Dragon's
Breath

Dragon's Breath (2018) is a collecting game where players compete to gather jewels from a steadily defrosting physical stash in the middle. Play involves removing a ring from the ice tower, which allows some jewels to fall and be collected or lost in the Dragon Dad's fiery pit. It is a tactile game, where players need to literally take risks and rewards into their own hands.

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You start by creating a physical tower of ice from plastic rings in the middle of the board and carefully filling it with jewels. Each turn players choose a colour of gems to collect. The lead player then carefully removes a ring which results in jewels falling onto the board. Some are lost in holes and some are available for collection. Each player collects their jewels into their secret stash and that go is over. It's as simple as that.

As you play, each player gets a turn to remove rings from the tower. After all the rings have gone and players have collected their jewels, the board can be lifted to display how many jewels each player has managed to stash in their secret cave. The winner is the player with the most jewels.

It's a joyful combination of pleasing tactility and clever board design. Players need to decide how careful to be as they remove each ring so that they avoid giving their opponents more jewels than they manage to collect. Add to this the fact that some jewels are lost each round and you have a compellingly simple game of risk and reward with a fun final reveal of who has the most gems.

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Our examiner, Rob Prior, first checked Dragon's Breath 2 years ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 12 weeks ago.