Lizard's Lair
Being a lizard sounded easy.
Slither around, nap on warm rocks, feast on an egg or two.
Then I found myself in a twisting lair, where paths altered in every move, snakes lurked around corners, and one wrong turn could trap me for good.
Can I score some eggs and somehow make it out in one piece?!
First Impressions
Lizard’s Lair is a solo tile-laying puzzle game designed by Katie Andrews. When I went through the game files of Lizard’s Lair for the very first time, my mind immediately jumped to two games: Orchard and Ambagibus. And I love those games, so that’s a good start!
While you’re harvesting fruits in Orchard by laying cards to overlap trees, and trying to create mazes in Ambagibus by connecting paths, Lizard Lair takes a slippery route.
You play as a lizard moving through a shifting underground lair, trying to collect eggs while avoiding deadly snakes. Each turn brings a new puzzle as you lay down lair tiles, roll for movement, and decide your path.
Each round pushes you towards decisions that build up to a do-or-die moment. Or so I perceived, after going through the rulebook and tutorial video.
Questions that lingered in my slithering mind before playing Lizard’s Lair:
+ How replayable is the game?
+ How much will the game stand out from the tile-laying games I’ve played before?
+ Will I sneak through like a pro or get stuck like a clueless hatchling?!
What you need
To print
You need to print the 18 Lair cards, 1 Lizard card, 7 Predator cards, and 7 Prey cards. That’s 8 pages to print. You can take the easy route and sleeve them out once printed, or take the road less traveled, like I did, and glue the two sides of the cards together.
I enjoy building games, and more than that, the laser prints get way too glossy when sleeved/laminated.
Find the game files, for FREE, at Board Game Geek!
To assemble
Once the cards are ready, grab a D6 die and 17 tracker cubes:
1 being you, the slippery lizard
3 to track the health you’re bound to lose. Or gain.
1 tracking the number of precious eggs you have, and
12 boulder cubes that will come crashing down every time you fetch an egg.
I had 3D printed tokens at my disposal that I tried to make the most out of, and a playing pawn as a lizard. Feel free to get creative with the gaming pieces, as long as you’re not using an actual lizard.
For non-crafters and collectors alike!
If building games is not your jam, then brace yourself for the mint tin version of the game launching soon at The Game Crafter. It’s super compact, you could carry it anywhere!
My findings
Writing this part after two weeks of playing Lizard’s Lair. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve played it. Which is a good thing, right? Let’s see.
Tight, tense, and fair
I’ve been designing games for 7 years, and I know how tricky it is to strike that balance; to tweak mechanics and make players feel both hope and despair at the same time! And Katie has absolutely nailed it.
Lizard’s Lair didn’t overheat my system. It’s compact. It has a specific number of elements I needed to strategize (eggs, snakes, king snakes, boulders, and crickets), the exact amount of maximum health that always kept me alert, and a push-your-luck mechanism (predator and prey decks) that kept an essence of uncertainty at play.
The game made me feel like I could lose in the very next round, while still keeping me hopeful about making a comeback. And such a feat is difficult to achieve, so kudos to Katie for being able to pull it off!
One lizard, many paths
The reason I lost count of the number of times I played Lizard’s Lair is that:
+ You don’t use the full Lair deck to play the game; you roughly use half of it. So there’s variety in every session.
+ There are 7 cards on the Predator and Prey decks, and they vary quite a bit from each other. On average, I encountered max 3 out of these 14 cards in a session, so that opens up more floor for variations.
+ There are tons of ways to overlap cards, and the possibilities only increase the deeper the game goes.
+ The game lasts for 8 rounds (unless you gain Lair cards from the Prey deck), so even if you take a minute for each round and add 2 minutes to set up, you’re looking at a 10-minute game.
All these factors make Lizard’s Lair highly replayable.
A word of caution!
Coming from someone who loves tile-laying games. It’s dedicated to those who’ll try the PnP version.
I may have a bias against card sleeves for being too glossy and not complementing the artwork of games. Even if I can look past it, I wouldn’t recommend them for tile-laying games like Lizard’s Lair.
Card sleeves make the Lair cards too slippery, and you’ll have a hard time keeping them in place. I’m yet to try matte sleeves, so I’m specifically talking about glossy sleeves. They are a big red flag for tile-laying games and can ruin your playing experience. You have been warned!
From a noob reptile to a semi-pro!
When I started playing the game, I was too scared to encounter the king snakes, so I did everything I could to avoid them. I was also hell-bent on scoring the x2 eggs, so I wasted many rounds trying to create a path that would take me to them. The outcome? Barely managed to bag 4 to 5 eggs. Let’s call them practice rounds.
But after multiple plays, I started taking calculated risks, made bigger lairs, and managed to score 12 eggs. As per the game, I’m an adult lizard now. I’m considering that as semi-pro for now!
PS: Making a bigger, spread-out lair instead of a compact one worked wonders for me. Let me know if it works for you too. DM me your highest score at my IG (@pnptimeglobal) alongside an image, and I’ll share your score it the community!
Where to find it?
The PnP version of Lizard’s Lair is available for free at Board Game Geek. So, you know what to do this weekend!
And if you want the mint tin version, join the queue! It’s launching soon.
Game Overview
Publisher: Next Two You Games
Designer: Katie Andrews
Artist: Katie Andrews
Number of players: 1
Difficulty level: Easy to Medium
Rounds of gameplay needed to learn: 1 to 2 rounds
Game duration: 10-15 minutes
Available on: Board Game Geek | The Game Crafter
Theme: Tile-laying puzzle game | Collecting eggs in a LairÂ
Number of pages and color: 8 (color print)
Assembling difficulty level: Moderately easy. Cut and assemble 33 cards.
Lamination: Not recommended
Additional elements required: 1 D6 Dice, 17 cubes/small tokens
Time to learn: Within 15 minutes
Travel-friendly: 9/10
Shelving friendly: 10/10
Rating from PnP Time: 8.5/10
Tasliman is a board game developer based in Bangladesh, with the dream of exploring the world of games and introducing it to anyone new to it. He is the founder of Kraftz, a brand that develops board games commercially, as well as with reputed entities like BRAC and The Gates Foundation.
