Dexterity games always promise a good time, especially when chaos and communication is involved. They also give an opportunity for spectators to join in on the fun and excitement! While some dexterity game components can take up quite a bit of space, the bite-sized TowerBrix can be played even on a coffee table! The colorful bricks, as well as the challenge of non-verbal cooperation, drew me in, and the logic puzzle aspects finally brought this one to game night.
It’s a cooperative stacking game for one to six players that takes about 20 minutes to play. The best experience is with four players for a reasonable amount of chaos and manageable stacking logistics around the table.
Gameplay Overview:
This game comes with two decks of cards, where green cards are a little easier and pink cards are a little more challenging. Once your gaming group chooses a difficulty level, you’ll only use that specific deck for the game to draw a mix of two- and/or three-point cards such that the total value corresponds to the difficulty level chosen. These cards are then divided as evenly as possible among the group.
Each card has a condition that your tower must fulfill in the end, and these condition cards cannot be shown to anyone or told to anyone. There is no set turn order, and any player can just go for it to get the tower in a state that matches their condition cards. Other players can then modify it, using signals like thumbs up or thumbs down to guide each other towards completion.
As soon as everyone has signaled that the tower fulfills the conditions on their cards, and that all bricks set out were used in the tower, the cards are revealed at the table so that the tower can be evaluated. If all conditions are fulfilled, then the numbers on the back of the cards are totaled, and bonus points for how high the tower is or how narrow the base is are also granted.
The game ends after three rounds of new cards followed by this evaluation cycle, and points are added up from all three rounds for a final score. Players can compare this score to a scoring table included in the rulebook to see how they did.
Game Experience:
Right from opening the rulebook, I had to work on my own patience in learning how to play this game. It’s divided into segments for new players, experienced players, solo players, and those looking for a challenge. The setup itself took a good ten minutes to understand, especially because there are two different decks and varying setups by difficulty level, which created points of tension at the table on which combinations of two- and/or three-point cards we would go for. While I found the new player tutorial to be helpful in getting a feel for how to communicate without words, it took me a few tries with the other players to really find a groove in how to approach the fact that there isn’t a turn order for building the tower.
Once you brave the rulebook and the initial growing pains of playing this game, it starts to actually be fun! Developing your own sort of non-verbal “language” and signals without revealing any specific information on the cards while you’re building adds to the silliness and chaos. We did our own modified version of the thumbs up and thumbs down system by including eyebrow raises, head shakes, and widening eyes of shock. It was hilarious reacting to these additional methods of non-verbal communication and adjusting the tower build accordingly. Sometimes it would be such an extreme reaction that the table would burst out into laughter at just how adamantly someone did not want a specific brick to be placed.
While I haven’t tried playing this as a solo game yet, I can definitely understand the appeal in doing so. Instead of it becoming a communication challenge game, it becomes an individual and perhaps even meditative puzzle game. When you’re on your own, you are still reconciling all of these condition cards, but without the added help of stumbling into completing the tower with other minds at the table. There’s something about having fewer opportunities for beneficial trial and error that can make this mode possibly more challenging and thus more rewarding in the end.
I think that the game’s positives outweigh its negative aspects, but it’s worth noting that there are instances in which the group will not be able to reconcile their condition cards. The rulebook specifically mentions these instances, noting that they’re extremely rare. If this does happen, players are encouraged to simply start over with new cards without counting it as an unsuccessful round. Along with this complication is the fact that some condition cards are actually hard to understand, even with the infographic that comes with the card. In some conditions, I literally had to stare at it for a while to try and decipher what it’s asking the player to do.
I also have a minor issue with the bricks and their glossiness, which can sometimes impede any creative or awkward placements in the tower. That can easily be remedied by not making choices that require perfect balancing, but it did come up during gameplay.
Final Thoughts:
TowerBrix is for fans of cooperative games that want the extra challenge of communicating with only a thumbs up or thumbs down. If you’ve been playing cooperative board games for a while with your same gaming group, this is the game that could strengthen your bond, or at minimum test your bond’s limits. Who knows, maybe your bond might strengthen simply from the amusing interactions of relying on body language!
However, if non-verbal communication is difficult for you, and you’re not interested in solo play, the strict rules regarding revealing information may take away any kind of fun you might otherwise have. Gamers who also have a tough time trying to reconcile potentially contradictory conditions or parsing some of the poorly-written rules may experience frustration that can’t be ignored.
Final Score: 4 Stars – Join your motley team of architects to build a tower together without saying a single word.
Hits:
• Tutorial rules help train communication
• Amusing interactions without saying a word
• Playable solo or with a group
Misses:
• Poorly written rule book delays game start
• Can get stuck on incompatible cards
• Some conditions are difficult to understand
