First Impressions of Map Masters, La Pâtisserie Rococo, and A Dragon’s Gift

I took a tiny break from gaming to reflect about my 1000th post on board gaming over on my personal website, www.boardgamegumbo.com, and to do some podcasts with my buddies Mitchell and Steve about recent conventions they have attended (Dragonsteel Nexus and Pax Unplugged, respectively).

But it’s time to talk about some actual board games that I have played this week. These are just first impressions, of course, from the first few plays.

I unfortunately missed out on BGG CON 2025, but Dave Dugas and Rob from the Board Boys Podcast were kind enough to pick up a copy of Map Masters from Captain Games for me (who published my favorite little card game of last year, Duck & Cover. It was on my Essen to-buy list and I was super excited to break it open and play a quick two player learning game with my wife.

The concept is simple, and reminds me a bit of Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeon Scrawlers – Heroes of Undermountain with some cool twists. Players will lay out a hand of five dungeon cards in an attempt to draw a path that collects the most gold and points. Each round, there is a different set of objectives to meet. And each round, players can upgrade their personal deck of dungeon cards with cards from the market (using the gold that they collected).

The game takes about 40 minutes over six rounds and is very intuitive. What I liked is the way the designer allowed you to mitigate some of the luck of the draw, with the upgrading / shimming of your deck, temporary tokens to get past obstacles like monsters and traps, and the spells you can learn that can be used over and over during the game to break the rules.

There was just enough of a spatial puzzle to satisfy SneauxBunny, and although initially she was lukewarm on the game, by the end she had warmed up to its charms. This is one we definitely want to break out on our next couples’ game night. Two thumbs up.

Next up, Doug from the Acadiana BGers Discord hosted a game night and taught us all La Pâtisserie Rococo. This was a smash hit for me, honestly one of the best euro experiences I’ve had since Shackleton Base and Asian Tigers. I love games that let me combo wambo, and Patisserie has combos everywhere to be discovered.

I know what you are saying. It’s just Rococo with a new theme. That’s totally true (at least I hear) but I’ve never gotten a chance to play the original, so this was my first experience. I’ve been hearing Chris Miller from the Secret Cabal Podcast rave about the game for years, and so glad I finally got to try it.

Players are French bakers of the highest sort, competing to make the best desserts using an ingenious deck building / drafting / hand management system that both frustrated and fascinated me at the same time. The genius of the game lies in the little bonus actions you can get from the cards you play, because if you combo the actions right, you can actually get some pretty big turns. Big two thumbs up on this one.

Finally, I played a bunch of solo plays of a brand new Scott Almes game from Button Shy called A Dragon’s Gift. Almes has a knack for these little 18 card wallet puzzles, but this one might be the one that broke my brain the most.

The object is to build a little village that produces resources that helps you build the perfect gift for the local dragon. But to win, you not only need to build the gift but also make sure you have at least nine craftspeople happily making stuff.

I easily could make stuff. A few times, I was able to make the dragon’s gift. But doing both — getting at least nine happy craftspersons AND the dragon’s gift? That is apparently too much for my brain. To do it, you have to connect roads and valleys together, in much the same vein as Curious Cargo (or honestly, like in Map Masters, too), and apparently, I am as bad at A Dragon’s Gift as I am at those two games.

But no matter; I enjoyed my time with the game and have passed it on to Logan with Southern Board Game Fest to see if he can do better than I can. Thanks again to Button Shy Games for sending us the review copy, and if you are interested, they are running a crowdfunding campaign for the game this month with some lagniappe — a tiny little expansion you can get through the campaign.

Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler!