Tower Up Board Game Review

Tower Up was not a game I had a lot of interest in, but after a few games over the holidays with my family, I’m singing a much different tune. The simplicity of Tower Up might not be for everyone, but I think if you are looking for a filler game that feels pretty meaty, then this could be the perfect game for you!

When I think about filler games I tend to look to small box games, generally card games, that can be played in 30 minutes or less. Tower Up is basically that game – with players who don’t take too long on their turns, Tower Up with 4 players can easily be completed in 30 minutes or less, and each and every minute of the game feels incredibly satisfying.

In Tower Up, you will be constructing towers on the central board using building pieces from the supply, along with your own coloured roof pieces. On their turn, a player can either select a marketplace card and collect the corresponding pieces and perhaps some movement on their player board tracks. The other type of action is a build action.

During their build action, players can begin construction on a new building on the board. That building cannot be the same colour as an adjacent building, and to build a building, you need to be able to pay the cost. The cost is adding a layer to all the adjacent buildings in the correct colour. Then, players top one of the buildings – either their new construction, or an adjacent building they added to – with one of their roof tiles.

Depending on the colour of the building capped with a roof, players will move little coloured trucks on their player boards a number of spaces equal to the number of building floors. When all four coloured vehicles pass a star icon on a players board, that player instantly takes another turn, which is a really neat mechanic that requires you to keep an eye on other players.

There are also objectives you will try to complete throughout the game to earn additional points. Ultimately, however, your goal is to move your trucks as far as possible on your player board, while also having as many exposed roof tiles as possible across the board at the end of the game. Having your roofs on top will score you more points. And yes, other players can cap your roofs with building pieces, so there is a fair amount of strategy on where you place buildings, and when.

Tower Up can be taught and played in less than 45 minutes for brand new players, and when playing with folks who understand the game well, it can easily be finished in 30 minutes or less. Yet the simplicity of the game masks a deeper, more strategic game experience. I could easily teach my 10 year old how to play this game, but I wonder how strategic he would be with his building placements. While accessible, veteran board game players will almost always do better than newer players as they quickly think through various strategies and decide what will work best.

If you are looking for an easy to teach game that still requires a good amount of thought and strategy, than I think Tower Up is the perfect game for you. The production is fantastic – be sure to check out our impressions of that – and makes getting this game tabled incredibly easy. I can see Tower Up being our go-to filler game in 2025 simply because of the ease of play. It’s one of the games greatest features!