14ers preview—Climb every mountain

14ers is a lightning-fast tableau builder about climbing Colorado's highest mountains that replicates Wingspan's formula for success by partnering an approachable theme with a game that's pared down but still satisfying to play. Wrap it all in some art that hasn't failed to garner a compliment whenever it hit the table, and this one's looking pretty good. Players take turns drafting climbs that they meet the attribute requirements for, tucking the card under a side of their climber for the corresponding reward: training gives dependable boosts, while gear is more powerful but conditional. On the other sides of your hiker card, capstones give flat VP, with plans doling out an “x per y” amount. If there's a particularly juicy card that you don't meet the prerequisites for, you're always free to dump a card you've previously acquired to act as a guide and make up for your shortcomings, at the obvious risk of setting up a payday loanesque cascade of never having the stats to pick up a card without having to discard, or just not having the cards to compete in end-game scoring.

Speaking of, once everyone's got 9 bites at the mountain, you figure out who's won the accolade (14ers’ public objective),  tally up everyone's points, and see who won. If there was nothing else in the box, it'd probably be too easy, breezy, beautiful, covergirl for an avid gamer, but the weather and advanced climber modules spice things up just enough to make things interesting, but not too much to push it into the dreaded dead space of “takes longer to teach than it does to play”.  The love definitely shines through here, with multiple people I've shown 14ers assuming Zach is another local who spends his evenings staring at Pike's Peak, so make the trek on over to the Kickstarter campaign.