Review
Rolling Heights
Rolling Heights aims for a Suburbia-like city builder with bag building, but turns its central novelty into a chore and its table presence into an eye test.
- Published
- 2023
- Designer
- John D. Clair
- Publisher
- Alderac Entertainment Group, Game Harbor, Maldito Games
- Players
- 1–4
- Playing time
- 60 min
I have a soft spot for AEG, and I respect D'Clair for trying new things rather than recycling the safe answer. This experiment, however, has not merely missed; it has driven what could have been a decent Suburbia-style bag builder straight into concrete.
At its core, you are developing a city, arranging neighbourhoods and trying to put, say, a park beside your homes. The destination is perfectly clear: placement choices ought to provide that modest pleasure of watching a city plan begin to make sense.
Once is a cute idea, twice is tolerable, and by the fifth time you realise that a trick has appointed itself the entire system; the bag building does not rescue it, merely returns you to the same irritation.
EdgyJellyfish
Instead, the game has you roll meeples. Once is a cute idea, twice is tolerable, and by the fifth time you realise that a trick has appointed itself the entire system; the bag building does not rescue it, merely returns you to the same irritation.
Then the artwork finishes off whatever the mechanism left standing: colour choices and information size work against the player. With my particular mix of short- and long-sightedness, it was genuinely murderous. I finished humbled, beaten by double the score, and carrying a headache from trying to build a park beside my homes. It is a N O from me.
It is a N O from me.
EdgyJellyfish
Source: BoardGameGeek
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