Wilmot's Warehouse

The Shift Supervisor draws product tiles one by one from the deck; the team looks at each tile, names its image, and creates a story or mnemonic to remember its location. The tile is placed face down on the board, with adjacent tiles further branching out the storyline. Some rounds include Mandatory Idea cards that impose additional rules, such as only half of the players being allowed to look at a tile. After all 35 tiles are in place, players have five minutes to place customer cards—images of each product—on the correct face-down tile. Incorrect or missed tiles result in penalty points; at the end, a performance review assesses the team's performance.

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.