Wild Tiled West

DireWolf has a consistent habit of putting out polished products, and Wild Tiled West does nothing to spoil that impression. It is a light, nicely presented tile-drafting game, with production that looks carefully considered on the table and without the fiddly fuss that a Feast for Odin can bring.

Its basic flow is quick: I choose tiles and try to use them as effectively as possible for points. It does not bury me in procedures, but it gives me enough to think about that each choice carries weight and I am not simply playing on autopilot.

Things become more interesting once I start to understand when it is worth pursuing my own score and when to do a little petty counterdrafting against the others. It requires balance: deny someone something useful without wrecking my own position. The advanced boards add a very charming asymmetry, although the balance can go for a walk there.

Our first play did not fully win me over, because it felt somewhat unbalanced. By the second and third, though, once we understood better what was going on, a clearly better game emerged. It is not perfect — I would have liked variable building sets using the same tile shapes — but as a base box, it is a nice and honest piece.