Sean Winningham
Whenever one says “fantasy games,” people typically think of games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, or Catan. But there should be one more game that you should add to your list: Wandering Towers.
I had a chance to learn how to play this game at my local gaming store during their “Board Game Tuesday” night and I was immediately hooked. It’s a simple yet challenging game, quick to pick up, and a practical approach to its boxing and storage design (which one may not think is critical to have, but as someone who has owned and played a variety of games, it’s definitely a way to level up your product!)
Here is the official description of Wandering Towers from its publisher, Capstone Games:
Each year, the graduating classes of the Ravenrealm Magic School compete to demonstrate their mastery of magic. For the final exam, all the wizards of each class must assemble at the legendary Ravenskeep… but every last one of them has procrastinated, distracted by learning new spells. They’ve also used all their potions—they can’t show up unprepared, with empty potion bottles!
Help your wizards get to Ravenskeep as quickly as possible. Using their magic they could even move the very towers atop which they stand to get there more easily! But how can they refill their potion bottles along the way? Well, here’s a little secret: Trapping wizards allows you to capture some of their magical essence in a bottle…
If after reading this review you’d like to play or purchase this game, make sure to shop locally (if you can) and find your local gaming store.
GAME INFORMATION
- Players: 2-6
- Play Time: 30 minutes
- Ages: 8+
- Mechanism: Cooperative, Hand Management, Memory
- Genre: Fantasy, Memory
- Designer(s): Michael Kiesling, Wolfgang Kramer
- Artist(s): Michael Menzel
- Publisher: Capstone Games
- Year Of Release: 2022
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
The game box is around medium size, and the organization and storage design of the box is extremely well done (probably one of the best I’ve seen). It’s created so that each of the components are stored in it’s own cubicle, making it easy during gameplay to put away things you no longer need as well as getting the pieces you need quickly when you set up.
The game (like most games) comes with everything you need to play: first player token, 4 connecting landscape tiles that form an open circle, 9 towers, a Ravenskeep, movement card deck, spell tokens, six-sided die (d6), and six sets of meeples and potion bottles (one side empty, other side full with matching meeple color). The majority of the pieces are cardboard that come in punch-out pages, so you will spend time punching those out and setting/folding the pieces up for your first gameplay, but after setting this up, you won’t need to tear it down again thanks to the box design.
One will notice that the sets of meeples and potion bottles come in different numbers (two sets have six pieces whereas another set of two has 4). This is to accommodate for the different number of players to keep the game play fair and enjoyable. However, this means that you need to know which colors you need to play contingent on player numbers, which also means limited choice on color. This may be trivial but it’s also not clear why the publisher didn’t provide equal amount of meeple pieces and potion bottles so that anyone can pick whichever color they would like to play no matter how many players they have (outside of cost-saving measures).
HOW IT’S PLAYED
The objective of the game is to be the first player to get all of their wizards in the Ravenskeep and fill all of your potion bottles. The end of the game is triggered when a player does this, and everyone that is left in that round gets another turn to try to tie for first place (i.e. in a 4 player game, if the second player triggers the end of game, the third and fourth player gets another turn, but not the first player).
Every player will have three movement cards in their hand at the start of their turn, and they must play two cards, even if you can’t use them. You do have the option to forego playing both cards by discarding your entire hand and moving any one tower one space clockwise (towers always move clockwise unless you use a spell that allows you to move counter clockwise). Your movement cards will allow you to either move a wizard, a tower, or the option to move either one (some cards will depict both a wizard and a tower – you get to choose which one to use). You can only move your wizard and no one else’s, but you are free to move any tower except the Ravenskeep (however, if the Ravenskeep is on top of a tower, you can move the tower that it’s on and the Ravenskeep will come for the ride!). Each card will either have a number that denotes how many spaces it can move or has a die, meaning you will roll to determine how many spots you will move (some cards will show two or three dice, meaning you get to re-roll if you like).
To fill your potion bottles, you have to “trap” wizards (even your own) by moving a tower on top of them. Once you trap them, you get to turn one bottle over from empty to full. Now this is where the chaos happens because you can move one tower on top of another, move an entire stack on top of another tower, or even move part of a stack of towers, essentially splitting it into two! This also makes it tricky because when a tower traps your wizard, you won’t be able to see it anymore until it moves again, but you’ll need to remember where it’s at as towers move which is more difficult than one would think!
One thing the rules is not clear on, however, is if you can fill more than one potion bottle per turn. It doesn’t explicitly say one way or the other, so this will need to be a house rules determination.
During your turn, you can also use your filled potion bottles to spend on spells that you have at your disposable, which allows certain moves such as moving a wizard forward one, a tower back two spaces, and so on. When you spend the filled potion bottles, you place them in the box and no longer have access to use them for spells, but it is still considered filled, so you don’t have to “fill” it again in order to win the game. But the player needs to use this wisely because if the game results in a tie, then the player with the most filled potion bottles is the decided winner.
Moving the wizard inside the Ravenskeep is pretty straight forward but you must move the wizard the exact many spaces to land inside the Ravenskeep. So if your wizard is five spots away and you play a card that moves a wizard six spaces, you can’t drop the wizard in early – it must move six spaces. When you move a wizard in the Ravenskeep, then the Ravenskeep (and it alone, no matter if it’s on top of multiple towers) must move to the next open space with a Raven Shield with no wizards on it. This will also end your turn immediately so it’s wise to try to do this on your second movement and not your first (my wife had trouble with this, haha).
Wandering Towers also has a solo mode, a nasty variant (you can play spells during anyone’s turn and you can move anyone’s wizard), and a team variant (cooperative mode).
THE PLAYING EXPERIENCE
As I mentioned before, I first learned to play this game at my local gaming store’s “Board Game Night” where we learn to play a new game every week. We had a pretty large group playing this game and everyone had a blast playing it. Like most games, it tends to be slow moving at first because people are trying to learn it and figure out strategies but by the third or fourth round, it gets moving pretty quickly.
I loved this game so much that I put it on my holiday wish list and received it as a present from my in-laws. I played this game with my wife and kid and they enjoyed it so much that it’s become one of our few “go-to” games to play for family game night. It’s one where you have to pay attention otherwise you’ll lose track of your wizards pretty quickly so looking down at your phone can cost you a few turns easily that way.
I also love that it has the various modes and variants as well, which many games are starting to provide. But this works well with my family because my wife loves cooperative games and my kiddo loves to be competitive and sneaky, so the Nasty Variant is something that they’ll want to play sometime in the future (I have a feeling it’ll just be me and them though as my wife won’t play that style of game).
ARTWORK
The artwork of the game is beautiful. It’s really accessible for so many people with its style of art as it gives that fantasy feeling without it being so classical that it appeals to a specific audience. Adults and kids alike will love how the potions, movement cards (which on the back cover is a spellbook), towers, and Ravenskeep will look. The box cover can make the game seem like it’s a kids game at first but I think that has more to do with our cultural expectations with the aesthetics of the fantasy genre than anything else. The artwork matches the vibe of the game that makes it light, fun, and elegantly joyful.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Wandering Towers is a fantastic game for friends and families. If you are someone or play with people who like simple, easy to learn games but also provides strategy and challenges, this would be a great game to bust out. A lighthearted, fun game with several play options makes this a very versatile fantasy game for all ages.
