Kingdomino vs Lego City Mars Research Shuttle

4. **Irish Gauge** (11): Just tons of player interaction and meaty decisions packed into a short playtime.

Relaxed build over 2-3 hours with some background movie watching, then dismantled it and rebuilt it with my niece of 4 and grandfather the next day and we all had a blast! (Thrilled to bits to see my niece thoroughly enjoy her first taste of Lego!) The set design is wonderful, a number of sections I found to be particularly clever in their design and it's a delight to build. The stickers and off-axis parts like the engines and wingtips give it a ton of flair, really adding to the already existing details and the shuttle alone would make for a great display model. The inclusion of the rover and tiny drone are a pleasant bonus. Lego at this time is very much a luxury for the big kid that is me, it's something I can afford but rarely, so I'm picky with which sets I generally go for and I must say absolutely that this set is fantastic value for money

**2. King of Tokyo** - We played this with another guy from our dad group. Surprised at how much Greg enjoyed the "take that" aspects of the game. So many laughs were had when Greg built a super aggressive Cyber Kitty and laid waste to a bunch of online victims

A combination of continuing space shuttle fever after the release of 10283 NASA Space Shuttle Discovery and excitement over Ingenuity's flight led me to track down this older set and I'm glad I did.

After spending more time with it, playing several times at all player counts, I can say with confidence that Kingdomino has rightfully earned its place among the year’s best games.

The builds are also fairly sturdy, although we have had issues with the boosters falling off the shuttle during play and the bay hatch catching on closing.