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The White Castle is a Euro worker placement game from the same design team as the popular Red Cathedral - Sheila Santos and Israel Cendrero. Set in 18th Century Japan in Himeji Castle (the most famous and visited in Japan), this game peeked my interest on several level. Small box - check; Dedicated solo mode built in and not as an afterthought - check; Samurai theme - double check!
It's been a consistent top 10 rated game on the hotness charts since it's Essen release in 2023. If you are a solo player and love worker resource/management games is The White Castle the game for you?
Content
The first question to address is its a pretty small box - think Garphill games size, but don't let that fool you. Like the aforementioned publisher it's crammed full of content which seems to grow once the boards are punched and the bridges put together (more on those later). Board Game Geek (BGG), has whole discussion threads relating to fitting it all back in and the lack of a contents list in the rule book - replaced with a QRR code to scan.
Wooden meeples are chunky and some of the additional wood tokens along with the wonderful fish used to mark which round you are on are screen printed. Coins and the bridges used to hold the dice are heavy duty card and well designed. Game cards have a lovely finish to them, so much so that I've opted not to sleeve them.
Gameplay
The game lasts three rounds which is pretty short and each round is only three moves each. A more detailed description of gameplay can be found in the excellent review by Matthew Thomasson on the Zatu blog page.
The solo mode named as the Tokugawa Clan's visit, covers four of the rules booklet twenty pages. Setup along with differences with the multiplayer game are clearly explained and illustrated using photos and text. The AI opponent uses a deck of nine double sided cards - three for each of the die colours to generate its actions. One side shows the die colour, its position on the bridge and placement, whilst the other side shows the two actions it takes.
There are some issues with the solo mode as published which makes the game very difficult to beat. However, a revised (unofficial), solo mode has been published on BGG called the Gingkokowa Clan which has balanced out the gameplay issues and advantages the AI has.
Final Thoughts & Replayability
The White Castle on face value appears to be a really short game (just nine moves each) and on the first couple of plays you often feel you've just got your engine building going when the last round ends. This is part of the genius of the game and finding those positions on the board to place your dice which then generates a chain reaction and multiple meeple placements is the key. There is a certain amount of analysis paralysis, but I've found that I can comfortably finish a game in under 90 minutes.
AI placement and actions are quick and easy to understand with not much time spent "game managing". In my opinion the BGG revised AI rules make the solo game a lot more competitive and enjoyable, but if you prefer a tougher challenge then the rules as published are fine.
The White Castle is a beautiful looking game with well designed components and with a theme that has not seen many games published. It's certainly one that I'll be playing regularly this year and should be on your solo games shelf.
