Wandering Towers – A Magical Race

All wizards must assemble at Ravenskeep…but they’ve procrastinated, distracted by learning new spells! They’ve also used all their potions. They can’t show up unprepared, with empty potions bottles! Now, it’s your job to help your wizards get to Ravenskeep as quickly as possible. Use wits and magic to move towers to stifle your competitors and refill your potions along the way. Wandering Towers, concocted by award-winning designers Michael Kiesling and Wolfgang Kramer, has players bounding over towers in a magical race to Ravenskeep. Geared for 1-6 players aged 10+, this exciting competition lasts under 30 minutes and is published by Capstone Games. The first player to get all their wizards to Ravenskeep with full potion bottles wins!

Gameplay

The race to Ravenskeep has players taking turns around the table. On your turn you have two options: play two movement cards or discard your entire hand to advance one tower one space clockwise. After taking either of those actions, draw back up to three cards. Then, play passes to the right.

There at three types of movement cards: cards that move a wizard, cards that move a tower, and cards that move either wizard or a tower.

Moving a Wizard

Move one of your visible pawns the exact number shown on the card. If the card depicts a die, roll it to determine how far to move. For each additional die pictured you may re-roll once, but move the final result only. Wizards can land on the board or atop a tower. Each tower and empty space can hold a max of six wizards. If a move would exceed the limit, you cannot play that card.When a wizard reaches Ravenskeep: drop them in and move Ravenskeep clockwise to the next empty raven shield space (even on top of a tower!). Then end your turn.

Moving a Tower

Move any tower (excluding Ravenskeep) the number of spaces shown on the card. If the card shows dice, follow the same rules as before. Once you lift a tower you’ve committed to it! No changing your mind. If a tower lands on a space with other towers, it stacks on top, imprisoning any wizards underneath.

Whenever you imprison one or more wizards, flip over a potion bottle to the full side. Now you can use it to cast a spell!

Casting A Spell

At anytime during your turn you may spend a full Spell Bottle (return it to the box) to cast one Magic Spell. Spend the number of bottles depicted on the spell tile then apply the spell effects. If the spell causes a wizard to enter Ravenskeep, end your turn and draw back to three cards.

At at any time during your turn, if all your potion bottles are full and wizards are in Ravenskeep, the end game is triggered. If at the end of the round you’re the only player with those conditions met, you win!

Additional Gameplay Modes

Wandering Towers includes a few gameplay variants:

• Solo – Fill all six potions and get 12 wizards to Ravenskeep with 30 or fewer cards. The rulebook contains a scoring chart to rank your play.
• Co-op – Players work together to fill potion bottles and get al 12 wizards into Ravenskeep using 30 or few cards.
• Teams – Players pair up trying to win the race by sharing potions, filling each other’s potions, and sharing cards (with limited communication).
• Nasty – This mode allows players to play magic spells at any time – even on another player’s turn. Players can use magic spells on anyone. A player can cast a spell before or after another players action; however it cannot undo an action that is complete. If your spell prevents completion of a movement card, discard the card and end the action, even if it is incomplete.

Impressions

Wandering Towers brings a special kind of magic to the table. It’s a game that will click after a single turn, and keep you super engaged until the last wizard drops into Ravenskeep. Kids will love the tactile gameplay of moving and stacking the towers. To win, you’ll need to imprison opponent wizards, so there’s a little bit of take-that, but it can be easily mitigated with a tower move card. Covering wizards creates tension in the game, resulting in “aw man” or or maniacal laugh moments.

Wandering Towers blends theme and mechanics seamlessly together. It’s one of the most unique racing games I’ve ever played. There’s strategy involved trying to figure out the ever-changing board and timing the right plays. Sometimes you’ll luck into the perfect turn, where someone moves a tower or Ravenskeep into the perfect location for you to capitalize on.

Replayability

Replayability in Wandering Towers is super high, due to random draw movement cards and a host of spells included. Each game plays out drastically different from the last. Your family will be clamoring to play games back-to-back!

The variants spice things up as well. The team variant works well for playing with kids, especially those with less experience or reluctant to try something new. A parent can offer a little aid by sharing cards and potions; it’ll help them be less frustrated when they don’t have a great hand of cards. The Nasty variant on the other hand is great for an all-adult crew looking for a little tomfoolery.

Fun for Families

I like the simplicity in Wandering Towers, and its barrier to entry is almost non-existent, making it very family friendly. With gamer kids, it can easily skew younger than its 10+ age recommendation. That said, this game isn’t 100% geared at kids. In fact, it was a huge hit with my game group. Some memorable moments included everyone trying to remember where our covered wizards were! It was quite a challenge for our 40+ year old brains (quite a few of us had to repeatedly move towers).

Are you ready to cast magic spells and win the race to Ravenskeep? Pick up Wandering Towers directly from Capstone Games, find it on Amazon, or look for it at your friendly local game store!

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Capstone Games provided The Family Gamers with a promotional copy of Wandering Towers for this review.

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