As the year winds down, it’s the season when the Meeple Guild starts assembling our individual top-five lists. Some of us had those lists written early.
And then we met on a Sunday afternoon in early December, cracked the cellophane on Tolleno, and within minutes it was clear—at least for this writer—that an edit would be required.
Tolleno, designed by Gilles Turbide, with art by Anthony Moulins and Paolo Puggioni, and published by Sit Down!, is a game that’s a bit tricky to categorize. At its core, it’s a tile-laying game layered with elements that feel like worker placement, which together create a strong area-control presence. All of this culminates in a “point salad” finale, with scoring coming from multiple sources.
Each player begins with their own set of building pieces, a boat, and a small number of starting victory points determined by turn order. On a turn, players can take a variety of actions. As the publisher describes it, you can expand the city by placing new tiles, construct buildings by stacking pieces on valid spaces, or enhance your strategy by placing market tiles that grant immediate points. Once unlocked, your boat can move around the board to reposition building pieces or block opponents from expanding into key areas.
At first blush, the rules read like a bit of a mishmash, and it’s true—there’s a lot going on and plenty of decisions to make. That said, once a few turns are under your belt, the core systems fall into place quickly.
That doesn’t mean the “best” move is ever obvious. In fact, Tolleno very much feels like a game that rewards repeated plays, with strategies revealing themselves over time—a big plus for replayability.
Adding to the depth is a deck of contracts, used in games with two to four players. Each contract features its own scoring icon, and with so many variations, you’ll be reaching for the rulebook to check exactly how each one scores. It’s a lot of options—perhaps too many for player aids—but it does mean no two games feel the same.
Endgame scoring, true to its point-salad nature, takes a bit of time. Victory points are collected as tokens, which leads to plenty of exchanging five 1s for a 5, and 5s for 10s. It does make one wonder whether a score sheet might have been smoother, but that’s a minor quibble in the context of how much we enjoyed the game overall.
Everything comes together nicely in Tolleno—even the box art is excellent. The result is one of the easiest recommendations of 2025 and a very smart choice for any gamer looking to spend holiday cash wisely.
In Canada, Tolleno is available through Ilo307.com.
About Author
Calvin Daniels is a Saskatchewan-born, self-taught journalist. He is currently Editor of Yorkton This Week, with 35-years in the newspaper business.
Easily a Top-Five Game of 2025
And then we met on a Sunday afternoon in early December, cracked the cellophane on Tolleno, and within minutes it was clear—at least for this writer—that an edit would be required.
Tolleno, designed by Gilles Turbide, with art by Anthony Moulins and Paolo Puggioni, and published by Sit Down!, is a game that’s a bit tricky to categorize. At its core, it’s a tile-laying game layered with elements that feel like worker placement, which together create a strong area-control presence. All of this culminates in a “point salad” finale, with scoring coming from multiple sources.
Each player begins with their own set of building pieces, a boat, and a small number of starting victory points determined by turn order. On a turn, players can take a variety of actions. As the publisher describes it, you can expand the city by placing new tiles, construct buildings by stacking pieces on valid spaces, or enhance your strategy by placing market tiles that grant immediate points. Once unlocked, your boat can move around the board to reposition building pieces or block opponents from expanding into key areas.
At first blush, the rules read like a bit of a mishmash, and it’s true—there’s a lot going on and plenty of decisions to make. That said, once a few turns are under your belt, the core systems fall into place quickly.
That doesn’t mean the “best” move is ever obvious. In fact, Tolleno very much feels like a game that rewards repeated plays, with strategies revealing themselves over time—a big plus for replayability.
Adding to the depth is a deck of contracts, used in games with two to four players. Each contract features its own scoring icon, and with so many variations, you’ll be reaching for the rulebook to check exactly how each one scores. It’s a lot of options—perhaps too many for player aids—but it does mean no two games feel the same.
Endgame scoring, true to its point-salad nature, takes a bit of time. Victory points are collected as tokens, which leads to plenty of exchanging five 1s for a 5, and 5s for 10s. It does make one wonder whether a score sheet might have been smoother, but that’s a minor quibble in the context of how much we enjoyed the game overall.
Everything comes together nicely in Tolleno—even the box art is excellent. The result is one of the easiest recommendations of 2025 and a very smart choice for any gamer looking to spend holiday cash wisely.
In Canada, Tolleno is available through Ilo307.com.
About Author
Calvin Daniels
Calvin Daniels is a Saskatchewan-born, self-taught journalist. He is currently Editor of Yorkton This Week, with 35-years in the newspaper business.
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