A new game by Brotherwise Games, authors of “Night of the Ninja,” “Call to Adventure” and “Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game,” is set to release on August 16, 2023. The latest addition to this lineup, Castles by the Sea, is a game that focuses on building and rebuilding tiny sandcastles across the board as nature’s elements and unexpected hazards tear them apart.
Build Your Own Sandcastle and Keep It from Falling Apart
Castles by the Sea is fit for 1-4 players and plays in 30-60 minutes and is fit for ages 12+. The plot follows the lives of the “shorelings,” a group of tiny shore folk who want to create a kingdom built out of sand and live next by the sea.
Each player will place and move their meeples across the board and seek to secure the best position in a three-dimensional shared grid. Yet, the gameplay is punctuated by various hazards that can jeopardize your people’s progress and their position on the map making for some tough calls and admittedly – the occasional setback.
Yet, Castles by the Sea, challenging as it is, is endearing and will strike home with even the fussiest lot. While shorelings compete to build up their sandcastles, various game events will trigger disasters and rain misfortune on the structures which will collapse for shorelings to start over.
How much progress you make on a single building is down to you to decide, as the variable setup of the game will introduce new challenges and unknowns with every play. To make sure that you protect your buildings, meeples will have to stand guard and fight off the hazards that lurk around the board.
To win, the best player will have to secure both the most territory, but also make sure that their buildings are indeed standing at the end of the game! The retail copy for Castles by the Sea will be available for $54.95 this summer. The game is illustrated by Marby Kwong and will be the artist’s debut project for the board games hobby.