Above and Below

Build a village on the surface. Send people underground. Read a paragraph aloud and find out what they met down there.

Ryan Laukat writes, illustrates and designs his own games, and Above and Below is the one where all three land at once. Your village was burned by barbarians and you are rebuilding it, but the caves beneath turn out to be more interesting than the fields above - so half the game is a tidy worker-placement economy and the other half is a storybook.

The exploring is the reason to own it. Send villagers below and another player reads an entry from a book of 200-odd encounters, gives you a choice, and a die roll decides how it goes. It is a light role-playing layer bolted onto a proper euro, and the combination is why this has stayed on shelves for a decade while flashier games have not.

Perfect for: The group that wants a story but will not sit still for a roleplaying campaign.

2-4 players | 90 minutes | Age 13+