Rebuilding Chicago – Thomas Wells
I’m not that crazy about polyomino games, but Rebuilding Chicago is the kind of thing I like—razor sharp. I think that that sharpness decreases at lower player counts, but at four players, our game was over in 20 minutes with a point spread of 50. The schtick of this one is that you can either lay the polyominos in your little city board or activate an event that affects everyone. So, you’re constantly seeing how little you can do to edge out opponents, and they’re doing the same with you. Multiple times during our game, an event resolution would result in someone scoring 15-20 points, with someone else getting nothing. It’s got an enormous amount of variability, and for my money, I’d happily polyomino Chicago any time.
Ease of entry?
★★★★☆ – The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?
★★★★☆ – Would like to play it again
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Dragonarium – Kevin Brantley
This cute, cozy title comes from Wonderful World Board Games, a publisher that infuses Taiwanese culture and heritage into many of its games.
Dragonarium has players drafting polyomino tiles to create same-colored habitats, though doing so means sacrificing the spaces underneath. After drafting a tile, players move their assistant around the board, placing gems into specified slots below. Covering spaces with completed gem slots hatches a dragon, placing an adorable dragon meeple on top. Scoring primarily comes from creating the largest connected areas of each color.
It’s a fun little puzzle that feels perfect for a gateway game night or as an endcap to a busier session. Turns are snappy, and there’s a nice bit of satisfaction in lining up tiles in just the right combination. Though I’d put this in a similar gateway-game space as Kingdomino or Akropolis, there’s a slight learning curve to the placement rules that might slow down younger or less experienced players at first.
Dragonarium doesn’t bring anything particularly new or innovative to the table, but it’s still a nice time. I’d even chalk this up as a “cozy” game, with low stakes, low interaction, and just enough of a puzzle to give the family something to chew on. And for the strategy gamers, the asymmetric board side will always be the way to go.
Ease of entry?span>:
★★★★☆ – The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?span>:
★★★☆☆ – Wouldn’t suggest it, but would happily play it
Read more articles from Kevin Brantley.
Shape it – Justin Bell
I picked up a copy of Shape it at the 2026 edition of Gen Con, and it’s a game so simple that I need to try it again on a harder difficulty level.
That’s because the game’s format—which initially looked like something that would create real intrigue on every turn—includes a wide variety of set-up options which dictate how things will play out. To begin the game, players select seven shape tokens from a pool of about 20 options. These range from simple triangles, diamonds, and a squiggly line to one that might be a mix between a wall, a ragged cliff, and a sloping hill. Five word cards are placed on the table (from one of three decks, decks that rotate each turn), then players have the chance to influence up to one of the seven shapes in the middle of the table by moving it, simply touching it or pointing at it, or placing it on top of another piece. The goal is to get other players to buy in on what word they are thinking of, so that when everyone is forced to say what word they are going for, everyone blurts out the same word at the same time.
Again, intriguing, right? But using the game’s initial shape set up (using very simple shapes, like an L shape, a circle, a chevron, etc.), the game was so easy that it wasn’t that much fun. For example, in a mix of five words that includes “Saturn”, one player simply pointed at the shape, then when other players nodded that they were picking up what the active player was putting down, everyone blurted out the right word. “House” led to a similar issue: one person used the big triangle to start forming the roof of a house, then used the L shape to build one wall and the house’s foundation. Easy, peasy. But when the shapes are harder, Shape it immediately becomes more interesting, so I expect to use harder shapes for my future plays. Winning still feels like it will be easy in this game—players have to get five words right before they get three words wrong—but the fun factor still exists when players have the chance to all say the WRONG thing at the same time, right??
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★★★☆ – Would like to play it again (as long as I’m using the harder shapes!)
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My Island – K. David Ladage
I am a fan of Dr. Knizia. I love the vast majority of the games of his to which I have been introduced. He has created such masterpieces as Ingenious and its follow-up, Ingenious 3D. The list of games of his to which I feel I owe him a debt of gratitude is too long to list. Back when My City came out, I got it… but I spent a long, long time trying to convince the people in my game group to join me for the campaign. Eventually, my wife and I decided to do it on our own. We had a great time. Like my colleague, Andrew Lynch, I believe that the 3-star rating David McMillan gives it is a travesty.
My City is a beautiful game. So when I heard that Dr. Knizia was going to follow up this game with a hex-based My Island, I was in! Once again, I spent a long, long time trying to convince the people in my game group to join me for the campaign. And once again, this was fruitless and so my wife and I dove in for a two-player experience. The unfortunate fact is, this time, I think a 3-star review would be far, far too generous.
When my wife and I started the campaign, the early chapters were wonderful. We were excited to get into a new chapter of the game and see what came next! It was fun. I even expressed that I felt this was a superior game to My City. It was sometime around Chapter 3 that things were feeling off. The shifts from Chapter-to-Chapter, and even episode-to-episode felt to us like they were not organic or even story driven.They came across as changes for the sake of making changes. As this is a legacy-campaign, I am not going to get into specifics. I may have to see if I can write a contrasting review with hidden text to explain where I think this game went off the rails. If I am being truly honest, there was a great game that could have existed here. It is sad what we experienced.
After my wife and I muscled and forced ourselves to complete the campaign, I went to BoardGameGeek to see if anyone else felt the way we did. What I discovered was this thread, which I seriously wish I had seen prior to us starting. But this was all supposed to be a surprise, so I never searched. Know this:
If you are going to play this game, bookmark that
thread and refer to it as you enter each chapter.
Ease of entry?
★★★★☆ – The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?
★★☆☆☆ – Would play again but would rather play something else
Read more articles from K. David Ladage.
Las Vegas – Justin Bell
Our man Andy Matthews first reviewed the classic Rüdinger Dorn title Las Vegas all the way back in 2016, and I’m happy to report that the game still rocks. Las Vegas is so good that it had all five players at the table quietly wondering the same thing I said out loud during the second of three rounds: “this is such a simple, satisfying way to play a dice game…why are more complicated games not nearly as good as this?” (Of course, once you realize that Dorn also gave us Istanbul, Goa, and one of my all-time faves, Luxor, you see what makes his games shine.)
Like the old version of the game, players get three rounds to collect the most money from six different casinos each round, with each one aligned with a specific die’s pip value. On a turn, the active player rolls all remaining dice from their pool—which begins in a round with six small dice and one slightly bigger one, meant to represent two dice—and picks one of the rolled pip values to assign all dice showing that value on a turn. That means you have a lot of choices to begin a round and very few by the time things wrap up. When a round ends, players check to see who has the most total dice (not pips) on each of the six casinos…and the top two players get paid, taking the most valuable dollar card at that casino (ranging from $10K-$100K).
Here’s the rub: any players who have the exact same number of dice can’t win any money at that casino. That means players are constantly jockeying not only for the most valuable money card at a casino, but also swooping in to ensure some players don’t get anything at all. And at the end of a round, a player’s die or dice might all be showing the same value…meaning luck is possibly a factor every time around. Las Vegas is the kind of quick-playing dice game that has real choices and can be taught in under 60 seconds. Las Vegas has aged very well, so it seems like Ravensburger was right to update the game with new art and a variant for advanced play. My only complaint? The “big” die ain’t that big, so it’s sometimes hard to tell from across the table where the double-die dice are on each casino tile.
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★★★★ – Will definitely play it again
Read more articles from Justin Bell.
