With the exception of Gloomies, everything I checked out at the Ravensburger booth built on or expanded something that came before. That’s not necessarily bad, though. Sandcastles of Burgundy and Minecraft: Builders & Biomes – Junior are both kids’ versions of their larger siblings, but pretty far removed from their complexity. Disney Villainous Unstoppable! has also been given a slimmed-down treatment to make the game faster and more approachable by younger gamers. However, this does mean it is not compatible with versions that came before. Gloomies, the true newbie, has players decorating the board box with flowers, trying to make specific combinations to collect cards and points during the first half. The game then flips over to players using the cards collected to take back all those planted flowers. Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons gives a D&D spin to the line using standard D&D heroes and even a 20-side die for some tasks. Finally, Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics, which is also compatible with what’s come before, brings in Admiral Thrawn and Count Duku as playable characters.

The Sandcastles of Burgundy

The Sandcastles of Burgundy is a two to four player game that has a bit of a nod to its older brother, The Castles of Burgundy. Rather than try to build out a kingdom map, players in Sandcastles are racing to gather resources for their market town, then trying to find (under the castles) the right meeple and lure them to your market. If a player gets two matching color decorations, they can also try to grab a matching animal from under a castle.

Like Castles of Burgundy, Sandcastles has players roll their dice at the start of their turn. Players then take turns using them to open up one of the matching sandcastles to see what’s inside (a bit of a memory component) and put something in your warehouse or use your dice to move goods from your warehouse into your market. First to finish one’s market wins the game. As players decorate their market, they get to flip over the stall tiles which does add a nice bit of fun table presence as one’s market slowly improves.

The game has a bit of a complexity slider (adjustable rules), meant primarily to on-ramp new (young) players into the game, but I suppose super young ones could stay at that level if they want.

Gloomies

Gloomies is a two to four player game of little pixie-like creatures decorating a little garden of flowers, following with the theme, it has a fairly bright pastel-laden board that rests within the game box while you play.

Gameplay consists of two phases. In the growing phase, players are trying to collect flowers ( multiples of the same colors give extra points), gather beans that kind of give an ongoing point-income, or get orders that will get fulfilled in the next, Harvesting phase. After planting onto the board, players get to draft cards (two single or one double-color flower.) After the board is filled, the Harvesting Phase begins. Players recollect their played cards and play through them again to do all the gamey things (collect flowers, complete orders, etc…) The game ends when all the flowers on the board have been harvested – the timing of which can be fiddled-with to provide some last minute game tactics.

Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons

The cooperative fight-the-monster game, Horrified, is back with a strong Dungeons & Dragons theme. There are four new monsters, new heroes, and a few new D&D style mechanics. All of which mash together in the familiar Horrified gameplay of running around the map putting out metaphorical fires while simultaneously get ready to and take out the bad guy.

Players take on the classic roles of fighter, wizard, rogue, cleric, or bard along with special abilities thematic to their class. (There’s a promo for a warlock hero floating around.) Our intrepid heroes will face off with one of four classic D&D monsters: the Beholder, Mimic, Displacer Beast, and Red Dragon.

Each monster lends its style to the game, including its own spin on a puzzle to be solved. The Red Dragon, for example, has a two-part puzzle involving the Orb of Dragonkind. Other D&D style elements also sneak into the game, such as a 20-sided (d20) die used to overcome challenges. It is possible to mix-and-match the game with previous Horrified releases, with the heroes and monsters the easiest things to cross-over.

Villainous: Unstoppable!

Villainous is back with Disney Villainous Unstoppable! Players take on the roles of Maleficent, Ursula, Hades, or Scar all scheming to take over the world! (or something like that, you’ll have to ask them…) Of course, evil always has time to do more evil so feel free to get in your opponents’ way before they conquer it first. This new, Villainous Unstoppable! is standalone and NOT compatible with previous Villainous editions. The game has been tweaked a bit to streamline gameplay to make it more accessible and play faster. Perhaps you could consider it a “Villainous Junior” or something similar enough to make a stepping stone into the full game at a later point..

The biggest change is that players now move around on a shared board (which is connected to a special realm for each villain.) Players use cards to upgrade their own personal realm, push your villainous plan forward, mess with an opponent, or build up your power for later. Each character has four specific tokens that must be collected to win the game.

Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics

The newest in the Star Wars line, Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics, lets players pick from Grand Admiral Thrawn or Count Dooku. Dooku tries to defeat Jedi to intimidate neutral organizations. Basically playing four organization cards from his deck onto his four locations, gaining bonuses when the organizations become active. To do this, he must first put intimidation tokens there. Thrawn is deploying the 7th Fleet card to occupy a location, gaining Ambition which helps activate cards and gain strength. This stand-alone (two player) expansion works with all the previous Star Wars ones.

Minecraft: Builders & Biomes – Junior

Minecraft: Builders & Biomes – Junior is a cooperative boardgame for younger players (not very) loosely based around it’s big boardgame brother (without the Junior name.) Players use pickaxes and shovels to get blocks to try to build a communal farm. You flip a card and if it is an animal, you have to try to get the building materials to make a home for them.

This aspect turns the game into a dexterity thing, where players have to knock physical blocks out of a group, but must do so very gently so that they don’t bounce too far away and fall into the lava. Mobs (creepers and zombies) when flipped force a player to knock a coal block off of the stack. Fail to get a coal cube and the monster sticks around and gets in the way of your farm. If the players can build everything, fill the farm with animals, all before the mobs completely block them off, they win the game.