Wandering Towers review – a wizardly fun time

I’ll be totally honest, when I first glimpsed Wandering Towers my first impression was that it would be a cute kids game. I could not possibly have been more wrong. This quickly turned into a strategic game of cat and mouse, with a few fun and exciting twists along the way. Released in 2022 by Capstone games, Wandering Towers centers around two basic movement functions; you will play cards allowing you to move either a tower or a wizard on your turn. With those basic mechanics, there are additional strategic elements added as you learn the game to make it even more challenging!

This game scales well between 2-6 players and doesn’t require any major rule or setup changes between those player counts. Getting the board set up is quick and easy. Arrange the circular board, set up the 9 single towers on the first nine spaces after the Ravenskeep tower, then set out the wizards on each tower based on the player order.

HOW TO PLAY

On your turn, you will play two cards from your hand of three cards to take your basic actions of either moving a tower on the board or one of your wizards; then redraw back up to three cards. Your goal is to move all of your wizards into Ravenskeep, while also filling all of your potion bottles along the way. The amount of potion bottles will vary between 6 and 4 depending on the player count.

The cards you play each turn have icons indicating what type of movement the card activates – some will have just a wizard, just a tower, or both giving you the choice between the two (but never both). Additionally, you may have a DICE icon that will allow you to roll a single die to determine the movement number. If ever you don’t like your hand of cards, you can discard them all to move a single tower one spot.

Each of the 9 towers will fit onto each other, so as you move them they will stack up and there’s no limit on how high they can go! With your wizards sitting atop the towers, you’re under constant threat of them being trapped and hidden from view. Any time you trap a wizard in this manner, you get to flip one of your potions from the empty to full side.

As wizards move around the circular game board, they eventually will reach Ravenskeep and when they do, IT MOVES to the next open spot on the board with a Raven shield logo. Thus your end goal moves, and can even end up stacked upon other towers with wizards trapped within!

Finally, your other option each turn will be to cast a spell. Casting a spell involves turning in a set number of your filled potions to the gamebox. There are 8 spells that come with the game, and you can vary how many you choose to use each game. Each will give some type of rule-breaking ability and you can add more of them to make the game a bit more complex.

STRATEGY

The biggest area of strategy here is balance getting your wizards to Ravenskeep while also ensuring you get all of your potions turned over. As you have to be able to trap a wizard to fill them, it’s key to keep an eye on other players’ wizards and remember where yours and theirs have been previously trapped. Be careful not to rush getting your wizards in without getting all your potions filled. Once the first player gets all their wizards into the Ravenskeep AND they have filled all their potions, they win the game.

COMPONENTS

The towers and Ravenskeep are folded cardboard pieces. They store neatly within the provided game organizer in the box so unless someone is unnecessarily rough with them, they should hold up pretty well. I could also see a “deluxe” version with higher quality plastic; additionally our 3D printing friends could have a field day with making fun upgraded pieces as well. Your wizards are standard wooden meeples, so I could see those as an upgrade as well down the road. The art is fun and light, lending well to the theme of the game. Finally, the board is made up of a 4 section modular board that fits together with space inside the circle for your draw and discard pile.

RULEBOOK

For beginning gamers, it may be a challenge to decipher some of the rules. For instance, the term “tower” is never clearly defined and there’s no clear indication of whether an entire multi-section tower has to be moved together or can be split up (it can). While implied, it isn’t crystal clear. There were a couple of rules clarifications that we had to go look up in online forums including an end game condition that would lead to perpetual playing if not addressed.

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