First Impressions of Castles of Mad King Ludwig

I got to play a game of this at Mid Con, so this article is not a review, just my first impressions!

---

 

Castles of Mad King Ludwig, or perhaps more affectionately, Bungalows of Mad King Ludwig, is a game of building one storey (plus a dungeon) castles by purchasing and laying out room tiles. The rooms come in different shapes and sizes, they score in different ways according to their type (eg, the more kitchens you have, the more you score!) and there are some public and private bonus scoring opportunities. Everything you build helps, but it is whoever builds best that wins. It sounds like a neat Eurogame with limited player interaction, and it would be if it wasn’t for the ingenious purchasing system that makes this game amazing!

Each turn, one player becomes the Master Builder and sets the prices for the randomly determined set of rooms that turn. Then the other players decide which rooms they will buy, and pay that to the player who set the prices! This is an amazing mechanic! You want to put the ideal room just above the cost those players want to pay, and just below the cost they can’t afford. Except there are 3 other players around the table, how do you do that for all of them? And still leave yourself a room you can afford to buy! It is an impossible challenge to optimise, and it means everyone is interested in what everyone else is building all the time. This is a system that elegantly drives player interaction while ensuring your attention is held throughout the game.

 

 

Now, if only the game wasn’t so ugly! I’ve never seen such an awful looking game. From the central board to the bizzarly sprawling castles you’ll build, there is nothing visually appealing about the game. Well, that’s not quite true. Individual rooms have lovely illustrations, but they are bordered by a horrendous white stone effect that also covers the main board. Ludwig’s castles are beautiful structures that are famous throughout Europe, if not the world. Fantastical fairy tale-like castles. It is tragic that they have been reproduced in this way!

Castles of Mad King Ludwig might be an ugly duckling, but its gameplay shows all the elegance of a swan! I can’t wait to play this game some more.