinking id="12437" template="image" include_button="true"…

The post Quick Peaks – Mission: Red Planet, Tiny Towns, Mindbug x King of Tokyo, The Old King’s Crown, Beasty Bar appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

The Hanging Gardens - Justin Bell

Last year, I played The Hanging Gardens and covered it in our Dusty Euro series of articles. A card-splaying gem from 2008, The Hanging Gardens was a fun time at the table and reminded me a lot of the game Honshu. In this way, both games require players to lay small cards on top of other cards to satisfy scoring conditions in a very snappy 30-minute format.

I picked up a review copy of the 2025 version of The Hanging Gardens during my trip to SPIEL Essen 2025, and immediately noticed that the game format had changed. Now, players must complete a 12-card pyramid of garden cards that include scoring options for various elements, such as visitors, animals, irrigation cards (which must be placed in a certain pattern to satisfy a private milestone card), and various adornments to empty garden cards. There are public objectives along with a mechanic that requires players to choose from different card markets (in three columns) to draft the right cards.

The new version of The Hanging Gardens is pretty ordinary. In fact, this new version feels very much like what an industry friend likes to say about the modern state of the hobby: “new games are…

The post Quick Peaks – The Hanging Gardens, Hits & Outs, SETI: Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence, CODO Berlin 63, Bohnanza appeared first on Meeple Mountain.