Manny Vega, the designer of the Sparkle Kitty series of games, has paired up with Cardboard Alchemy to take 1-5 players on a journey through a magical marketplace filled with sights, smells, and even dragons! These aren’t your typical “gather a horde and capture a damsel” dragons, however. They are smaller and friendlier than their larger kin and are doing their best to help at the various shops. With each visit taking about an hour to play through, participants will take on the role of Flamekeepers, and it will be their duty to help those shops by finding the most suitable dragons to assist at each locale.

To be completely honest, we were drawn to Flamecraft from the start. When the campaign finally launched, we were a day one backer and never looked back. Our only real gripe about the game is the setup and tear-down time. While we fully understand why it takes that long (and even appreciate what it means for replayability and variety), we wish there was a way to streamline it a bit more. Otherwise, we’re huge fans! In fact, Flamecraft may be our new favorite gateway game for getting new gamers to the table. Sandara Tang‘s whimsical artwork has made Flamecraft a hit at both game night and the meet-ups we’ve taken it to. It is colorful, adorable, and eye-catching without being cartoonish or obviously aimed at children, so it appeals to multiple audiences.

Though the rulebook can appear daunting due to its size, Flamecraft is actually very easy to teach, learn, and play. Once players get the gist of the iconography and how a turn plays out, the rest falls into place quickly. As with most worker placement games, there are many different strategies available for players to utilize when earning victory points. Each turn, players will enter a shop of their choice and either “gather” or “enchant.” Gathering allows you to collect resources, fill an empty shop space with an Artisan Dragon from your hand to earn specific rewards, and use the abilities of the shop and one of its inhabitants. Enchanting a shop requires players to hand in several collected resources but will improve the shop for future gathering actions, grant one-time bonuses based on the enchantment, as well as let you use the abilities of ALL dragons currently at that location. Undoubtedly there are more subtleties to the rules and what choices a player will be inclined to select for their turn, but mostly gameplay is encompassed in a few choices that may be influenced by secret objectives and longer-term plays without the game ever feeling too heavy or causing much overbearing analysis.

With the number of reviews flying around, what can we really say that hasn’t been said already? As it turns out, not much! Flamecraft is excellent and stands out as one of the top games we played in 2022. While there have been complaints that the game loses some of its functionality and falls flat at two players, we have yet to have this issue. Since hearing similar things from several friends before getting our copy to the table, we feel it may have better prepared us for our first game than just reading the rules would have. Our best advice when playing as a duo is to make sure you’re being aggressive to get new shops opened up and start reaping the benefits they provide. If you don’t, the game may feel sluggish and without options. None of this should negatively reflect on the game, though, as it really is just more of an observation on our part and what we have heard from others. The game flows well and eventually, even the aforementioned possibility will resolve naturally and press the game forward. All in all, we really enjoyed this one and are pretty sure it will continue to make quite a few trips to the table in the coming months!

All photos for this review were taken and edited by Krista.