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Dragon Castle

#232219BGG ↗

2017 · 1-4 players · 45min · weight 1.99 · 8,330 ratings

v2 v3

BGG raw

ID
232219
Name
Dragon Castle
Year
2017
Rank
576
Min players
1
Max players
4
Playing time
45
Min playtime
30
Max playtime
45
Avg weight
1.9874
Num weights
159
Bayes avg
6.71462
Average
7.09742
Users rated
8330
Num owned
12156
Wanting
247
Wishing
2067
Num comments
1375
Fetched at
Sat Apr 25 2026 16:16:04 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Mechanisms (8)
End Game BonusesLayeringOpen DraftingPattern BuildingPattern RecognitionTile PlacementVariable Player PowersVariable Set-up
Categories (1)
Abstract Strategy
Description (1072 chars)

Dragon Castle is a game freely inspired by Mahjong Solitaire. During your turn, you take a pair of identical tiles from the central "castle" (known as the Dragon Castle) and place them on your own realm board to build your own castle. From time to time, you may sacrifice these tiles to acquire shrines in their place. Every time you create a set of tiles of the same kind, you "consolidate" them, i.e. flip them face down to score points. When you consolidate a set, you may also build shrines on top of the consolidated tiles: Shrines allow you to score more points, but they also limit your building options. You may also take advantage of the available spirit card and its game-changing powers...but this will come at a cost! Finally, don't forget to check the dragon card in play, and to follow the building requirements to score bonus points. When the Dragon Castle has been reduced to only one floor, the end of the game is triggered. After one final round, the player with the most points is the lord of the new Dragon Castle…and the winner of the game!

LLM v2 (wide)

Core verb
pair tiles, build pagoda
Decision shape
spatial
Reward schedule
mixed:immediate+delayed
Aesthetics
["Challenge", "Expression", "Discovery"]
Core loop pitch
Take pairs of matching tiles from a Mahjong-style stack, build them into your own pagoda for set scoring.
Translation difficulty
Easy
Difficulty reason
Mahjong-solitaire-inspired loop ports beautifully; Horrible Guild shipped an official Steam/iOS/Android version with online play.
Direct digital port
Dragon Castle: The Board Game (Steam/iOS/Android, Horrible Guild)
Port kind
first_party
Closest loop translation
none yet
Primitive tags
["mahjong_pair_take", "stack_decay_endgame_trigger", "shrine_stack_multiplier", "spirit_card_special_power", "personal_pagoda_grid"]
Confidence
0.8
Extracted at
Mon Apr 27 2026 11:40:03 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Raw v2 JSON (967 chars)
{
  "game_id": 232219,
  "name": "Dragon Castle",
  "core_verb": "pair tiles, build pagoda",
  "decision_shape": "spatial",
  "reward_schedule": "mixed:immediate+delayed",
  "aesthetics": [
    "Challenge",
    "Expression",
    "Discovery"
  ],
  "core_loop_pitch": "Take pairs of matching tiles from a Mahjong-style stack, build them into your own pagoda for set scoring.",
  "mobile_translation_difficulty": "Easy",
  "translation_difficulty_reason": "Mahjong-solitaire-inspired loop ports beautifully; Horrible Guild shipped an official Steam/iOS/Android version with online play.",
  "direct_digital_port": "Dragon Castle: The Board Game (Steam/iOS/Android, Horrible Guild)",
  "direct_digital_port_kind": "first_party",
  "closest_loop_translation": "none yet",
  "primitive_tags": [
    "mahjong_pair_take",
    "stack_decay_endgame_trigger",
    "shrine_stack_multiplier",
    "spirit_card_special_power",
    "personal_pagoda_grid"
  ],
  "confidence": 0.8
}

LLM v3 (deep)

Not yet enriched at v3 (deep pass).