Computer Junkyard
- Designer: Allen and Jared Pincus
- Publisher: Dream Egg Games
- Players: 2-4
- Age: 14+
- Time: 60-90 minutes
- Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3RoSJO4
- Played with review copy provided by publisher
You found a box of old computer games at a yard sale and can’t wait to play them with your friends. To your dismay, modern computers won’t run them. Instead, you each race to build your own vintage computer out of spare parts. Welcome to the Computer Junkyard, the perfect place to find all the components you will need! Scavenge for parts, sabotage your opponents, trade with your friends, and do it all with the cash in your pockets. Be the first to complete a computer good enough to run your game!
In Computer Junkyard, players assemble hardware tiles to construct a vintage computer. The first player to have a complete, bug-free computer, which meets the specifications necessary to run their unique computer game, is the winner. The primary mechanic of Computer Junkyard is the physical assembly of hardware tiles. Each player attaches their hardware together like puzzle pieces, connecting them up to a central motherboard tile to fit within a 9×9 chassis grid.
I was able to hit up Mindware titles twice on my Gen Con visit. Once at a small multi-publisher press event and then again at a booth visit. Games I saw include Trail to the Temple which has players exploring a temple using LiDAR (how cool is that?) by collecting tiles that are worth more if fewer tiles of that type are collected. Plunger Pop is a goofy slapjack-like game where players use tiny toilet plungers. Down the Water Spout is a dice rolling cooperative kids game just on the border (you decide) of an activity. In Seeker of Spells, players collect spellbooks to make the best stacks.
