Mountains out of Molehills
‘Moles have travelled from all over to compete in the annual Mountain Maker tournament. Competitors show their skill based on how high they can pile their Molehills, and by how many Mountains they control. The mole that can build and control the most Mountains made out of Molehills over 6 rounds will be declared the ‘top tunneller’ and will win the game.’
3 words to describe this game: Mountains, molehills, chaos
Gameplay:
The game is played over 6 rounds. Each round consists of 3 parts - card drafting, planning and movement and scoring/end of the round
First of all you lay out 5 face up movement cards per player and then in turn order you draft cards. You then plan your movement by organising your cards so that you create a plan of where you intend to go. These actions will be resolved from top to bottom and cards cannot be rearranged after this. Then in turn order players play one card from their planned movement pile. In this way, you are never quite sure, if you will be able to complete your movement as it very much depends what the other players do on their turns. As you move underground, you create molehills above ground in spaces that you entered on your turn. Be careful, because mountains can only be a certain height and if you cause one to topple, you decide in which direction the pieces fall and they spread out one piece in each subsequent space. This sounds bad but you will sometimes want to do this to your own mountains to create better opportunities for yourself to claim mountains. Mountains are controlled by the mole whose colour is at the bottom of the mountain. You score and then move on to the next round. This continues for 6 rounds. Add up the totals and the player with the most molehills wins!
Components:
Double sided above ground board, Double sided underground board and 4 board frame pieces - this is a two storey game board, the bottom board fits into the lid and then the frame pieces are added on which you add the second board so you have an underground section and an overground section
120 Molehill pieces, 30 in each colour - plastic pieces that connect together to form the mountains, easy to assemble and move about
4 mole character standees with bases - these are nice standees, they are acrylic and the art work of the characters is cute but the only problem is when the moles are underground it’s hard to see which way they are facing due to the various gear they are carrying
4 king of the hill tokens - to denote turn order
1 rock die - a specific die to roll when you place the rock to describe the way the mole moves when it hits it
1 rock token - cardboard token denoting a rock
1 score pad - to keep score obviously!
120 movement cards - various movement cards which will ultimately move your miles underground
Overall thoughts:
This is a fun family game with an interesting theme and mechanism using the double play board. There is an element of luck to this game depending on how you have planned your movements compared to your opponents. It can lead to some frustration but it is fun trying to move your mole underground to make mountains aboveground. Because the game is played over a series of rounds, you get to reassess your strategy at certain points of the game. It’s a cute fun game which is different to other games we have in our collection and it’s definitely worth exploring if you are looking for something different with an fun element.
Thank you to The Op for sending me this copy for review.