Disclaimer: A review copy of Inkborn was provided during early access. All impressions are based on the game’s current January 2026 state.
Listen, it’s going to be real hard to not directly compare Inkborn to Slay the Spire throughout this review. Both are rogue-lite deck building card game. The similarities and influences are obvious from the first moments of the game. Also, I have over 300 hours logged in Slay the Spire, its gameplay is ingrained into my brain, so when something like Inkborn shows up, standing on the shoulders of that giant, it’s going to draw comparisons at every turn.
That said, I’ll do my very best to focus on what makes Inkborn its own thing, and save the direct comparisons to Slay the Spire for when they’re absolutely necessary. This isn’t a question of whether Inkborn is “the next Slay the Spire.” It’s about whether it brings enough new ideas, systems, and personality to justify its existence in a genre that’s already very crowded.
As I’ve said above, Inkborn is a rogue-lite deckbuilding game, designed by Acram Digital. Acram is well known for their visually appealing board game adaptions. From Concordia, to Charterstone, to Istanbul, Acram has proven themselves to be proficient in adapting tabletop games to PC and mobile devices. Unlike their previous output, Inkborn isn’t based on an existing tabletop game, instead it’s an original game, built from the ground up for PCs (and Steam Decks).
In Inkborn, your character moves from encounter to encounter, battling enemies and reaping rewards, until you either succeed in beating the final boss, or die trying. The rewards can be new cards, upgrades to existing cards, potions, and augments to your character, giving you persistent benefits for the rest of your run. The core loop of Inkborn is immediately comfortable to anyone who’s sunk even a little bit of time into any of the (many) other rougelite deck building games.
What really sets Inkborn apart, is its presentation and style. Everything in the world is built of, and revolves around paper. The enemies are ornate origami creatures with scissor blades for claws, the black and white backgrounds feature papercraft trees. As you or the enemies take damage, the character model gets covered in black, splotchy ink. It’s moody, atmospheric and engaging.
Further to the theme, your buffs and debuffs are also thematically named. Specifically, ‘sharpness’, ‘crumpled’, and ‘torn’ (Sharpness grants +1 to attacks, a crumpled character takes 50% more damage, and a torn character receives damage for every point of torn, then loses one point of torn). These thematic terms for status conditions are a little unintuitive, I constantly have to remind myself that crumpled means vulnerable in Slay the Spire-speak, but it’s probably more of a byproduct of my extensive time with the other game, and not something that Inkborn has done wrong.
Instead of potions, your character gets ideas, one time bonuses to be used in battle and expire at the end of each fight, forcing you to use them instead of hoard them. Quotes take the place of relics. Kind of. Instead of having being able to hold an unlimited number of relics to provide passive buffs to your character, you inscribe quotes to your body parts. These do all the things you’d expect a relic to do, such as make you immune to specific status debuffs, but you are limited by the amount of appendages that your body has. You’re often asked to make trade-offs on which quotes you want to carry with you, instead of collecting them like a rabid pack rat, which is my go-to strategy.
Combat starts off familiar, you draw a hand of cards, select which ones you want to use and the targets, and keep doing that until either side runs out of HP. Inkborn introduces a combo system, where if you play your cards in a certain order, like ‘skill, skill, attack’, you’ll get a bonus attack, or playing two status cards and then a skill will earn you a bonus buff. Personally, I loved this system right from the start. Discovering new combos is exciting, and being able to pull off a clutch combo to deal that final 4 damage to an enemy is utterly satisfying. Some combos even utilize those useless curse cards, turning a bane into a boon.
This is really where Inkborn begins to separate itself from Slay the Spire. Rather than pushing players toward specific archetypes or established builds, Inkborn’s systems encourages flexibility, adaptation, and occasional deviation from your intended build. It’s less about executing a perfect plan and more about learning how the systems talk to each other.
The map between encounters is a bit of a mixed bag. You start out in the centre of a map shrouded in shadows, with paths to follow spiralling out. You can take your time to hit extra combats and encounters, or, you can beeline to the Act Boss if you so desire. There is a timer, called the Chronicle Metre at the top of the screen that progresses every time you enter a new map node, that will inflict a curse upon you once it fills up, gently nudging you towards your destination, lest the curses undo all the grinding you’ve just gone through. It’s a neat risk vs reward system that works well.
Something else that makes Inkborn stand out is the town that offers some meta-progression that persists from run to run. It’s unlike Slay the Spire where you start from fresh every single run and have only your knowledge and skill to rely on to get you though. If you don’t get good, you won’t ascend the spire. Inkborn feels a bit more like Hades where the intersection of your skill and the persistent benefits you’ve earned will eventually carry you over the finish line.
Inkborn as an early access game is already really strong. The core gameplay is strong, and the unlockable combos are varied and interesting. The one character that is available feels really solid, and had me coming back again and again to try different builds. Heck, cards can be upgraded in different ways to suit your current deck, meaning taking the same card run after run can still feel fresh. I know that I will really appreciate the variety when the other characters get released, but the one that’s currently in the game offers a really solid gameplay experience.
I don’t know how well Inkborn is balanced, and I’m almost tempted to say that commenting on the balance doesn’t really matter right now, because the game is in early access. You can be sure that there will be lots of changes and tweaks as the game works its way towards its full release, which is currently planned for Q1 2027. Between then and now, two more classes are planned, more cards and skills, more combos and quotes, enemies and bosses are all planned to roll out throughout the year.
I did mostly play Inkborn on my steam deck, and generally found the UI to be passable, but sometimes confusing. The D-pad is used as shortcuts for various things, and I kept trying to use it to select my cards. Every now and then I felt like the timing for the animations were a bit off, but nothing really game breaking. I suspect that as time goes on, the UI will get tightened on various devices. I didn’t have any of these nitpicks while I was playing on my PC with the keyboard and mouse.
Inkborn is a pretty and well-made rougelite deck builder, but it isn’t finished. The theme is well executed, the systems are interesting and engaging, and I’m excited to see more content get added to the game to expand the breadth and depth. In it’s current state, Acram Digital has laid a strong foundation, and their ongoing updates suggest a team committed to refining and expanding the experience. If you’re the kind of person who likes to see a game change over development, or value being part of the early adopter crowd and having your input help shape the direction that Inkborn moves in, then Inkborn gets a solid recommendation from me.
I adore Lost Cities. It’s the perfect 2 player game for my wife and I. Competitive without being directly mean, random enough to make your risks feel like you’ve hit the lottery if you win, but also don’t really feel too bad if they don’t pan out, and I end up with a bucket of negative points. In my opinion, it’s my favourite game designed by Renier Kenizia. What I didn’t know until somewhat recently was that in the same year that Lost Cities came out, Schotten Totten was also released. Schotten Totten has players manage a hand of cards, playing them to your side of a line, trying to claim control of either the majority of the spaces, or three consecutive spaces. From an abstract view, it’s pretty comparable to Lost Cities, but when it comes to how the games feel, they couldn’t be more different.
A deck of Schotten Totten consists of 54 cards, numbered 1 to 9 in six different colours, and 9 stone tokens. The stone tokens are laid out in a line between the players, the deck is shuffled, and each player is dealt 6 cards. On your turn, you play a card to any of the 9 stones, and then draw a card to replace the one you just played. Any card can go on your side of any stone, but each stone has a capacity of 3 cards per side. Once a stone is full, it’s evaluated, and whoever has the stronger showing on their side of the stone claims it for themselves.
The strength of your side is determined by which cards you put on your half of the stone. A colour run is the strongest, 3 consecutive cards of the same colour. Then, three of a kind is the next strongest, 3 cards of the same value. Then any flush, three cards of the same colour, then a run, 3 consecutive cards of any colour, and finally, a sum. 3 non-consecutive cards of different colours.
Schotten Totten is a masterclass in tension in a 2 player game. It’s incredibly tactical, as you only have access to 6 cards at a time, the likelihood of you drawing a run or flush is fairly low. This forces the player to place cards and hedge their bets that the next card they need is going to show itself eventually. At the start of the game, you’ll place a card here and there, but before you know it, suddenly every card you play is starting to remove options from the future. You have to play a card, but doing so might mean closing off the opportunity for a run on a particular stone. Using a red 5 for three of a kind on one stone means the red 3 that was waiting for the red 4 to show up might end up being a weaker plain red flush instead of the powerful flush run you were hoping for. Before when the 9 stones looked like a wide open field, suddenly the battle line has become clogged and claustrophobic.
One way you can put the screws to your opponent even harder, is if you can prove that there is no way for your opponent to win a stone from you. Say you have three of a kind on your side, and your opponent has a yellow 9 and grey 8. All 3 of a kinds beat all runs, so you can just claim that spot as your own. Not only does that add to your victory conditions, but it also removes a potential schluff spot from your opponent, as once a stone has been called, you can’t play any more cards to that stone. Now, if they need to burn a card from their hand as they search the deck for cards they actually want, they’re going to have to make further sacrifices on their other stones.
For all its tactical brilliance and excitement, Schotten Totten feels quite a bit more confrontational than Lost Cities. In Lost Cities, it’s possible for both players to come out positively on a single colour, should they both choose to chase that suit. Schotten Totten is a zero-sum game. In order for you to win territory, your opponent has to lose it. And honestly, that just feels bad. It’s the kind of bad feelings that makes me not want to play a game with certain players, such as my spouse. I realize that the reasons I prefer Lost Cities will be the same reasons that someone else with slightly different proclivities will prefer Schotten Totten.
Schotten Totten is a great game, but it’s a great game that demands a certain temperament. It thrives on denial, pressure, and the quiet cruelty of watching your opponent’s options evaporate one card at a time. For players who relish that kind of direct confrontation, it’s a masterclass in tight, tactical design that has aged remarkably well and that perfect package of endlessly replayable in a real small box.
For me, though, I’ll always reach for Lost Cities first. I value the tension of risking points without the discomfort of taking something away from the person across the table, especially when that person is my wife. That preference doesn’t diminish what Schotten Totten accomplishes; if anything, it highlights just how precisely it delivers its intended experience. Nearly three decades on, few two-player card games generate as much sustained drama from such a small deck. Schotten Totten knows exactly what it is, and for the right pair of players, it’s pure tactical perfection.
A copy of Maul Peak was provided by the publisher for review purposes.
The 2 player game field is a crowded one. From all the excellent Duel games (7 Wonders Duel, Splendor Duel, Dorfromantik: The Duel, and so many more) to the excellent 2 player games not based on multiplayer games (Lost Cities, boop, Santorini, Hive, Fox in the Forest, and so much more). And this isn’t even getting into multiplayer games that simply play excellently with only 2 players, it makes any 2 player only game have some stiff competition when vying for shelf and table space.
Maul Peak is the stand-alone sequel to Skulk Hollow, both designed by Eduardo Baraf and Keith Matejka. with art by Dustin Foust, Sebastian Koziner, and Helen Zhu, and published by Pencil First Games. In Maul Peak, one player takes on the role of the Grizzars, a tribe of bears with various abilities, while the other player takes on the role of a titan. A towering behemoth, emerging from its lair to lay waste to the land. Feeding into the asymmetry, Maul Peak features 4 different titans to play as, each one having their own abilities, victory conditions, and maps for the Grizzars to climb on. Not to mention an excellently sculpted giant wooden token, unique to each titan.
A druid and its spirit companion face off against Sabaso
The gameplay is simple. One player takes actions (usually by playing a card) until they’ve reached their action limit. They draw new cards and the other player does pretty much the same. Most of the actions each player can do is based on the cards they have in their hand. For the Grizzars, the cards will have you moving on the 3×3 map, leaping from the ground onto the monster (moving your meeple from the ground map onto the titan map), preforming melee attacks to damage the beast, and gaining rage tokens, which can be used in a myriad of ways, but perhaps most importantly, for summoning more Grizzars to the battlefield.
The titans, on the other hand, are much more varied. Saboso freezes characters, and can imprision them within his chest. The giant spider Veblyn lays webs, forcing the Grizzars to discard cards to escape her sticky traps. Quagra is a four-headed hydra who turns the Grizzars against themselves. Each of these titans have their own, unique decks of cards, and force the Grizzar player to adapt their strategy based on the monster they’re facing.
The goal for both players is to defeat the other, by either fully damaging every appendage of the titan, or wiping the map of all Grizzar tokens, although the titans do have an extra win condition, unique to the titan that you’re playing as. The variability is impressive, as the four titans all feel like different challenges to overcome, and you can and should swap sides to experience each titan from both sides of the conflict. If you happen to own Skulk Hollow too, then it’s exponentailly more variable, as the Grizzars can take on the titans from Skulk Hollow, and these beasts can challenge the Foxen too.
I personally found the rulebook a little hard to get through. There were these helpful little boxes all over the pages letting you know how Maul Peak differs from Skulk Hollow, which I imagine would have been incredibly useful, if I were at all familiar with that game. But i wasn’t so I kept on stumbling over the boxes and ended up with several rule questions as I sat down to my first game. There was enough ambiguity to cause confusion, which is a shame for a game as rules-light as this. I will say that once we got through that initial learning curve, the gameplay was pretty smooth. Take your actions, pass to the other player. They take their actions, play passes back to you.
Maul Peak is much more tactical than strategic. What you can do is heavily limited by the cards you have in your hand. There are moments where you have a window of opportunity to further your objective, but if you aren’t holding the right card, you might just be up the creek without a paddle. The titan player starts off intimidatingly powerful, but once a Grizzar starts putting a dent into some of its abilities, as once you fill a titan appendage with blue hearts, they can no longer use the associated ability, suddenly the titan’s deck is full of dead cards.
There are lots of moments in Maul Peak that feel like a war of attrition. Saboso deals one damage to the bears. The bears leap, leap, and do a melee action for one damage. Saboso wacks the bear off, dealing one more damage. The bears summon a new character with a full health bar, leap up and damage Saboso for 2, disabling its whack ability. Saboso mends the whack ability and then whacks the bear off, dealing one more damage. Again, it’s tactical, if you have the cards you need, you can slowly progress your goals, as can the other player. I rarely felt like there were a ton of choices to be had, though, as the optimal option was often very apparent. After a couple of rounds like the one above, the turn to turn gameplay can feel very repetitive.
It is exciting, as the game comes to a close, however. If you’re down to one bear token left, and the titan has a mere two hearts remaining. Who will draw the correct cards first? Did you make the right call to destroy the grey bear earlier in the game, or should you have smote the green one from the map instead? The decision you made 15 minutes ago has suddenly come back to bite you in the butt.
If he can’t whack me, I’m safe on his body!
Maul Peak is a good game, even if it doesn’t quite muscle its way to the front of an already crowded two-player shelf. Its production is excellent: the titan meeples are striking table presences, the artwork sells both menace and personality, and the Grizzars’ Brother Bear meets fantasy adventuring party vibe is oddly charming. The asymmetry is the real hook here, and the four titans do a lot of heavy lifting in keeping the experience fresh, especially if you’re willing to swap sides and see how differently each matchup plays out.
That said, Maul Peak is a fairly simple, highly tactical affair. Your options are often wholly dictated by the cards in your hand, and while the push and pull of attrition can be tense at times, it can also drift into repetition once you’ve seen the core loop a few times. Still, at around 45 minutes, it rarely overstays its welcome, and its straightforward rules makes it an approachable entry point into asymmetric conflict games. If you’re looking for a beautifully produced, head-to-head duel that emphasizes short term adaptation over long-term planning, Maul Peak is well worth the climb.
Every so often, a game comes along that defies expectation. Upon first encounter, you’ll think, “that’s it? What’s even the point?”. You’ll try to hide your skepticism, as some people call it genius. The Mind is one of those games. It’s a cooperative card game, but it feels more like a social experiment. It’s part telepathy, part tension, part collective panic attack. And somehow, it’s wonderful.
I remember hearing about The Mind after it’s first debut at Essen. All the reviewers and podcasts I listened to were raving about this game. I looked up the rules and thought I must have the wrong game. The rules could fit on a bar napkin. Everyone gets a few cards numbered 1–100, and you all need to play them in ascending order. The catch? No talking. No hints, no gestures, no eyebrow wiggles (at least not intentionally). You just… feel when it’s your turn. It sounds laughably thin. In the abstract, you’re silently sorting cards. It sure doesn’t sound engaging.
But then when you do engage with the game, some magic builds. After that first awkward round of silent hesitation, people start to tune in to each other. A rhythm emerges. The tension builds. Someone slowly reaches for their card, and everyone collectively holds their breath. The player moves slowly, thinking, “There’s an 18 on the table and I have a 38. Surely someone else has to have something in between?”. But when it’s right, the entire table exhales in relief. When it’s wrong by one number, the groans are primal.
We recently brought The Mind to my brother-in-law’s place for Christmas, where it became an instant hit. Within minutes, the quiet kitchen table was full of screams. Joy, frustration, triumph, defeat, all wrapped together. We’d cheer like we’d won the Stanley Cup if we managed a perfect round, and howl when we lost by just two cards one point apart. There was one holdout, however. My brother-in-law had wandered by, scoffed, and dismissed the idea out of hand. His wife tried to explain the rules, and he waved it off: “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Just think high and count backwards until you play your card.” “If it’s so easy, join in!” we challenged.
Two hands later, he was laughing harder than the rest of us. The Mind has that power, it turns skeptics into believers.
It’s also one of the funniest unintentional comedy games I’ve ever played. Once, we were playing with someone who was a little too stoned. Everyone sat in perfect concentration, waiting for their moment to strike. The inebriated person played their 30. A pause. Then, they played the 36. Another pause, eye contact. Then they played the 40. Then they looked at the last card in their hand and said, “Oh no. I have the 38 in my hand.” We completely fell apart laughing. It killed the round, but nobody cared, moments like that are the whole point of playing games.
For me, that’s why The Mind works where so many bigger games don’t. It’s not about the cards, or the rules, or proving your mental superiority. It’s about the people. It’s about reading micro-reactions, guessing intentions, and celebrating failure as much as success. Somehow, sorting a 100 card deck creates pure drama. You don’t play The Mind for strategy. You play it for the shared silence, the tension, and the explosion of laughter when someone ruins everything.
Not everyone will love it. We tried to introduce it to one player, and he just absolutely did not get it. Didn’t get the concept, didn’t get the rules, completely fumbled at the lack of structure. It turns out that some people will hate the vagueness or feel silly “concentrating” at the start of each round. That’s fine. The Mind only truly sings when everyone at the table buys in. But when it clicks, it’s magic.
This review is based off my plays on Board Game Arena. If I play it in person in the future and my opinions change, I’ll be sure to amend this review.
I’m a sucker for a good theme, and there are few themes that connect with me better than Movie theatres. Back in my early adulthood, a combination of sudden disposable income and lack of post secondary educational prospects, I saw almost every movie that hit the theatres that summer. Popcorn, designed by Maxime Demeyere and published by Iello, embraces the theme of running your own movie theatre, complete with spoof-filled movie posters, and I’m here for it.
Even before I knew how it played, I wanted to play it. When it popped up on Board Game Arena, the cartoon art and cheeky parodies of blockbuster films had me grinning before I’d even looked at the rules. At its heart, Popcorn is about efficiency through bag-building. You start with a small mix of generic and coloured meeples, who make up your initial offering of loyal moviegoers. Each round, you’ll draw from your bag, fill your seats, and activate bonuses from both the seats and the movies, if you manage to get the colours to sync up. Those bonuses will see you earning coins, hooking new customers, and popping the titular popcorn, which count as victory points.
The gameplay loop is simple but satisfying. During the pre-show phase, you can buy new movies to fill your theatres, replace the seats in your three theatres, and activate promotion tokens, which allow you to fill your bag with more meeples, either from the supply, or directly from your opponent’s discard piles. During the movie phase, you assign your meeples to seats, then activate each theatre, getting the bonuses I described above. After nine rounds, the player with the most popcorn wins, with bonus awards for everyone’s secret award cards, and some bonus points for the player who spent the most money on their theatre.
One mechanic that I found interesting was that in-between your showings, your movies slowly expire. You slide a little audience token up the side of the movie, covering actions from the bottom up. This encourages you to swap out an old film to keep your theatre humming.
Also in-between the showings is your chance to buy one new film and one set of new seats for your theatre. The markets here are quite limited, 6 total films, and 9 seats. If the colours or actions you’re desperately seeking after one of your shows has it’s actions exhausted by time doesn’t show up, you’re really up the creek without a paddle.
Popcorn sits comfortably in the “light euro” category, generally rewarding good planning but never really punishing you for making a mistake or taking a slight gamble. The obvious star of the show is the bag building mechanic, which I’ve been a fan of every time I see it employed (see Automobiles and Orleans). In Popcorn, the bag building represents you curating your audience, trying to lean into one of the genres to maximize the number of actions you get during every showing. Of course, randomness plays a major role. A bad draw at the wrong time can kneecap your plans, leaving you poor going into a new round while your movies are quickly expiring. For players who prefer full control in their euros, that unpredictability may be a deal-breaker.
For a light euro game, Popcorn does have a surprising streak of mean-spiritedness. When the visitor supply runs out, players can “borrow” guests from each other’s theatres. And I say borrow, but the reality is that you’re wholesale stealing them. Likewise, if you draft last in a round, the options for new movies might be slim pickings, but at least the rotating first-player marker keeps things fair across the session.
That said, the luck factor is real. Money is tight, and one of my plays taught me that if you run out of cash, and don’t have a seat power to generate some, you are effectively out of the game. The award cards, while perhaps adding some replayability, can feel uneven. Some are straightforward and lead into natural engines, while others depend on some lucky draws or specific combination of theatres and guests. And while the shared market of films makes for fun tension, it does mean turn order can be everything. Sitting late in a round often means your best-laid plans are eaten alive by hate-drafting opponents.
Whatever mechanical complaints might exist, Popcorn nails its presentation. The artwork is an absolute standout, every movie card is a spoof of a real blockbuster, complete with witty taglines and tongue-in-cheek flavour text. Looking at pictures and videos of the physical production, The components themselves are just as charming. The first player token, a vintage popcorn bucket character that looks pulled right from the Steamboat Willy era of animation, is thematic perfection. The dual-layer theatre boards look to keep everything stable, and each player gets their own charming popcorn bucket to store their victory points.
There’s a sweetness to Popcorn that reminds me of games like Quacks of Quedlinburg or Cubitos. It’s light, colourful, and just a little bit unruly. You can teach it in five minutes, play it in an hour, and still have room for dessert afterward. But perhaps a bit like empty calories, while it was satisfying in the moment, there was little of substance that made me want to come back. Many modern euro games are great to play once, and I feel that Popcorn is one of those examples. It looks and plays great the first time you get it to the table, but there’s little there to pull me back in. The variability in gameplay comes from the movie market and award cards. The game feels the same every single time, and there’s precious little in the way of system mastery to be explored here. Just, hope the luck plays out in your favour.
Popcorn is the perfect game to play at a board game café. It has some clever ideas that are fun to explore, great humour in the cards, and the game doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. It doesn’t reinvent the bag-building mechanism, but it does manage to feel fresh right out of the box. It’s a good game to play once, especially if you have a particular fondness for the cinema.
Zenith makes a strong first impression before you even touch a card. It’s bright and cheerful in a way sci-fi games rarely are, usually they’re leaning into the darkness of space to inform their aesthetic, see Beyond the Sun or Race for the Galaxy for examples. Zenith though, reminds me of Lilo and Stitch. Colourful planets, charming little alien creatures, and white clinical backgrounds give this sci-fi affair a more optimistic feel.
A Tug-of-war game for 2 or 4 players, Zenith by designers Grégory Grard and Mathieu Roussel has players vying for control over 5 planets. On your turn you’ll play a card to do one of 3 things. Either discard it to move up a tech track matching the suit of the card you discarded, discard it to take a diplomacy action, giving you the leadership seal, which increases your hand limit and provides you with a small amount of resources, or play the card to the tracks, which will always move a disc toward you, and then often will have a secondary effect to resolve. The game ends when someone gets 5 planet discs to their side of the board, or 4 differently coloured discs, or 3 discs of the same colour.
The first thing I noticed about Zenith was the abundance of iconography. There are a lot of symbols, and while the reference card covers the basics, it doesn’t quite prepare you for every possible combination the cards throw at you. It’s never impossible to decipher, but I did have to use the hover-over text on Board Game Arena more often than not to be sure of what a card would exactly do before playing it. I would have really appreciated it if the rulebook had a glossary of cards with the plain language rules. That would have gone a long way in helping me through my first few turns.
While the box says 2 or 4 players, Zenith is clearly a two-player game at heart. Yes, it technically supports four, but the four-player mode feels like the designers stretching the system past where it wants to go. The box advertises a “tug-of-war strategy game,” and that’s exactly what it delivers. You and your opponent will trade off sliding discs back and forth, getting certain discs closer and closer to your zone until someone plays an unexpected card and manages to push the disc off the ledge.
The tug-of-war works here because turns are so clean and quick. You’re usually doing one of three things: play a card and pay for it to move some discs, discard a card to get some resources, or move up a track paying a different currency to gain bonuses. It’s a simple turn structure that manages to generate some interesting decisions. There’s a wonderful push-and-pull between choosing to expanding your hand size (huge in this game), building discount engines, and progressing the discs you actually want to claim for yourself, or preventing your opponent from claiming a disc too easily.
And because it’s a two-player duel, the meanness feels just right. You can steal cards which give discounts to cards of the same colour, exile your own tableau to reposition, and even yank planets away at the last second. This is where tug-of-war games usually lose me. Hurting your opponent always directly advances your own cause, and nothing ever feels unrecoverable. It feels more like a war of attrition and undoing what your opponent did on their turn instead of both players working towards an end game condition.
There is some significant luck in the card draw, and it really does matter. Sometimes you really need one specific type of card, an animal to finish off that tech track, or any blue card to just get that disc over the final line, and the deck just says “nope.” When your hand size is only four or five, that can sting. But managing your hand is a big part of the game. Especially when your opponent steals the leadership emblem, and you don’t get to draw new cards until you play some that were sitting in your hand. Taking that leadership token back will expand your hand size again, and you’ll get to draw two cards, but if you don’t have a card ability that gives you the leadership emblem, spending a whole turn to take it back really feels suboptimal.
The tech track can offer some useful abilities, and when you move up a tech track, you get the benefits of everything below it again, but there’s no persistent benefit for moving up the tracks. It’s the kind of thing where you need to be in the right position, then utilize the tech track for a big move that pushes one of the discs over the threshold. It’s fine, but I wish it did reward players in a more persistent fashion. Like if you hit the top of the robots track, now all robots cost 2 resources less to play.
For all its colour, charm, and clever little systems, Zenith ultimately sits outside the kind of experience I’m looking for. It has more going on than a Lost Cities-weight game, yet somehow feels less like it’s building toward anything. Where games like Lost Cities or Air, Land & Sea create this wonderful sense of escalation, slowly tightening the screws as each card nudges the tension higher, Zenith often feels like a stalemate of small reversals, waiting for the right tool to finally appear in your hand.
And that’s really the heart of it for me: tug-of-war games just don’t give me the payoff I want. Trading blows back and forth, undoing each other’s progress, watching discs shuffle the same few spaces back and forth, it’s not the kind of gameplay arc that excites me. I can admire the production, the vibrant personality in the art, and even the flashes of tactical cleverness, but I never quite feel that satisfying crescendo I get from the two-player games I love. That said, if tug-of-war tension is your favourite flavour, if you enjoy tight, interactive duels where every push has an immediate pull, Zenith might land far better for you. It’s well-designed, aesthetically delightful, and offers plenty of room for smart plays.
