Ziggurat Review – A Light Legacy Game With Big Charm

When legacy games exploded onto the board game scene, it was thanks to Rob Daviau and Matt Leacock’s Pandemic Legacy. After delivering three seasons of that franchise, the duo has teamed up again. This time for Ziggurat, a legacy game based on Leacock’s lesser-known, kid-friendly co-op title, Mole Rats in Space (also known as Space Escape).

That means Ziggurat isn’t a sprawling, high-stakes experience like Pandemic Legacy, but a more family-focused adventure. And that’s perfect. Because I have a 7-year-old eager to put it to the test.

How to play

As a legacy game, Ziggurat evolves over multiple plays, but it begins with rumours of fire spirits wandering a nearby ancient ziggurat. Naturally, as wannabe heroes, you and your team decide to investigate.

Before the game even starts, the legacy elements kick in. Each player picks a character card and permanently applies a sticker to it. If the thought of altering components makes you cringe and sends shivers down your spine, then this is fair warning: legacy games might not be your thing.

Once everyone has picked a character, given them a name, and placed their standee at the base of the giant 3D ziggurat, it’s time to climb. The temple acts as the game board, standing six levels tall, with each level containing spaces to navigate as you search for ladders to ascend.

On your turn, you’ll play the single card in your hand, which consists of two parts:

• The top half provides a movement action, such as “Move your hero two spaces” or “Move all heroes three spaces.” You carry out this part first, and any affected players get to choose their direction—left or right—giving you some control over your fate.
• The bottom half moves the fire spirits. Because, surprise! The rumours were true. These spirits travel around the ziggurat in a similar fashion, creating an ever-present danger.

If any player collides with a fire spirit, they get singed, and everyone loses. The same goes for ending your movement on a pit. Otherwise, movement interacts with the board in a Snakes and Ladders-style way:

• Land on a ladder? Climb up a level.
• Land on a chute? Down you go.

If all players manage to climb to the top of the ziggurat without anyone getting burned or falling into a hole, you win the scenario. Simple enough… for now. However, the challenge (and rules you need to remember) only escalate with each game you win.

Oh! And before I forget. My 7-year-old insists I mention the titles you can earn. Each scenario awards titles for achievements like The Swift (for reaching the top first) or The Charred (for being the first to run into a fire spirit). These are stickers that you add to your player board, they don’t grant any gameplay advantages—just bragging rights. But my kid values those more than winning itself.

A chill climb to the top

From the moment you open the box, Ziggurat draws you into its low-stakes, easygoing world of colourful characters, friendly enemies, and simple mechanics. Everything about it radiates “family game night,” from the charming art to the approachable gameplay.

But like a Transformer, it’s more than meets the eye.

For instance, your turn is a simple decision of which direction to move—left or right. But because you’ll be making this choice rapidly and repeatedly, each time with a different movement distance, you must plan carefully to land on specific spaces. At the same time, you’re dodging fire spirits, pitfalls, and chutes, making it essential to check everyone else’s cards and coordinate movement.

This level of strategy is perfect for casual players and kids. If you’ve played and enjoyed some meatier board games previously, you’ll probably want something with a little more bite. But for me, one of the biggest joys I’ve had with Ziggurat is how much my son has latched onto it. He asks to play almost every night, a big win over screen time! However, the real draw for him isn’t just the gameplay—it’s collecting the stickers.

Titles like Hex-Caster or Scroll Gatherer mean little in terms of actual gameplay. But that didn’t stop my son from chasing them so hard he put the whole scenario at risk! His daredevil antics, and the unresistable nature of the stickers, made me wonder if we’d ever complete the campaign.

At times, it left me pulling my hair out as he would deviate from his sanity for an extra title. Yet, that’s where a lot of my enjoyment of Ziggurat lied, watching him engage with the mechanics and making his own decisions. It was stressful, but it was fun.

There are also stickers for those aren’t so successful in their adventures, any characters who meet their end by a fire spirit get a ‘singed’ sticker. Again, nothing mechanically changes, but still, your loss feels like it goes on your permanent record.

Legacy lite: sweet but short-lived

When it comes to campaign progression—without diving into spoilers—Ziggurat doesn’t shake things up too drastically. The legacy elements aren’t as extreme as tearing up cards or permanently altering the board. Instead, the game gradually ramps up its difficulty, sprinkling in new obstacles like malicious cupcake toppings.

Each new scenario introduces both a perk and a challenge, giving you a sugar cube in one hand while smacking you with the other. That said, I found the sugar was always sweeter than the smack. With the added perks, the game felt a bit too easy for me but was perfectly balanced for my son.

There’s also an ongoing story about the Ziggurat and the fire spirits haunting its steps. However, don’t go in expecting some narrative masterpiece as the story serves more as a backdrop to the mechanics rather than a gripping tale. (If you’re looking for something more story-driven, Lands of Galzyr might be a better fit.)

Now, while Ziggurat is a fantastic family game, it’s not without its frustrations.

Almost every session, I’d find myself caught in a loop where I would be one space away from where I needed to go. Only to draw movement cards that sent me two or three spaces. When this would happen several times in a row it felt utterly ridiculous, like a golfer putting and continually missing the hole being stuck it felt as though I was stuck in an eternal game of “almost there.”

Annoying? Absolutely.

A dealbreaker? Not really.

Luck is an intrinsic part of Ziggurat’s gameplay and therefore you must expect that for every bit of fortune you get, you’ll also receive a card or two that puts you close but not close enough.

A bigger concern is longevity. Being a legacy game, once you’ve completed the six-scenario campaign, that’s it. Our family finished in about two weeks, and while it’s still a fun board game, there’s little reason to revisit it once the adventure is over. That said, for the price, the content feels like a solid deal.

In the end, Ziggurat is a fantastic choice for family game night. It offers an inviting mix of strategy, teamwork, and lighthearted fun – with enough surprises to keep things fresh. At least for a little while. It may not be a game you keep coming back to, but for the time it lasts, it’s a journey well worth taking.