Game Overview

Game Name: Leviathan Wilds
Publication Year: 2024
Designer: Justin Kemppainen
Artist: Samuel R. Shimota
Publisher: Moon Crab Games
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game (Cooperative)

Each leviathan offers up a unique challenge, often with special rules and a set of threat cards. It might seem easy enough to climb, yet blight is everywhere! Multi-purpose cards also help create tough choices with action points and unique skills. It’s not always a simple race to the top!

Thematic Injuries

The Forsaken was a rather interesting leviathan. Groups of tokens had to be explored to find the blighted crystals, which was a way to introduce a bit of deduction. Neat!

I started to skip over some of the lower crystals. The idea was to let go and fall down to strike them later on.

That was exactly the plan with Kestrel, about a mile away. Yet it was right near the end, where every action counted.

They were struck with the fearful injury, meaning that it wasn’t a simple free action to drop down. Hazard frantically raced over there to win at the last moment!

Push the Button!

Up next was the Tunneler, a gigantic mole that was clearly all about tunneling and mining! A lift could rise and fall, yet it involved activating the buttons at each level.

Kestrel’s fantastic climbing abilities allowed them to scale the left side pretty easily, yet Hazard had to move the lift around to make sure a ledge was within range for resting.

Fun note: Is it an elevator or lift? I always call open varieties lifts, thanks to a video game I played as a kid!

It seemed easy enough to destroy the crystals, but getting Kestrel over to the right side was very, very difficult.

Absolute Teamwork

As I’ve learned along the way, moving climbers close together often leads to a lot of damage during the threat phase. Spreading out has been paramount to success!

Yet time was ticking down, Hazard had a lot of blight, and the last crystal was just sitting there, all mocking-like.

Hazard had to stick around to spend a couple of turns taking it out, but Kestrel glided right on over! In close quarters, the pair worked together to win at the very end.

Actually, had Hazard handled it by herself, that would have been too much blight for her. This was a close call!

Goat Woes

I might have had the most laughs with the next leviathan, titled the Twins. In the book, there wasn’t anything special except a lot of empty spaces that were card-sized…

Oh, my! This turned out to be the home of a pair of mountain goats who moved around a lot, sort of like moving lifts. Who were difficult to stick with.

As they moved, Kestrel and Hazard either had to fall off or lose a grip. And I just couldn’t figure out the cadence!

This turned out to be my first loss. Luckily, I puzzled it out correctly again, but goodness… Mountain goats are wild!

What Gravity?

Things got even more interesting with the Vortex, which had a pretty great bit of flavor text on the introduction.

In a nutshell, the fun here was in a shifting sense of gravity around this tornado. That’s right: “Up” had a nebulous definition that constantly changed!

Kestrel fell through the edge once, picking up blight from all that debris. It was really cool to have to keep thinking about how to get to different areas and crystals.

Climbing wasn’t always climbing, and I had a lot of fun adjusting my strategy at the end of each round!

Into the Stomach…

Flipping to the next page and seeing that this carnivorous plant was named the Hunger gave me a rough idea of what to expect. Indeed, there was a stomach to investigate!

Kestrel worked their way along the exterior, while the messy job of getting swallowed whole over and over again fell to Hazard. She was pretty disgusting early on. Ha!

I loved the thematic elements of the threat cards and the way the stomach was a nasty place to get stuck in.

My initial plan turned out to be a winning one, and these climbers had a pretty handy victory, followed by a bath.

Just Keep Swimming

The penultimate leviathan was the Deep, which looked pretty menacing and tricky! On this underwater map, things were partially flipped around to simulate diving.

Kestrel and Hazard began at the top on the water’s surface. They picked up air bubbles on the way as the leviathan struck out, bit, and caused all sorts of mayhem.

It was especially tricky for Kestrel since diagrams didn’t flip around. Lots of work went into the movement plan!

Hazard got stuck in the mouth many times and nearly drowned, but in the end, this was another awesome win!

Out of the Mists

I should note that this was almost the only game I played for weeks. There wasn’t always time to play each day, yet it kept my attention from the very first leviathan. Cool!

The final leviathan was the Tyrant, who seemed to have more story bits related to the crystal mysteries.

This was hard! A crystal in the middle was very tricky to reach, and Kestrel had to do a lot of flying around. Hazard was stuck on the ground a lot, flailing away with injuries.

Most threat cards were always enraged, so I was surprised when I actually pulled off a victory at the last second!

Session Overview

Play Number: 11-18
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game (Cooperative)
Play Details: Normal Difficulty Level
Outcome: 7 Wins & 1 Loss

I was absolutely feeling good at the end, and this was the skill that helped win several times! Although this isn’t designed as a campaign, it felt like I created one with my duo of climbers. There are other characters to explore, higher difficulty levels, and the mutations expansion to add plenty of variety. Suffice to say this one kept me engaged for almost 20 plays in a row… So much fun!

Affordability

Price & Value

10

Functionality

Challenges & Mechanics

10

Originality

Design & Theme

7

Quality

Components & Rules

8