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Dragon Castle
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3571 Victory Points
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Description
Dragon Castle is a game freely inspired by Mahjong Solitaire. During your turn, you take a pair of identical tiles from the central "castle" (known as the Dragon Castle) and place them on your own realm board to build your own castle. From time to time, you may sacrifice these tiles to acquire shrines in their place. Every time you create a set of tiles of the same kind, you "consolidate" them, i.e. flip them face down to score points. When you consolidate a set, you may also build shrines on top of the consolidated tiles: Shrines allow you to score more points, but they also limit your building options. You may also take advantage of the available spirit card and its game-changing powers...but this will come at a cost! Finally, don't forget to check the dragon card in play, and to follow the building requirements to score bonus points. When the Dragon Castle has been reduced to only one floor, the end of the game is triggered. After one final round, the player with the most points is the lord of the new Dragon Castle…and the winner of the game!
Dragon Castle was an Essen 2017 release from Horrible Games, which will soon be released here in the UK. Horrible Game’s last partnership with CMON was the brilliant Potion Explosion – a game with fantastic table appeal and one that has been great for introducing new people into the hobby.
Dragon Castle appears to have that same visual appeal and high component quality, as well as a passing resemblance to an addictive app/computer game – this time, it’s the traditional Mah Jong.
The Gameplay
Much like in the PC game of Mah Jong, in Dragon Castle you create a three tiered pyramid of bakelite tiles. On you turn you need to identify two ‘free’ tiles that are matching and remove these from the pyramid. You then place these two piles onto your personal board, your Realm, connecting larger groups of matching colour tiles which you will score – with higher points awarded for bigger consolidated areas.
You should also place a number of shrines on the area of consolidated tiles, with shrines being worth more points, the higher up you can build them on the levels of you Realm.
With additional Spirit cards and Dragon objectives that you can add into the game to give unique player abilities and additional scoring objectives to your games, Dragon Castle seems to offer a whole ton of interesting puzzle elements. This, on top of the gorgeous art and fantastic bakelite-type tiles means that this game could be a classic abstract game for me.
Dragon Castle – Coming Soon
I love spatial puzzles and I love the quality that we are now seeing in some abstract games. Dragon Castle ticks both of these boxes and I can’t wait to see it on our gaming table! I think it will be a great hit at home, but will also maybe be another game I can bring to my parents after their recent addiction to Azul – another abstract game with gorgeous tiles.
Dragon Castle is currently due for release towards the end of May, 2018, and you can pre-order a copy here at Zatu!
Zatu Score
You might like
- The game has great-looking components.
- Dragon Castle plays quickly: there shouldnt be much waiting around between turns.
- This is a game that youll be playing time and time again.
Might not like
- It seems surprising that the game doesnt come with any rules for solitaire play.