1975: White Christmas

• Designer: Albert Reyes 
• Publisher: Looping Games
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 12+
• Time: about 25 mins per player
• Review by Derek J

1975: White Christmas specifically simulates Operation Frequent Wind. The “White Christmas” song isn’t just flavor text; it serves as the thematic anchor for the evacuation signal. On April 29, 1975, the operation began in the morning when the following message was heard on Saigon radio: “The temperature in Saigon is 105 degrees and rising.” followed by a broadcast of the Bing Crosby song “White Christmas”. The mechanics reflect real-world logistics, such as helicopters needing to return to carriers to unload rescued civilians before the city falls. 

We picked up this title at Spiel Essen in 2026. It was on our list of about 30 titles to pick up for our local convention. We posted a video about the games we were excited to see at Spiel Essen.

HC Crew – Episode 2: The Wall of Girona

 

You control an aircraft carrier that is created by a row of 5 cards which is essentially your player board. All the parts of the carrier can be upgraded during the game to gain benefits that can help your gameplay. You will also receive two helicopters that hold two passengers which can also get upgraded for a better point payout and to increase capacity. All of the helicopter passenger rewards are asymmetric in the types of passengers they can transport and the points earned. 

The main board contains four slots that are filled with action cards from the top of the shuffled action deck. Also, four Influence effect cards are placed above the board in their matching colors with a marker for each player to create a modular influence track.

 

Rooftop cards are placed out depending on the player count using an N +1 formula. People/passenger tokens are placed on each rooftop to give players scoring incentive. A staircase deck is placed close to the rooftops as the additional people will arrive on each rooftop staircase in phase 2. Special order cards placed in a row where all players can see them.

 

The game takes place over 4 rounds and you will use the sighting deck as a timer for the game. The yellow Cessna card is always placed on the bottom with 3 blue helicopter cards above it. Turn order cards are dealt out and player one will start the game. Each round the player with the highest influence will go first.

 

The game has 3 phases. In the first phase players will draft cards from the main board and take the action depicted above the card. Each card taken will be immediately replaced. The cards taken will create a hand of cards used in the next phase.

The following are the actions in 1975 White Christmas. The first action can only be taken during phase 1 is inspect. This action is to secretly look at one of the facedown staircase cards next to a rooftop to see which people tokens will appear in phase 2, immediately gain a victory point,  and take a card from the top of the main deck.

 

The rest of the actions can be performed in both phase 1 and phase 2.

You use the move action to move one of the helicopters from your aircraft carrier to one of the free rooftops provided only if there is an open space available, or back to the aircraft carrier. Each helicopter can only either land on the top or bottom of the rooftop. When you are returning the helicopter to the aircraft carrier, you must unload any rescued people tokens. If there is no space you must choose which people tokens to unload leaving the rest on the helicopter. These people can be unloaded when you have available space. You will receive a victory token based on the indicated value on your chopper that you are using to land and a point for the placement on the ship. If you remove your helicopter from the carrier to a rooftop, those unlucky available passenger tokens not placed will be returned to supply before leaving the boat. It is a bummer if this happens.

 

Using the influence action, you can move your marker one space on the influence track and any icon that you land on will immediately resolve. 

If you take the rescue action, you’ll take one of the people tokens indicated from the rooftop card that you have on the upper left-hand corner of your action card. All action cards except the wild action are able to rescue passengers. The symbol will depict which type of person you can rescue. If your helicopter is at capacity you will no longer be able to take additional tokens before flying back to your aircraft carrier and unloading.

You can use a radar action to take one of the radar tokens from supply. You secretly check its value and keep it faced down during play. These tokens are 3-5 in value with 4’s being most plentiful.

The final action you can perform is a special order. You will choose one of the following types of options: either complete an order from the special mission display in which you can discard your rescued people that match the icons from your aircraft carrier back to supply (they are saved and it opens space for more) for extra points. You’ll take the mission card and keep it in your play area. Or you can upgrade your aircraft carrier if you meet the requirement shown on the mission folder at the bottom of each one of the five cards of your aircraft carrier. This upgrade will grant you powers and additional victory points.

 

In the second phase the players will play cards from their hand one at a time and resolve those actions. Each card has a dual purpose: either rescue the icon in the top left corner or take the action on the card. If you can not take the action you can pass.

 

The third phase incorporates a secret bidding phase (using radar tokens you have gained from the radar action) for a powerful extra helicopter, this offers a level of direct competition and “blind” tactical play. Players will choose and declare any number of tokens to play in front of them. Once all players have done so they will all reveal simultaneously. The player with the highest points wins, and in case of a tie it follows player turn order. The extra chopper will grant you passengers and/or an action that you can resolve immediately or wait till later.

 

In the solo mode for this game, you will set up the game as a standard two player set up and you will face off against the bot of Captain Lawrence Chambers, who was the commander of the USS Midday during this operation. His helicopters have already been upgraded. You remove the wild cards from the main deck and keep one wild card for yourself. His actions will be based on flipping action cards of the main deck of which action slot to perform and which cards to take to form a hand for the second round. These action cards will be shuffled then placed facedown. Each action card played in phase 2 will try to rescue then move on to that cards’ main action. In phase 3, he will always use one more radar token than you up to the number that he has in his supply. All of Chambers’ actions are a little different than the base actions. Most of the decisions will be made by you with the most logical and highest point scoring for the bot. 

 

With the 1900 Series by Looping Games, 1975: White Christmas stands out as one of the more strategically layered entries. While it shares the series’ hallmark of “big game in a small box,” it introduces unique mechanical nuances compared to the rest 1900 series. Each game in the series uses cards as a base component in unique ways. Like setting up the player boards and even creating a full modular gaming space like 1998 ISS space station.

 

1975: White Christmas emphasizes immediate vs. future utility through its card-drafting system. A dual-purpose card system unlike 1923 Cotton Club, which uses a more traditional worker placement and engine-building loop, 1975 forces you to choose a card based on its position in a row to trigger an immediate action, while simultaneously planning how to play that same card from your hand later. You might want the action position of the card more than the card itself. There are two phases to every round so the action now might trump the planning for later. The “Influence Track” built with cards and rooftop character cards provide many configurations, I think I read that 256 possibilities which should offer higher replayability.

All the Looping 1900 series titles are historically grounded, the tone of 1975 is notably more somber as you feel like you are evacuating victims with the helicopter card movements and blurring of unknown passengers by smoke until they are revealed to get saved. As you hope you can fill your aircraft and not lose any passengers. While 1998 ISS is about a collaborative construction and 1920 Wall Street focused on market manipulation, 1975 centers on a high-pressure rescue operation. 

 

1975 sits comfortably in the Medium category. The actions are easy but the hand management and planning can create a good amount of depth and planning. Playing at a 4 player count there was a dash to certain rooftops that proved to be engaging with stimulating decisions of when to return to the ship. The eurogamer in me tried to plot the most efficient moves but even the best plans can be foiled by an incorrect card placement giving the next player the perfect combo. The random draw from the deck can give bad feels if the player before you takes the card you or if one of the rescue cards with all four types of passengers flops for someone else. As the game moves along it can be difficult to empty your vessel if the special orders do not match your passengers which led to some frustration of our group. The radar sighting phase seemed to be far less interesting even at 4 players and not really needed during my solo plays.

 

Here are the weights of the other titles in the series based on BGG “weight rating”.

• 1975 White Christmas: 2.75 / 5. It is more complex than the other titles but only slightly 
• 1987 Channel Tunnel: 2.70 / 5. Very similar in weight but seems more restrictive as it is strictly for 2 players with the construction of the Channel Tunnel 
• 1902 Méliès: 2.67 / 5. Worker placement that creates director Georges Méliès, film, “A Trip to the Moon”, the first science fiction movie.
• 1988 ISS 2.65 / 5. Contacts with worker placement and muti-use cards. Unity joined the Russian module Zayra at an altitude of 400 km. This was the inception of the International Space Station.
• 1920 Wall Street 2.40 / 5. Stock manipulation with card selection collects shares with the backdrop of Wall Street bombing, a new version was released at Essen 2025.
• 1923 Cotton Club: 2.35 / 5. Generally considered lighter and more accessible for casual players to oversee a club during the complex times of Prohibition.
• 1906 San Francisco: 2.38 / 5. Area majority rebuilding SF after a massive earthquake 
• 1942 USS Yorktown: 2.30 / 5. Offers a cooperative experience with American pilots who take off from the USS Yorktown to try to locate and sink the Shōhō before your vessel is sunk.
• 1980 Sixtina 2.20 /5. Area majority and hand management restoring the Sistine chapel.
• 1911 Amundsen vs Scott 1.83 / 5. Hand Management as a 2 player race to the Artic circle.

1975: White Christmas is the good choice if you want a dynamic drafting system and a high-tension historical theme that rewards careful synergy over multiple phases of play. It does feel like a big game in a small box.

 

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Lorna: I really enjoyed 1975. It may be my favorite out of the series. I love the themes and this one in particular is interesting. I thought the mechanisms and the way the game played was interesting.

 

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y, Lorna
• Neutral.
• Not for me…