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This week, we had the pleasure of attending the Asmodee Discovery Day at the Asmodee Belgium headquarters, where shops and media got a preview of the upcoming releases for 2024-2025. The showroom itself was a treat to explore, with games from various studios displayed all around us—almost as if we’d stepped into a live catalog of what’s to come! Here’s a rundown of some of the highlights that we’re most excited to share.
Tower Up 🏙️
We started the evening with Tower Up, a city-building game that’s all about strategic placement. In Tower Up, you construct your city by placing building blocks adjacent to existing structures, elevating them and moving your pieces up the progress tracks. As you advance on these tracks, you unlock extra actions and increase your points for endgame scoring. Each game includes three goal cards, which set destinations that award extra points based on your progress. The result? A game that challenges you to balance building strategy with careful goal-oriented planning.
Superstore 3000 🛍️
Next, we dived into Superstore 3000, a futuristic mall-building game where each player designs their own shopping center. Each turn, you place shop tiles that help meet the demands of various customers, creating attractions and even a disco to bring in the crowds. You’ll also earn points from festive star balloons for these big attractions and for building the largest groups of shops in the same color. The most ambitious mall designs definitely emerged during our session, featuring shops and structures that would be wild to see in real life!
Azul Duel 🎨
One of the most anticipated games on display was Azul Duel. As fans of the original Azul, we were curious to see how this two-player version would stack up. Our first question was, “Is it different enough from Azul?” And we’re happy to report, yes—it is! Azul Duel introduces a twist to the classic mechanics of tile drafting and placement.
In Azul Duel, players don’t start with a full grid. Instead, they build it each round by selecting two grid tiles, placing them to strategically align colors for maximum points. The drafting mechanism is different too: rather than discarding tiles to the middle, players stack them on a “moon” area. A new action lets you collect top tiles of the same color from all moon stacks, allowing you to plan for larger groups. To top it off, each player can take two bonus tiles per round. These “half” tiles can be paired to complete a row, adding an extra layer of depth. It’s a refreshing, strategic take on the Azul formula that will appeal to fans of the original.
Happy Mochi 🍡
We ended our gaming session with Happy Mochi, a fast, lighthearted card game designed to keep everyone on their toes. The objective is simple—get rid of all your cards as quickly as possible. It’s the perfect choice for when you want something quick and fun, with a bit of playful competition. While not as complex as the other games, it rounded out our evening on a cheerful note and is ideal for family game nights.
Wrapping Up the Day
These were just a few of the many games set to release from Asmodee Belgium in the coming year. With such a wide range of titles in their lineup, we couldn’t get to them all, but we left excited about the games we tried.
A big thank you to Asmodee Belgium for inviting us to be part of the Discovery Day! We’re looking forward to diving deeper into these games, and you can expect a full review of some of them soon.
