Dragon Castle is a game unapologetically based on Mahjong. Tiles with various symbols are stacked in a specific pattern, and then players take turns using solitaire Mahjong rules to remove pairs of tiles from the stack. The extension of Dragon Castle is that players must then use those tiles in a kind of construction effort on their own personal boards. The idea is to group tiles of the same color together, then flip them over to score points. Bigger areas score more points... but areas of 4 or more tiles must be flipped over, so the trick is to set up smaller groups you can merge together with a single tile placement. Add to that scoring in a third dimension by capping stacks of tiles after you've flipped them over, and you've got scoring in literally several dimensions to plan for.
The rules of Dragon Castle are pretty straightforward (and still more so if you've ever played solitaire Mahjong). Still, it's enough to give you a tricky spatial puzzle to work through. The game is also fairly interactive despite not directly pitting players against each other in any "attack" posture. It's the classic situation where you need to look ahead and think about what moves the players will make after you, and what in turn that might open up for you when it gets back to your turn.
For that reason, I actually think Dragon Castle probably excels as a 2-player game (even though I played with 3 the first time I tried it). The anticipation seems like a key part of the fun here, and that's much easier to do against just one opponent. Still, I liked it well enough that I look forward to a chance to play it again, even with three or four players. There seems to be plenty of room for strategic growth and mastery.
I'd give Dragon Castle a B+. There are countless games you can play with a deck of 52 cards, numerous adaptations of chess... why not a new take on Mahjong?
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