Tiletum

We gave Tiletum another chance, and the dish was still rich in all the wrong ways. It is not rubbish; it is simply, for me, by some distance the weakest Tascini release of the last five years. There are ideas here, and ambition. There is also the lifeless feeling of a design that mistakes more procedure for more substance.

Before the game has properly begun, it asks you to read the map: work out what matters where, then plan around it. That is not inherently criminal, but here it feels like compulsory homework rather than a satisfying discovery.

Dice supply the round-to-round variation, while player turns vary noticeably in length; one person takes a brief turn, another spreads theirs across the table, and everyone else waits. Interaction becomes largely the experience of watching other people make decisions and counting the downtime. In Tekhenu, dice-driven uncertainty adds flavour; here, in the wrong circumstances, it merely drains it away.

The balance did not convince me, and the whole thing never found a pulse. I might play it again, but it would not sit high on my list — and I may already be the most charitable person in my group about it. Tiletum is not a bad game; it is simply a heavy recipe that does not earn its grease.