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+
2018
It's like Carcassonne and Alhambra had a child and it was smarter and prettier than both of them. Supersweet art. Some interaction through price-setting of tiles and decisions whether to spend more or less depending who the master builder is.
AFABBI
Ted Alspach's next big game from Bezier game's after his Mensa select hit, "Suburbia". At first blush it can be easy to look at the game's appearance and note the designer and think that it is similar to and should be compared to Suburbia but that would be a mistake. While there are whispers of commonality in some of the mechanics in this game it is a very different animal all together and deserves to be seen as such. Castle's theme is pretty solid and the narrative drive aligns well with play. You are playing the role of a royal ass hat who bankrupted his country building more and more elaborate and sometimes ridiculous castles. I read somewhere that the Disney castle is based on one of his. The reason this aligns with play is that you spend the game drafting rooms and using them to build your own personal castle. Each type of room has a power that triggers when placed next to other rooms in a similar way to the tile placement mechanic in Suburbia. There are of course secret and public objectives which you are building your castle to achieve in order to out score your opponent which adds a little variability to the game. The result is a bunch of crazy looking castles that leave you wanting to kill somebody. If the game has any controversy it would be found in the drafting mechanic which is the primary means of generating revenue. Each turn someone plays the role of master builder. Their job is to arrange the available flop of rooms in order along a draft line with prices in ascending order. The idea is, the builder gets revenue based on what people ultimately pay for drafting a room. So if the builder plays their arrangement well, they effectively balance their need for revenue with their opponents need for rooms while still not giving away what they need to win or what their opponent needs to achieve known game objectives. The problem is, valuation is pretty tricky and if you get it wrong either by missing certain details on the board or not understanding certain player biases beyond your goal than you are broke for an entire round. This... Pretty much costs you the game if you aren't careful. Still, another excellent game by Alspach and proof of his range as a designer. I am glad I own this game and will be keeping it in my collection. It will be interesting to see what he makes next. Hopefully, he'll show some range on components next time as well.
Alan Stern
I rather like this one! The auction part drives everything else, and that's okay. I like the secret goals. I like the combo nature of the rooms. I like the spatial component for placing the rooms and arranging your castle. It all works very well.