Door 15

Cube towers 🧊 (not to be confused with dice towers) are a fun concept that I don't see too often in games. They involve throwing in cube tokens at the top and seeing how many or where they fall out to get a random output. We were ecstatic to receive 🏔️ Frostpunk, a board game adaptation of a post-apocalyptic city builder video game, so it's the perfect occasion to highlight this mechanic (and game) with door 15 of our MechanXmas calendar!

In the world of Frostpunk a severe ice age has hit the earth and civilization crumbled. Some survivors stumble upon a generator in a crater that can produce the heat necessary for survival. Their small community has to do everything in their power to survive!

This aforementioned generator is actually a cube tower. As you fire it up you throw in coal cubes. Some of them will get stuck inside, some will fall out. Whichever falls out, goes on a malfunction track - you can't have too many of those or else the generator breaks down. As some cubes are stuck inside, you could knock them out in a later round, which can be really tense. 🙀 You are never sure exactly how many of them are hiding there.

The game is full of hard and morally gray choices. Heating is crucial, else your citizens will get sick - too much heating on the other hand will make your generator break down. You can also pass diverse laws - all of which have consequences. You want to be kind to your people, but sometimes cruelness is the only way to survive. 😐 We can't wait to play and cover this game more, so stay tuned!

You can do a lot of fun ideas with these cube towers, so I wanted to mention some more relevant games. 🙃

🏴‍☠️ Dead Reckoning has a new take on this - every thrown in cube will fall out; what is important, is where they land on the combat board to decide outcome of cannon fire.

♻️ The LOOP has a 3-way slide tower which randomizes where time anomalies fall between 3 eras to always keep you on your toes.

🏭In Factory 42 the cube tower symbolizes the shortcomings of bureaucracy, as resources you order won't all arrive - at least not when you expect it.