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Wilmot's Warehouse

#1933BGG ↗

2024 · 2-6 players · 30min · weight 1.19 · 1,488 ratings

port: no portdifficulty: Easy
BGGv4 widev4v4 deep5Sources2Rules cardCandidate0.712Deep dive
Bayes
6.28
Users rated
1,488
Owned
2,830
Wishing
1,230

At a glance — v4 wide

Controlled-vocabulary primitives + 8-axis MDA aesthetic vector. Vocab v2.

Core loop (micro)

Place product tiles face-down while making up mnemonic stories; in a timed 5-minute rush match all 35 hidden tiles to customer cards by memory.

MDA aesthetic vector (0–3)
Sensation
0
Fantasy
0
Narrative
2
Challenge
1
Fellowship
3
Discovery
0
Expression
2
Submission
2
Mechanic-interaction primitives (4)
  • [3]spatial_memory— “place product tiles face-down; team has to remember where you've placed previous tiles; cooperative spatial memory
  • [3]time_pressure_realtime— “in a five-minute rush, your team has to match all 35 face-down tiles with customer cards
  • [3]forced_table_talk— “discuss what they look like and place them somewhere you'll remember — narrative anchor encoding mnemonic
  • [1]communication_constraint— “after you place each tile, you flip it over and can't look at it again — limited information during recall phase

Archetype fits — v4 deep

How well this game shape maps to mobile archetype templates. Composite is a weighted sum of the 10 fit dimensions.

ArchetypeCompositeLTFSessionComboArcShare5inOnboard
Coop
Coop archetype's strongest fit in the batch — group_storytelling_mnemonic creates inter-player combo stacking (your story-anchor only works if I remember it), and timed_recall_phase is a Pandemic-style climax. Cooperative_spatial_memory is genuinely info-asymmetric: each player encodes a tile differently and must coordinate. Visual_legibility weak: 35 face-down tiles + customer cards on a 5-inch screen is dense.
6.508.0958557
Wordle
Daily-tile-set seed maps cleanly to Wordle's procgen content engine, and 'X/35 retrieved' is a perfect emoji-grid scorecard — high share_emoji_output. But the 30-min total session overshoots the 60-90s Wordle target by 20×; only a heavy-compression daily mode would qualify.
5.708.0328777
Balatro
Strong arc_tightness via setup → 5-minute climax recall phase, mirroring Balatro's ante-climb shape, and high loss_tolerance because 'how many did you remember?' is a learnable score. But no engine-growth or combo_chaining — memory accumulates linearly, not multiplicatively.
5.407.0627567
Cozy
Loss-tolerance Coop-or-Solo tier (BGG Cooperative Game) — no cap, scoring against tone. Storytelling + organizing-for-pleasure is direct cozy DNA (the source video game won IGF Excellence in Design for exactly this). Time-pressure recall phase is the only anti-cozy primitive.
5.408.0726567
Snap
Cooperative memory loop has no PvP factional shape — Snap's hidden-card-reveal and lane-stake economy are absent. 30-min coop session vs Snap's 3-min PvP target is fundamentally different loop architecture.
4.506.0426455

Translation candidate

Composite fit_score = bayes×0.30 + wish×0.18 + compress×0.17 + difficulty×0.20 + headroom×0.15.

bayes_norm×0.300.067
wish_norm×0.180.956
compress_norm×0.171.000
diff_norm×0.201.000
port_headroom×0.151.000
fit_score (total)0.712= 0.712
Difficulty reasoning

Memory + collaborative storytelling is native to mobile party games; the fixed 5-minute timer maps cleanly to a phone session.

Closest loop translation
none yet

Rules card

Synthesized from sources below. Readiness: needs-source. Confidence: 0.36.

Readiness

needs-source (confidence=0.36, rules=0.10, fun=0.85). BGG rank: 1933; year: 2024; weight: 1.19; playtime: 30 min

SourceQualityRoleNote
bgg_comments0.75player voicepositive/player-voice sample
llm_memory0.10draft synthesissonnet-self-rated-4-unknown

Core Loop

In Wilmot's Warehouse, your team will work co-operatively to organize the warehouse, using memory, imagination, and silly stories you make up.

Draw product tiles from the stack, discuss what they look like, and place them somewhere you'll remember. After you place each tile, you flip it over and can't look at it again until the end of the game, so your team has to remember where you've placed previous tiles as you decide where to place new ones.

At the end of the game, in a five-minute rush, your team has to match all 35 face-down tiles with customer cards. Consult your performance review to see how well you did!

—description from the publisher

Turn Structure and State

  • No manual/BGA/transcript source is present; card relies on memory plus BGG context.
  • BGG description anchor: In Wilmot's Warehouse, your team will work co-operatively to organize the warehouse, using memory, imagination, and silly stories you make up. Draw product tiles from the stack, discuss what they look like, and place them somewhere you'll remember. After you place each tile, you flip it over and can't look at it again until the end of the game, so your team has to remember where you've placed previous tiles as [...]

Win Condition and Arc

Win/scoring arc needs verification from a rules authority.

Decision Primitives

BGG mechanisms: Cooperative Game, Memory, Real-Time, Storytelling

v4 controlled primitives: memory_load, forced_table_talk, time_pressure_realtime, communication_constraint, _other:narrative_memory_encoding

Top iOS archetype fits: coop 6.5, wordle 5.7, balatro 5.4.

Why It Is Fun

Fun read needs player-voice synthesis.

Player-voice evidence:

  • A very unique, silly game that makes memory as a mechanic actually fun. Really brings out creativity in people.
  • Had a lot of fun playing this every time. Even if people don't like memory games, this is just a lot of silly fun.
  • The mileage may vary depending on who you play with, but I really enjoy coming up with the silly stories to memorize the board.
  • A surprising and funny lesson in how memory works. Great Partygame.
  • "Cooperative memory game" seems like a hard sell, but everyone I know who has played this game has absolutely enjoyed it. It's all about coming up with a creative (and usually raunchy) story to tie together all sorts of abstract images....

Friction and Failure Modes

  • Treat Sonnet-memory edge rules as draft until confirmed by manual, BGA, or transcript.
  • Needs at least one stronger rules authority before final extraction use.

Translation and Design Hooks

  • Use this card to ask: which primitive carries the fun if theme/licensing is removed?
  • For iOS, look for short-session compression, clear state visualization, and a digital-only twist.
  • For new tabletop design, look for the tension source and decide whether to preserve or invert it.

Edge Rules and Gotchas

No verified edge-rule section yet.

Sources Used

[
  {
    "kind": "bgg_comments",
    "path": "data/bgg_comments/424975.txt",
    "quality": 0.75,
    "note": "positive/player-voice sample"
  },
  {
    "kind": "llm_memory",
    "path": "data/llm_memory_sonnet/424975.md",
    "quality": 0.1,
    "note": "sonnet-self-rated-4-unknown"
  }
]

Sources (2)

Inputs to rules-card synthesis. Click any pill with ↗ to open the original source.

BGG comments0.75LLM memory0.10

BGG tags

Categories (2)
MemoryVideo Game Theme