Tolleno: lovely canals, a mechanism that takes on water

I came back from Essen with Tolleno under my arm and real curiosity. The Sit Down! booth had caught my eye, the theme of a Latin city built on the water appealed to me, and once opened, the box delivers on the components: thick, nicely laminated tiles, notched player boards, pretty wooden pieces, a little boat to sail down the canals. Let me be clear from the start so there is no misunderstanding: it is not the object I hold against this game. It is what it asks you to do with it. After my plays, my verdict is firm and I stand by it, against the grain of a press that welcomed it warmly: I did not like Tolleno. Not at all.

Publisher: Sit Down! (FR distribution Geronimo) · Designer: Gilles Turbide · Art: Anthony Moulins & Paolo Puggioni · Year: 2025 · Players: 2 to 4 · Duration: 30 to 50 min · Age: 8+ (family version) or 10+ (classic version)

A city of canals that makes you want in

On paper, the idea is lovely. Together you build a lakeside city, something that leans hard toward Venice, with its canals, its quays and its fountains. The art direction is coherent, the pastel tones of the cover carry over onto the components, and as the city spreads across the table, the final picture has real charm. There are even two versions in the box, a family one from age 8 that sets the objectives aside, and a classic one from age 10 with the contracts. On that front, nothing to say: Sit Down! knows how to make handsome games, storage inserts included.

My problem is not there. It is that all this pretty world rests on a mechanism I found as dry as it is joyless, and above all largely disconnected from the theme it claims to serve.

How you play

On your turn, you place a City tile to expand the city. Opening constraint: the tile must extend at least one canal, without ever creating a dead end. You then place a Floor token on a quay of the canal you just extended, then you take a third action, either a second Floor token or a Contract tile, but on a canal perpendicular to the one you just built. Contracts score you points depending on the tile you place them on and its surroundings. From your sixth floor onward, a boat enters play and moves in a straight line along the canals, blocking the spaces where it stops to get in your opponents' way. The game ends when someone places their last Floor token.

So much for the theory. It reads quickly, it plays cleanly, and that is exactly where the trap snaps shut.

Where it falls apart

The heart of the trouble is that perpendicular-canal business. Every turn, you have to reason about the axis you just created to work out where you are allowed to place your second action. On paper it is clever, at the table it is a constant headache, a spatial gymnastics that pulls you out of the fun instead of drawing you in. To me, it is the opposite of playful: I spend my turn calculating a constraint rather than savouring a choice.

Here is a concrete example from my first few games. We spent more time arguing about the zone actually available for that third action than actually playing. "Does this quay count?", "hang on, perpendicular to which one, that one?". We ended up muttering "I don't know, go ahead, whatever", so worn out from racking our brains over "are we even following the rule right" that we had almost stopped wanting to follow it. When a constraint pushes players to give up on playing correctly just to keep the game moving, it is no longer a rule that stimulates, it is a toll you pay grudgingly.

And the real issue is that after all that calculation, nothing happens. There is no tension. You get lost in the optimisation, but never with that little thrill of the move that tips the game. The game means to build up, your player board frees up as you place tokens and opens up victory points and scoring bonuses, except that in my plays everyone strings together roughly the same actions and reaches roughly the same result. That promised ramp-up, I never felt it. There is not even a real dilemma between freeing a slot on your board and validating a contract, when that is supposed to be the salt of the game. You pile up turns without much interest.

Let me add a more down-to-earth complaint, and on this one I am not alone: the contract iconography is murky. Mid-game, you do not know what your tile scores, and off you go back into the booklet to check a pictogram. Nothing kills the pace more. I played at two, the setup where this kind of game is supposed to be at its smoothest and tensest, and even there it was heavy and not thrilling in the slightest.

What the press says, and why I do not join them

n fairness, I will say it plainly: I am rowing against the current. Both Undécent and Les Meeples enjoyed the game, praising a pleasant "dilemma of choice", quality components and tidy storage. I happily grant the last two points, and I understand that a player who loves abstract, opportunistic tile-laying could find their fix here. It is just that this famous dilemma, I never felt it as one. Where those reviews see constant adaptation, I mostly saw constraint without reward. And I note in passing that even among the enthusiasts, two reservations come back: the iconography that forces you to reopen the rules, and limited replayability, with games resembling one another. Those are exactly my complaints, only more politely put.

Verdict

Tolleno is a handsome object sitting on a mechanism that, to my eyes, takes on water. The components are a success, the theme makes you want in, but the gameplay left me cold: dry optimisation, no tension, a tiresome placement constraint and iconography that breaks the rhythm. I do not recommend it. If you are a die-hard fan of cold-blooded tile-laying, try a game before you buy, you might see in it what the press saw. For my part, it was a big letdown, and one of the few boxes from my Essen that I will not be bringing back to the table.