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Your cozy hamlet has welcomed the arrival of 3 new dragon hatchlings, but their Mother’s roosting spot – the old Watch Tower – has no space for the babies to perch! Can you help?

Key stats

1-6 players | 20 mins | Age 8+

Publisher: Envy Born Games
Designer: Henry Audubon, Chris Kingsnorth
Artist: Brielle Lott

Categories: Family game, Fantasy
Key mechanics: Cooperative, Dexterity

Game overview

In Dragon Roost, players work together to manipulate an old Watch Tower so that 3 cute baby dragons and their Mammy can roost. On your turn you can either use a tool or place a baby dragon. Each tool has to be used in slightly different ways:

• The chisel is used to push one single block in one direction.

• The hammer is used to tap tap tap one block, but you can tap it as many times as you like and from whatever angles you like.

• The magic hands are used to pick up one or more blocks and move them wherever, including relocating them to another part of the tower or removing them entirely.

• The tongs (tweezers) are used to move a single block wherever you like.

Each game includes 3 of the tools, and each tool starts with 2 tokens matching one of the baby dragons. Whenever you want to use a tool you must discard a token from its card – if there’s no tokens left, you can’t use that tool!

If you instead choose to place a baby dragon, you must carefully balance one of the dragons on the tower using only your fingers. If you’re successful, you can replenish the tool with the matching tokens.

Once all the babies are safely roosted on the tower, the next player must place Mother Dragon on the tippety top – if all goes well and all dragons remain perched, the players win! But if a baby dragon ever falls, it’s game over!

Our thoughts

Dragon Roost’s premise instantly draws comparisons to other ‘tower dexterity’ games, like Jenga or Tinderblox. But there is one fundamental difference: this is a co-operative game where players must work together to help the cute baby dragons.

I think overall this game is best suited for young families. As two (sort-of) adults, we didn’t find homing the dragons too tricky – although placing Mammy Dragon is a bit scarier because of her rocking base! (It could also be that Matt was carrying the team, because in my solo games I did keep knocking blocks and dragons, and even brought the whole tower down!). I would say even younger children than the 8+ recommendation would be able to play and enjoy it.

There are a couple of ways to manipulate the difficulty. During set up you choose 3 tower cards to build the tower, and these can be either easy, difficult, or a mix of the two – this varies the challenge and makes the game feel a bit different each time. There are also Challenge/Boon tokens you can add to tool cards to modify the difficulty. I don’t think the Boons are necessary unless you’re playing with much younger children, or players with unsteady hands. The Challenges can add a little bit of trickyness, and even some silliness (for example, ‘Cloudy Day’ forces you to use its tool with your eyes closed, and other players giving you directions).

There are 4 tools to choose from, and because you only use 3 each time this provides some variability across games. However, some of the tools are always going to be more popular than others because they are easier or more effective. If this starts to become a regular occurrence, one option is to avoid including the easiest tool, or using the aforementioned Challenge tokens to hamper the tool’s usefulness.

Even though there are a lot of tower pieces, overall the game and box is quite compact. It also doesn’t take up too much table space, so it would be easy to set up out and about. It could be an interesting option to keep kids occupied when out and about, like in a restaurant/cafe. We often take colouring or games (like Gentle Rain) to entertain our 3 year old, but unfortunately he’s slightly too young to be trusted with Dragon Roost (I can visualise the blocks a-flying!).

The baby dragons are not only cute but each is shaped slightly differently and you sometimes need to bear this in mind – as well as which tool it will replenish – when choosing which one to place. The Mother Dragon is cool too – if I was being really niggly, I think it feels a bit odd that they are different materials, but it’s not a big detraction from the game.

Play it if:

• You’re looking for a family-friendly tower dexterity game – like Jenga or Tinderblox – suitable for younger kids.

• You want to play co-operatively.

Skip it if:

• Well, if you’re playing with an and adult group of gamers, it’s not really designed for you! So bear that in mind.

Verdict

Dragon Roost is a tower dexterity game with a sweet fantasy twist and adaptable rules to cater to all the family. We certainly enjoyed playing, but it is fairly simple so better suited for families with children. Maybe one to revisit when our 3yo is a bit older!