{"id":310464,"date":"2024-12-29T07:59:32","date_gmt":"2024-12-29T13:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/?post_type=reviews&p=310464"},"modified":"2024-12-27T20:36:53","modified_gmt":"2024-12-28T02:36:53","slug":"babylon","status":"publish","type":"reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/reviews\/babylon\/","title":{"rendered":"Babylon Game Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \n <\/div>\n <\/span>\n
\n \n Synapses Games | Babylon | Family Strategy Board Game | 3D Tile Placement | 2 to 4 Players | 60 Minutes | Ages 8+<\/span>\n <\/a>\n
\n $59.99<\/span>\n <\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
\n \n Buy Now\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n

The Concept<\/h2>\n

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, would have been a sight to see. We can only imagine now what they would have looked like. I like to picture lush, green rain forests on top of all the roofs, and vines stretching between the buildings. I picture birds of different varieties, a multitude of colorful insects and flowers, waterfalls and mosses dotting all the great pillars and walls. I imagine it would have been the sort of place one could lose themself in, and that would be perfectly okay.<\/p>\n

When Geek Attitude Games introduced Babylon<\/i>, designed by Olivier Gr\u00e9goire, and Board Game Geek\u2019s summary was \u201cBuild a three-dimensional version of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,\u201d I knew I had to play this game. When images were released of beautifully flowered tiles stacked on pillars, with fountains, bridges, statues, and stairs, my mouth watered. This game sounded cool and looked cool. I didn\u2019t even have to walk by a table to see the table presence this would have.<\/p>\n

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Though, seeing this would definitely make me want to play.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The game, as it was summarized, has you building your own 3D Hanging Gardens. To do that, you\u2019ll be selecting flower tiles, gaining pillars to build on, placing those tiles on the pillars you gained, then placing any qualifying decor on the tile as well. As you may have guessed, some tiles will allow you to place stairs, which means you\u2019ll be stacking multiple levels on levels, almost in a pyramid fashion. The different levels will be staggered from the levels below, and all the levels will be full of rich decorations. The game ends after a pre-determined number of rounds, based on player count, and scores will be tallied up for decorations used, flowers used, levels built, etc. The player with the highest score wins.<\/p>\n

The Gameplay<\/h2>\n

A game turn in Babylon<\/i> has three steps. In the first step, you\u2019ll choose a tile from the center, or \u201cquarry\u201d. These tiles come in three different styles: clay, granite, and basalt. The top layer, clay, are the most basic tiles, offering placement of only two decorations each. Granite is a bit more advanced with three each, and basalt makes up the bottom layer with four decorations per tile. When you choose a tile, you\u2019ll get a number of pillars based on the location of the tile, the layer the tile is on in comparison to adjacent layers, and whether or not the flower on the tile matches your player flower.<\/p>\n

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From humble beginnings…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After choosing a tile, you can either use it immediately, discard it and keep the pillars you got, or swap it out with a tile you have in storage. If you decide to use it, it must be stacked on either three or four pillars. If you stack it on three, you have to place a specific decoration, called a belvedere in game, on the corner which is not supported by a pillar. After placing the tile, you may place any qualifying decorations, based on certain requirements, on the tile.<\/p>\n

Finally, after you choose what to do with the tile you selected, you store any single level pillars you didn\u2019t use for later use. The turn then passes to the next player. After all players have had a turn, a round token is flipped. These round tokens will either be blank, have some sort of advantage, such as bonus pillars, or some sort of disadvantage, such as less pillars, for the next round. After a set number of rounds have passed based on player count, the game comes to an end.<\/p>\n

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…come glorious ends.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scoring is done from a top-down view, and any decoration that\u2019s completely covered is not counted. Each decoration scores a certain number of points multiplied by the level its on. The stairs score based on levels they connect added together, so stairs connecting levels 1 and 2 score 3, while stairs connecting levels 2 and 3 score 5. You\u2019ll also get points for sets of all four decorations, sets of all four flowers, and levels in your garden.<\/p>\n

First Impressions<\/h2>\n

When I first laid eyes on the box, the thing that caught my eyes right away was the exquisite artwork on the cover. I\u2019d really like to credit a particular artist with this work, but unfortunately, the only clue I have as to the artist is The Creation Studio. Also unfortunately, that cover was the only place I was going to see such beautiful artwork, or any artwork at all, really. Beside the generic flowers on the tiles, there was no artwork to be found anywhere. Even the rulebook was covered in text, example illustrations, and earth tones. For me, it was a little disappointing that a game themed on something that must have been so awe-inspiring didn\u2019t try to represent that with some grandiose artwork throughout. Though I wouldn\u2019t classify it as a Euro, everything about this game looked very Euro, so I hope you like your games monotone.<\/p>\n

That aside, the components were very good quality. If you\u2019re someone who minds a lot of plastic in your games, however, you may steer clear of this one, because most of the game is plastic. The minis of pillars, stairs, belvederes, statues, fountains, and bridges, were all highly detailed for being as small as they were. Each miniature was pleasant to look at and really did a good job of making the game come to life.<\/p>\n

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Look at all the plastic!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cardboard was all pretty standard. No dual layers or anything fancy. The insert served its purpose well, and as a bonus, allowed you to pre-set the game up for the next time you play, which I thought was a neat feature. The component count in the rulebook was a little off, but only in the sense that it told me there would only be one game end token, and I had four, so it wasn\u2019t a big deal. There was no place for the player boards to fit inside the insert, so they had to just casually float on top of the insert cover, which was kind of a nuisance.<\/p>\n

Execution<\/h2>\n

For all the ooh\u2019s and aah\u2019s this game will attract, the execution of such a fun concept leaves a lot to be desired. First, let\u2019s talk about the categorization of this game. A quick browse through Board Game Geek shows me that Babylon<\/i> isn\u2019t considered a dexterity game. Make no mistake, this is about as much of a dexterity game as Jenga. If you haven\u2019t caught on yet, you are building upward in the game. The first level isn\u2019t so bad, but by the time you\u2019re building your second or third levels, you better hope you don\u2019t bump the table. Or have to sneeze. Or are a fidgety person. Or live on an active fault line. Or own cats. I wish I was exaggerating.<\/p>\n

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Hold it! Nobody breathe!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The problem lies in the stacking pieces \u2013 the pillars. The first layer is built directly on your player board, which has nice recesses cut into it to keep the pillars evenly spaced and free from sliding and tipping. However, pillars after that are primarily built on your first layer tiles, which have no recesses. This means your pillars are just sitting there, and the tiles on them are just placed on top. Nothing keeps them from sliding around or tipping over. This could have been mitigated with triple layer tiles with recesses on the top and bottom for pillars, or even something like small magnets molded into the pillar bases and tops. The down side would have been the cost, though.<\/p>\n

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Those pillars are far from stable!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One other problem that plagues the game is the lack of a rotating first player. The first player is the permanent first player, which, in a tile drafting game, means the last player in line will always be the last player, and will always be picking at the scraps left behind. This could be house-ruled, though, by just allowing for a rotating first player.<\/p>\n

Final Thoughts<\/h2>\n

This game sounded and looked really cool. I wanted this game to be as fun as it looked. Problem is, Babylon<\/i> doesn\u2019t look as appealing as the pictures made it look. The game wasn\u2019t as fun to play as it was to look at. It more often felt like a chore just trying to keep the pieces from falling down than it did a game I was playing. It was just so tedious and fiddly. With a few improvements, I feel like this game could win awards. And it felt like Geek Attitude was right on the edge of something great. And it should have been. It\u2019s Babylon<\/i>. Maybe there will be a second edition at some point, but I\u2019m not going to hold my breath. In the meantime, I guess I\u2019ll just keep trying to like a game I was so excited about, but sort of let me down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were once a wonder of the world. But Babylon from Geek Attitude Games seems a bit more fragile than the original. Read Clayton’s review of Babylon to find out more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":310465,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":true,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"coauthors":[9300],"class_list":["post-310464","reviews","type-reviews","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ancient-board-games","category-city-building-board-games","designers-olivier-gregoire","mechanisms-modular-board","mechanisms-open-drafting","mechanisms-three-dimensional-movement","mechanisms-tile-placement","publishers-elznir-games","publishers-geek-attitude-games","artists-the-creation-studio","release_year-8432"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBabylon Game Review — Meeple Mountain<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were once a wonder of the world. But Babylon from Geek Attitude Games seems a bit more fragile than the original. Read Clayton's review of Babylon to find out more!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/reviews\/babylon\/\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/reviews\/babylon\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Board Game Reviews\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/reviews\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Babylon Game Review\"}]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Babylon Game Review — Meeple Mountain","description":"The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were once a wonder of the world. But Babylon from Geek Attitude Games seems a bit more fragile than the original. Read Clayton's review of Babylon to find out more!","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/reviews\/babylon\/","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/reviews\/babylon\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Board Game Reviews","item":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/reviews\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Babylon Game Review"}]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reviews\/310464"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reviews"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/reviews"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reviews\/310464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310464"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=310464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}