tabletoppingboardgames 
When the lights go out and the house finally goes quiet, the toys wake up.
At least, that’s the idea behind Toys. On one side you have the old guard. A battered teddy bear, a retro handheld console, and an old rotary phone that has probably seen better days. On the other side are the newer favourites. A unicorn, an electronic pet, and a smartphone that looks like it’s permanently annoyed at everything around it.
It’s a theme that immediately made us smile. Most of us have had favourite toys that eventually disappeared into a cupboard, a box in the attic, or a forgotten shelf somewhere. In Toys, those forgotten toys have decided they’re not giving up their place without a fight. Within seconds, you understand the joke. The old toys want their place back, and the new toys aren’t planning to hand it over.
Behind all the toy-box charm is a battle for control of the bedroom, where routes get blocked, plans fall apart, and even a teddy bear can become a serious obstacle. It sounds simple, and in many ways it is, but after a few turns you’ll realise that getting to the other side of the board is often harder than it first appears.
👥 2 players, ages 8+
⌛ Playing time: 15 minutes
📝 Designer: Thomas Balk
🎨 Artwork: Martijn Haddering
🏢 Publisher: White Goblin Games (review copy provided)
Gameplay Overview
The goal is simple. Get one of your toys onto your opponent’s winning space before they reach yours.
Each player starts with six toys in their personal storage area. During the game, toys enter the board through one of two starting spaces and begin making their way across the battlefield. Every toy has a value from one to three. Normally you’d expect a higher number to mean a stronger piece, but here things work differently. A toy with a value of three can move farther but only rolls one die in combat. A toy with a value of one moves slowly but rolls three dice when fighting.
It means the toys you want to send forward are often the same toys you don’t want getting caught in combat. Meanwhile, the stronger fighters can be excellent at controlling important spaces but aren’t nearly as good at making a quick dash for the finish.
Combat happens when two enemy toys are next to each other. Both players roll dice based on the value of their toy. Whoever rolls the highest individual result wins and the losing toy goes to the trash bin. If both players roll the same highest result, nothing happens. One thing to keep in mind is that attacking immediately ends your turn, so deciding when to fight can be just as important as deciding where to move.
On top of that, each player has a deck of action cards. Some help you escape trouble, some protect your toys, and others are designed purely to make life difficult for your opponent. A well-timed card can suddenly open a route that looked completely blocked a turn earlier, or force your opponent to rethink what looked like a safe position.
Toys don’t always need to fight to get removed either. If a toy becomes completely surrounded by enemy pieces, it’s immediately sent to the trash bin. The trash bin isn’t quite the end, though. Toys can make their way back through the repair space, and there’s also a rule that prevents discarded pieces from piling up forever. As a result, pieces keep finding their way back into the game rather than disappearing after one unlucky roll.
The game ends as soon as a player reaches the opponent’s winning space. There are a couple of alternative victory conditions as well, but most games will end with somebody successfully finding a route through the opposition and reaching the other side.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
There’s not a huge amount in the box, but honestly, the game doesn’t really need more. You get the board, twelve wooden meeples, six dice, and a deck of cards. Setup takes only a few minutes and the table never feels crowded.
The wooden bits are easily my favourite part of the production. Instead of generic shapes, every toy is illustrated directly onto the piece. The teddy bear looks like it’s survived years of adventures, the handheld console permanently looks annoyed, and the smartphone somehow manages to look offended just by standing there. These little details give the game a lot of personality and make the toys memorable long after the game is over.
The board itself looks like a page from a child’s notebook, complete with doodles and graph-paper lines. It fits the theme really well and remains easy to read throughout the game. The artwork uses a bright cartoon style that feels welcoming without becoming overly childish. Younger players will probably enjoy it, but adults won’t feel like they’re sitting down with something aimed exclusively at children.
During our plays, we never really had to stop and figure out what a component was trying to tell us, which is exactly what you want in a game that moves this quickly. Everything is easy to identify, and the table presence remains playful without becoming cluttered.
I’m glad the production keeps the attention on the toys themselves. There aren’t dozens of components competing for attention. Instead, the toys remain the stars of the show, which feels completely appropriate for a game built around their battle.
Our Experience
Going into Toys, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. The theme immediately appealed to me, but I wondered whether the gameplay would keep our attention after the first impression wore off. The biggest surprise was how often we found ourselves discussing options before making a move. Looking at the game, I expected something more direct. In practice, there were quite a few turns where we spent time trying to work out what the other player was planning.
One thing that happened regularly was deciding not to attack. That sounds strange in a game where toys are constantly bumping into each other, but because attacking immediately ends your turn, combat often felt like a commitment rather than an opportunity. There were several situations where we had a battle available, paused for a moment, and decided we’d rather reposition, block a route, or simply wait. Some of the most satisfying moments came from forcing an opponent into a difficult position rather than winning a fight.
We also found ourselves paying close attention to how pieces could become surrounded. More than once, a toy was removed without a single die being rolled because it suddenly ran out of escape routes. Those situations often created the most discussion around the table. You could see someone trying to spot threats before they happened, while also looking for opportunities to trap something themselves.
Of course, the dice still played their part. There were games where battles went exactly as expected and others where a toy somehow survived despite the odds being against it. That’s simply part of the experience. We never found it frustrating enough to spoil a game, but players who prefer complete control over outcomes may feel differently. For us, those moments usually led to laughter, disbelief, or somebody claiming that their teddy bear had suddenly become invincible.
The cards created some memorable situations as well. Sometimes they appeared at exactly the right moment and rescued a position that looked hopeless. Other times they completely ruined a plan we’d been building towards for several turns. They definitely kept our games from feeling too similar and regularly gave us something to talk about after the game ended.
The thing I remembered most after our plays was the amount of table talk the game generated. Not because the rules are complicated, but because both players are constantly trying to read each other’s intentions. For a game that can be taught in a matter of minutes, it created a surprising amount of discussion, second-guessing, and the occasional “wait… why did you move there?”
Our Thoughts
After several plays, I think Toys benefits from keeping its ambitions fairly modest. The building blocks are all familiar. You’ll recognise most of the ideas here after a single game. The interesting part is how those ideas work together once the toys start getting in each other’s way.
The part I enjoyed most is how the game makes you treat your toys differently. The fast toys are excellent at creating pressure and threatening a breakthrough, but they become vulnerable if they move too far ahead without support. The slower toys are much better at holding important spaces and making life difficult for the opponent. Because of this, every toy has a purpose, even though the rules themselves remain straightforward.
I also think the surrounding rule deserves some credit. Without it, Toys could have become little more than a race across the board. Instead, players are encouraged to think about blocked routes, supporting pieces, and how much space they leave around themselves. It makes positioning matter throughout the entire match.
At the same time, there are a few things that may limit the game’s appeal for some players. The biggest question for me is long-term variety. The factions play exactly the same way, the board never changes, and most of the variation comes from the cards. That’s great for accessibility and probably helps keep things balanced, but it also means some groups may eventually feel like they’ve explored most of what the game has to offer.
I also found myself wishing the toys felt a little more unique mechanically. The teddy bear, smartphone, unicorn, and handheld console all have great personalities in the artwork, but once they’re on the board they mostly follow the same rules. I completely understand why the designers made that choice, because it keeps the game accessible and fair, but part of me couldn’t help imagining what a few unique abilities might have added. The theme creates expectations that the gameplay doesn’t quite follow through on.
Those criticisms never had a major impact on our enjoyment of the game. Toys is clearly aimed at players looking for a lighter two-player game rather than a deep strategic challenge. During our plays, we never felt like the game was dragging, but we also rarely felt like our decisions were completely obvious. For a game of this size, that’s a nice place to be.
I think this will work particularly well in households where one player wants something accessible and the other still wants a few meaningful decisions to make. Hobby gamers will probably get the most out of it as a filler rather than a game they’ll spend months mastering, and that’s perfectly fine. Not every game needs to become a lifestyle commitment.
Final Verdict
Toys is a fun and approachable two-player game with a theme that’s difficult not to like. The production is full of personality, the gameplay offers more room for decision-making than its appearance initially suggests, and matches move quickly enough that it’s easy to play again immediately after finishing.
There are definitely areas where I would have liked to see a little more. More variety between the factions would have been nice, and I suspect some groups will eventually want more from the system after repeated plays. Instead, Toys sticks to a simple idea and executes it well.
The reason we immediately set up another game a few times was that Toys regularly created moments where we thought we had everything under control, only to realise we’d completely missed a threat on the other side of the board. That’s not something every light two-player game manages to do.
And honestly, any game that ends with a teddy bear and a smartphone settling their differences with dice already has something going for it.
📝 We received a review copy of Toys from White Goblin Games.
