I first came across Castle Combo, the 2-5 player tableau-building game by Grégory Grard and Mathieu Roussel and published by Pandasaurus Games, on Board Game Arena, the online board gaming platform.
Although it wasn’t the first time I had seen it done, it was the first time I chose to engage with a game I hadn’t heard of being previewed there before its physical release at Essen.
I decided to give it a try and, luckily, I have a group of unfussy friends that I can invite to play any BGA game, even if they don’t know the rules, and they’ll quickly learn it and join in.
What began on a whim turned out to be my favorite light filler 2-player game of the year. Castle Combo’s gameplay is quite simple.
In essence, you are gaining a card each turn to add to what will ultimately be a 3×3 card tableau. These are the actions one takes on their turn: I’ll come back to #1 momentarily.