Cascadia Rolling Rivers and Hills

Summary

👥 A game for 1 to 4 players when combining both games, you can play up to 8 players
⏳ Play time is around 15 – 30 minutes
🏢 Publisher is AEG Games

Introduction

Cascadia, the popular board game that challenges players to create the perfect ecosystem now has two new roll-and-write variants: Cascadia Rolling Hills and Cascadia Rolling Rivers. With just a pair of dice and a score sheet, you try again to form a harmonious landscape.

Let’s get in on the table

Players roll a combination of common dice and personal dice, with each dice showing different animals or special actions. Based on these rolls, players must make strategic choices about which animals to collect and where to record them on their score sheets.

The goal is to create the most valuable ecosystems by cleverly combining animals and completing habitat cards. Each game consists of 20 rounds, in which players try to achieve the highest score by making optimal combinations and cashing in bonuses.

Weight: 2.00/ 5
Replayability: 8
Our rating: 7,5 out of 10 dices

Each player receives a score sheet, an animal sheet and a set of dice at the beginning of the game. In addition, the common dice are laid out ready (1 large die and 2 small dice per player), along with a set of habitat cards that determine goals and bonuses.

In each round, the common dice are rolled, and each player rolls their own personal dice. After this, players choose a combination of animals and fill them in on their score sheet. When you have collected the correct combinations you can claim a card for points and bonuses, by clever placement players can collect additional actions and/or points. After 20 rounds, points are tallied based on habitats completed, animals collected and any bonuses. The player with the highest score wins.

Rolling Hills and Rolling Rivers can be played separately, or combined for a more comprehensive experience. If you are a fan of solo play, a variant is also available for that. In this, players try to improve their own top score. In addition, there are a total of 4 different scenarios (4 different types of score sheets) with varying objectives per game, increasing replayability.

We already loved Cascadia, but this roll & flip-and-write version has quickly become one of our favorites. You can combine both versions, but they also work perfectly as standalone games. That said, to be honest, you probably only need one of them in your collection—unless you plan to play with a larger group.

The game offers four different difficulty levels. Our favorite is the family variant, but all of them provide plenty of challenge. The game is simple to learn but still offers a lot of depth, and no two games feel the same. If you’re looking for even more challenge, you can try one of the other included variants.

While this version plays differently from the original Cascadia, it still captures the essence of the game. The high re-playability comes from the variety of cards and sheets, ensuring a fresh experience every time. Is it needed to have both versions of Cascadia Rolling? No, just 1 is definitely enough only if you play with more then 4 people you can get the both of them.

We want to thank AEG Games for this review copy and the opportunity to write about this game.