Guards and Goblins shows the power of change

 I first encountered Guards and Goblins through the 2024 9-Card Design Contest, where it placed first in overall.

It was a tile-laying game where each card was broken down into four quadrants. One guard. one goblin or hobgoblin and two houses. You got a hand of cards. Placement rules: all the cards have to share the same alignment. they had to touch the overall tableau and you could overlap or tuck but you couldn't cover both houses or any goblins. Goblins needed to be touching a group of at least two guards to be defeated and hobgoblins required four. The groups of guards didn't need to be connected but its a good idea. All the goblins and hobgoblins need to be defeated to win.

I thought it was a pleasant little experience but I felt that I wasn't as deep or as interesting as other micro-tile laying games. The original, actually just nine-card version of Orchard being a good example.  And if you go to 18-cards, you have the bigger Orchard family or the Sprawlapolis family or Insurmountable. (Although, once you make the jump to more cards, it makes a big difference. Oh, we will get back to that.) More than that, it really seems that the optimal strategy is to have the guards form one big group, making the game seem semi-solved.

Cut to the published version.

Guards and Goblins is now twenty tiles with four hobgoblins and four special buildings with specific placement rules and special powers. And, yes, the degree this improves the game is remarkable.

I said we'd get back to the value of having more cards. Having eleven more cards and having a different array of cards, not just doubling up, seriously changes the decision tree. Compared to the nine-card version, the decisions are wider and the special buildings create situations that are completely new.

Frankly, I have to consider it a different game. 

I am still exploring the new Guards and Goblins. It may be also semi-solvable but I think it will take a lot more work to achieve that point. The contest entry is effectively a brain fog activity but the full game feels like a game. Honestly, I still think the Sprawlopolis family and the Orchard family are better but the full Guards and Goblins is a good addition to the surprisingly large world of micro tile laying games.