Dragon Castle Review
The great Dragon Castle is empty. Once filled with roars and fire, now it is left to mice and whispers. And you. For an empty castle never stays empty for long. Brick by aged brick, it falls, ferreted away to form the basis of new castles. Your castles. This is literally a game about destroying historical monuments.
Players: 2-4
Time: 30-45 mins
Ages: 8+
Designer: Hjalmar Hach, Luca Ricci, Lorenzo Silva
Artist: Cinyee Chiu
Publisher: Horrible Games
Dragon Castle has a terrific table presence and a very simple hook: it’s basically Mahjong. That old Eastern tile game that a great many of us Westerners will know from computer game adaptations. The Dragon Castle that sits in the centre is constructed from Mahjong-like tiles, and players obtain tiles in a similar way to that classic game. You may take an exact matching pair of tiles, but only if their long edges are exposed.
Honestly, I know very little about Mahjong and it’s variants. Which is perhaps why I don’t give a damn about your chess variant, but I’ve been very excited to try Dragon Castle since its initial release at Essen last year. It sure has taken a long time to reach the English speaking world. I assume they had to assemble all the sets by hand from a giant tile castle.
But taking pairs of tiles is kind of where the Mahjong comparison ends and the Euro game begins. Tiles you take from the castle go to your player board where you are building your own structures. Sets of matching colours will flip when you have 4 or more adjacent, scoring you points depending on how many flipped, and from then on letting you place new tiles on top of these flipped ones. As you flip, you have the opportunity to build one of your shrine pieces on them, and the higher these shrines are built, the more points they will be worth at game end.
And lo! You have a simple and perfectly pleasant construction puzzle. You want to build a big set before you flip for the extra points, but that can leave you exposed on the castle: what if some enterprising soul were to bin off the tiles you need to complete that set and screw you horribly? Who would do such a thing, I wonder?
Binning off is absolutely an option. For one, you can always take just a single tile in order to also gain a new shrine, ready to build when you next complete a set. Or you can literally throw away a tile for a point. Which is not a terrible way of gaining points if it gets in someones way.
I don’t want to oversell this interaction, however. It certainly happens, but the Dragon Castle is large and, for the early game, many sets are easy enough to complete. The ones to watch for are the players collecting black, blue and purple tiles, which are both rarer and let you place out double shrines when you flip. Once you get into the mid game, then grabbing things your opponents are working on can be an effective piece of grit in the gears but only rarely is it truly debilitating.
No, Dragon Castle is much more about the gentle planning out of your building, a spot of push your luck here, a touch of hate drafting there. Nothing you’d describe as overly taxing nor anything especially exciting. But it has a resounding pleasantness to it that makes it easy to like.
There is something immensely satisfying that comes from holding chunky plastic tiles, and even more that comes from arranging them on your board to build something. Give a pile of bricks like this to a child and you can guarantee they’ll start building something from them and Dragon Castle taps into the small child in you that finds such processes comforting. Even though setting up the castle initially can take quite a long time for the length of the game, it is easily forgiven because it is an inherently pleasurable activity. There is a huge variety of different castles to build and explore given in the rulebook too.
Variety is one of Dragon Castles greatest strengths, and it’s not only present in the castle itself. A collection of special power cards let players discard one of their own tiles to do some useful ability, and far more impactfully, a set of end game scoring cards encourage building in certain ways each game. Like much of Dragon Castle these are subtle effects but noticeable. Not brash game changing powers but tweaks to the puzzle that nevertheless give each play a certain unique flavour. Like tasting wines, you get to appreciate the nuances.
I get the sense that is what Dragon Castle is about. The gentle appreciation of a subtlety changing landscape. Recognisable but always slightly different. It’s the slow passage of time that sees a once dominating castle be taken apart piece by piece as new settlements grow and build upwards. It captures that essence in a game that breezes past in moments and will often surprise you in the final scoring.
It’s not a filler, but it does fall closer to that category than many others. It’s simplicity makes it one for families, and the recognisable Mahjong elements will appeal to a broader spectrum of players. But there are still enough engaging decisions for more enthusiastic gamers, especially if you add in multiple end game scoring cards to pull you in multiple directions with your building.
But be aware that the dragon left this castle long ago and the game at times feels like it’s missing some fire. It does what it wants to do well and that is a pleasurable activity. But it is also a little too bucolic to get a roaring recommendation from me.
Rating: Crumbling Edifice
Our copy of Dragon Castle was provided for review by Asmodee UK. You can pick up a copy for £46.99 RRP from your local hobby store.
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