Mad King Ludwig has tasked you with building the most extravagant castle ever. However, this task comes with a twist: not only must you build your castle one room at a time, but you’ll also have to sell rooms to other players to deal with your tight budget.

Castles of Mad King Ludwig is a tile-laying game where 2-4 players take turns acting as the master builder, selling available rooms to other players. After the other players each get a chance to buy a tile from the master builder, the master builder can buy a room from whatever is remaining. Players will score points for the rooms in their castle and from various endgame scoring opportunities they work towards during the game.

Designer Ted Alspach and publisher Bezier Games also worked on a similar game, Suburbia. I gave it a 5 out of 10 because of its lucky tile pricing system, all or nothing private goals, and single strategy to victory. Castles of Mad King Ludwig gave me hope when I got it because it addressed all of these issues. Let’s see how well it does.