Start-up companies are a dime a dozen these days, and only the best can garner enough money to stay afloat year after year. Will you be one of those companies? Can you navigate the market effectively and build up your net worth enough to succeed? Let’s see if your widget makes the cut!


Economic / Engine Building – Players are trying to upgrade their supply chain in order to produce and sell their widgets and get the highest net worth by the end of the game (cash on hand + value of their upgrades). Players run their supply chain each round to turn raw materials into finished goods to sell.

Bidding / Worker Placement – The Worker Wars expansion adds worker placement, as players need to use workers to run the pieces of their machine. At the beginning of each round, players will bid to buy additional workers.

Varied Abilities / Take That – With the Boardroom Battle expansion, some cards have special abilities players can use during the game. Some of these also interact directly with other players (i.e. costing them money)


  • 2 to 4 Players – Works well at any count
  • Ages 12 & Up / Family-Weight Fans – The classic mode felt pretty light and approachable for almost any players, maybe even a little younger than 12. Adding in the expansions (together or separately) definitely added a little to the strategy, but I still thought it felt liek a nice light-weight game
  • Fans of economic themes, engine building, worker placement, and modular gameplay

Worker Wars – Adds worker placement (instead of just paying labor costs of cards, players must have the right number of workers to run that part of their chain) and light bidding each round to buy more workers – Nice addition to make managing the cards you buy more interesting. You have to weigh their value with the worker cost, and also factor in being able to buy enough workers to run everything

Boardroom Battle – Upgrades the classic deck of cards to one that gives some cards various abilities – Another nice addition to add some strategy and variety once you’re familiar with the game. Personally, I’d always opt for these cards.


  • Aesthetics – Cute art!
  • Components – Nice quality across all components
  • Expansions are easy to add into the game
  • Accessible to a wide range of players
  • Theme is cute and works well with the mechanisms
  • Quick / smooth turns
  • Helpful reference cards (back of the widget sheets)

  • The big sheets for the widgets / scoring info did seem a bit unnecessary (being so big)
  • I didn’t love the rulebook layout, with some of the expansion notes sprinkled throughout the basic rules, I found it distracting

I thought this was a solid game. For me, the classic mode was a little too light, but I thought it was a good starting point for younger or newer players. I liked both of the included expansions, and thought once you’re familiar with the game, it provides the bast experience to add them both in. I thought there was a little more strategy and variety, but it still played quickly and smoothly. If you like economic games and engine building, check it out!


Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6.5/10

Designer – Joseph Bugbee
Artist – Alexander Cheng
Publisher – Friendly Bee Game Company
MSRP – $39.00
Website
Buy on Amazon

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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