Castles of Mad King Ludwig
In the tile-laying game Castles of Mad King Ludwig, players are tasked with building an amazing, extravagant castle for King Ludwig II of Bavaria…one room at a time. Each player acts as a building contractor who is adding rooms to the castle he’s building while also selling his services to other players.
90m
1 - 4 Players
Ages 13+
AKBanse
A game of playing individual Tetris with rooms and denying opponents pieces that will benefit them. Each room has certain tags/colors that will be worth points depending on bonus cards and the three global coals.
adebisi
I have to say that the implementation is nowhere near elegant for a tile laying game. By saying this I am referring to the rule how you must align the tiny little doors on the tiles of varying shape and size. It would not be an issue, if all the tiles had a similar contact surface. However, this is not the case since you have to match, e.g., a circle with a rectangle. Having your tiles just 0.1 mm off can cause a situation where the next tile does not physically fit into to your preferred slot, or vice versa you can pull off illegal moves by shifting the other tiles slightly and squeezing an elephant into a keyhole. Anyway, the above is maybe the only complaint I have about the game. I enjoyed the theme (which is quite strongly present for an eurogame), the market speculation, and of course the whole aspect of laying tiles and creating combos. Moreover, the market with a limited amount of money in circulation is a nice touch. Variable bonuses and tiles guarantee longevity, I reckon. Art is not great but not bad either. The individually named rooms add flavour to the game. You can almost feel how you are building a castle for a truly mad king. A small concern for some groups might be the expected brain burn when the starting player sets up the market at the beginning of the round. If you are playing with very tight players who necessarily want to gather and analyse all available information, this phase of the game can become a quite long and frustrating experience. For our group this was not a problem, though. Castles of Mad King Ludwig has potential to become a classic.
agr18
A great game thematically and mechanically, but lackluster components and artwork make for a messy experience. Better components and art would elevate this game to something truly special. New edition sorely needed!