Wilmot's Warehouse

The team leader draws product tiles from the stack one by one; the team looks at each tile, names what's on it, and invents a story or mnemonic to remember its location. The tile is placed face down on the board, with adjacent tiles branching off the storyline. Some rounds include imposed idea cards with extra rules, such as only half the players being allowed to see a tile. Once all 35 tiles are laid, the team has five minutes to place customer cards - images of each product - on the correct face-down tile. Incorrect or missed tiles result in penalty points, and at the end, a performance review determines how well the team has done.

Wilmot's Warehouse is one of CMYK's most surprising releases of 2024, proving once again that this label is a master at distilling great experiences from minimal rules. While memory games are traditionally individualistic and frustrating, the cooperative setup makes memorization collective and enjoyable: no one has to remember everything; the shared story does the work. Reviewers are unanimously enthusiastic about the absurd sentences the game elicits and the unique atmosphere that varies per group. For the right group—diverse, creative, and willing to engage in collective nonsense—this is one of the most original and joyful cooperative experiences of recent years.