Wild Tiled West

DireWolf has a habit of putting out polished work, and Wild Tiled West feels considered from the moment it reaches the table. It has the welcoming sort of presence one wants on a Tuesday after work: light enough to begin without ceremony, but not so slight that you are merely going through motions.

At its centre is tile drafting. You choose tiles and build out your own little western territory, pursuing points through the choices you make and where you place them. The game moves quickly, with none of the fiddliness and general faff that can come with Feast of Odin; the thinking arrives in neat portions rather than a pile of small jobs.

Its character emerges once you know when to harvest points and when to indulge in a mildly spiteful counterdraft. You are not trying to ruin someone’s game; you are simply taking the tile that would have made their plan sing, then behaving as though you had needed it all along. The advanced boards add a particularly charming asymmetry, though they also seem rather more willing to let balance take the afternoon off.

Our first play made it seem a little uneven, but the next two revealed a much better game once the table understood where its balance lay. I would have liked variable building sets using the same tile shapes, but this is the base game and it should be judged as such. Wild Tiled West is not perfect, but it is an honest, handsome little game: quietly excellent once you give it a second chance.