The team behind puzzly tile-placement boardgame Cascadia are back with a follow-up project: a pair of roll-and-write games, Rolling Hills and Rolling Rivers, that make use of new dice and card mechanics in a familiar Pacific Northwest setting.
The original Cascadia is a boardgame of placing tiles to build environments and then filling them up with animals, aiming for specific arrangements of each to maximize your score. It's a family-friendly game, not overly complex and featuring gorgeous illustrations of the North American wilderness. Cascadia made a big splash in the tabletop world the last few years and in 2022 was awarded the prestigious Spiel des Jahres (German Game of the Year award).
These two new games look to bring similar themes and ideas to the increasingly popular roll-and-write genre — or what they're calling "flip-and-roll-and-write" — where a combination of cards on offer and the results of dice rolls will allow you to slowly fill out your personal player sheet, growing your landscape one hex at a time. Rolling Hills and Rolling Rivers are on Kickstarter now. Here's the pitch video:
As with most roll-and-write games, these will see players rolling a handful of dice each round and then spending some time carefully figuring out how to use their randomized wildlife most efficiently. As the pitch video claims, "each roll presents a new puzzle." Some interesting features shown off here include a pair of "personal dice" given to each player, providing some variation in what they have to work with, as well as the central row of cards, which seem to function as a "market" of habitat tiles for your board. Beth Sobel's box and card art looks as gorgeous as expected, and the custom wooden dice are a very nice touch.
There are two games on offer here: each features a unique action die and comes with several distinctly shaped player boards, providing some mechanical variation between the two editions. The cards included in each seem to feature different art as well, and it looks like both versions contain a nice variety of environments. Both games allow from 1-4 players (or up to 8 if you combine them) and for anyone who tends to game solo, the campaign advertises "12 unique solo scenarios" included in each box.
Cascadia Rolling Rivers and Rolling Hills are available on Kickstarter from now until April 6th, with options for getting either game separately, both together, or a cheaper print-and-play option if you want to DIY them at home.
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