Wouter & Ymke 
Let’s start with this: OrthoGnomes looks simple. Small box, a few blocks, a rotating board. I thought, ok, quick abstract, place pieces, make lines, done. Yeah… not quite.
It’s a 1–2 player abstract game where a Fire god (light) and an Ice god (darkness) are playing a game to decide the seasons. I mean, the theme is there, but let’s be honest, you’re mostly here to stack blocks and try not to mess it up for yourself.
You’re building on a 4×4 grid, but in 3D. And every block has both symbols on it, so every move is a bit of a compromise. You’re helping yourself, sure, but also maybe helping your opponent without realising it yet. That’s kind of the whole idea behind the game, and it shows up almost immediately when you start playing.
👥 1-2 players, ages 8+
⌛ Playing time: 15 minutes
📝 Designer: Kotori
🎨 Artwork: Kotori
🏢 Publisher: PhantomLab (review copy provided)
Gameplay Overview
You take turns placing blocks, and each player only has six. That already makes the game feel quite tight. You don’t have many moves, so wasting one early can come back to haunt you later.
The goal itself is simple: make lines of four of your symbol. Horizontal, vertical, diagonal… nothing unusual there. But the way you actually score those lines is what changes everything. You don’t just look at the board from one side. You check it from five directions: north, south, east, west, and from above. And only what you can see from that angle counts. Depth doesn’t matter at all.
Because of that, a move is never just one move. You place a block, and it affects all those views at once. So you might think you’ve made a nice line, and then you rotate the board and realise it doesn’t count from another side. Or worse, you accidentally created something useful for your opponent. It’s one of those games where you only fully understand your move after you’ve looked at it from every direction.
Once all the blocks are placed, you go through each side and count the visible lines of four. Only exact lines count, so longer ones don’t give extra points. Then you reset the board and play a second round, switching who starts. The rulebook suggests checking scoring in a fixed order, starting from north and going clockwise, and honestly that helps more than you’d think. Otherwise you’ll end up rechecking everything anyway.
Placement rules are simple at first, but they do add up. The first block has to cover the starting space, and every block after that needs to connect at a right angle to something already on the board. You stay within the 4×4 base, but you can build upward as much as you want.
The part that takes a bit of getting used to is the “no parallel” rule. You can’t place a block in the same direction as a block it touches, even if it’s only touching on one square. It sounds straightforward, but in practice it leads to those small pauses where you’re not entirely sure if something is allowed. And if you do get it wrong, the whole round resets, not just the move. So people tend to double-check before letting go.
There’s also the physical side of things. If the structure collapses and it was your fault, you lose immediately. It doesn’t happen every game, but once the build gets higher, you start paying more attention to how stable everything feels.
The solo mode is there as well. You put all twelve blocks in a bag, draw them one by one, and try to get the best score with one symbol. It works as a puzzle, but for us it didn’t feel like the main way to play.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
The game keeps things very clean visually. White, grey, and a bit of yellow for contrast. Nothing over the top, which actually works in its favour.
The symbols are clear and easy to recognise, which is important because you’ll be looking at the structure from different angles all the time. Even then, you sometimes have to double-check what you’re seeing, but that comes more from the way the game works than from the design itself.
The blocks feel solid, and once you start stacking them, the structure turns into this small abstract tower. It looks nice on the table, even if it’s slowly becoming more complicated to read as the game goes on.
The rotating board is probably the most useful component. Without it, you’d constantly be moving around the table to check different views. Now you just spin the board, which makes a big difference in how the game actually plays and how often you’re willing to re-check things.
Our Experience
At the start, the game feels quite easy. You place a few blocks, you spot a line, and you think you’ve got it. But as the structure grows, it becomes harder to keep track of everything that’s going on. You’re not just placing something in one spot, you’re changing how the whole thing looks from several directions at once, and that takes a bit of adjusting.
That’s also where the game starts to show what it’s really about. You make a move that looks fine from one side, and then you turn the board and realise it changes something completely different somewhere else. Those moments happen quite often, and they’re probably the part we remembered most after playing.
The shared structure plays a big role in that. There’s no separate space for each player, everything happens in the same build. So every move has an effect on what the other player can do next, even if that effect isn’t obvious right away. Because each block contains both symbols, moves rarely feel clean. You’re always doing a bit of both: helping yourself and leaving something behind for the other player.
We also noticed how physical the game feels. You’re constantly rotating the board, leaning in, checking from another side. It’s not something you just glance at and solve. You kind of have to interact with it, almost like you’re inspecting an object rather than just looking at a flat board.
The stability rule adds to that. When the structure gets taller, you start thinking not just about where to place a block, but also how safe that placement is. Most of the time it’s fine, but there’s always that small risk in the back of your mind.
The parallel rule shapes how the structure develops, but it’s also one of the parts that slowed us down a bit early on. We had a few moments where we stopped just to make sure a move was actually allowed, especially in the first games.
For us, the solo mode felt more like a way to explore how placements work than something we’d return to often. The game really comes alive when there’s another player reacting to what you do and changing the structure with you.
Our Thoughts
What stands out is that the 3D aspect really drives the game. It’s not just there to look nice. The whole system depends on looking at the same structure from different sides, and that gives it a different feel compared to more traditional abstract games.
At its best, you get turns where one placement affects several things at once. You might score, block something, and change what’s possible in the next few turns. That layered effect is probably the strongest part of the design, especially considering how small the game is.
At the same time, it’s not something that will work for everyone. The rules are easy enough to explain, but actually understanding what’s going on is another step. There’s a difference between knowing what you’re supposed to do and being able to read the position properly, and this game sits right in that gap.
Because of that, it feels quite selective. Players who enjoy spatial puzzles and thinking a few steps ahead in different directions will probably get a lot out of it. Others might find it a bit demanding for what looks like a small and simple game.
There’s also a noticeable skill difference between players. If someone is better at visualising how the structure looks from different sides, they will likely get ahead quite quickly. The game doesn’t really hide that, because there aren’t many moves to balance things out.
Another thing to keep in mind is how the game actually plays over time. Early games feel more about exploring what’s possible, while later plays become more about careful decisions and small adjustments. That can be interesting, but it also means the game may feel heavier the more seriously you take it.
The scoring system fits the game well, but it does take a bit of effort to go through everything at the end. It’s not something you can do instantly, especially when you’re still getting used to it.
Overall, for us, OrthoGnomes is more interesting than it is immediately enjoyable. It does something different, and that’s always nice to see. But it also asks quite a lot from players, and that makes it more of a specific recommendation than a general one.
If you enjoy abstract games and don’t mind thinking in 3D, there’s definitely something here. If not, it might feel like a lot of effort for what looks like a small and simple game.
Also, small warning: you will rotate the board a lot. At some point it feels less like playing a game and more like you’re turning a pizza to check if it’s ready.
📝 We received a copy of the game from PhantomLab.
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