High Tide

High Tide Deep Dive

What the Community Thinks About High Tide

High Tide is a small two-player abstract stacking game from designer Marceline Lyman that started life at the Indie Games Night Market at PAX Unplugged. Good Time Society recalls the buzz around that first handmade run, noting that the designer had only around 50 copies and that they sold out in roughly seven minutes. Underdog Games, the publisher of the Trekking series, then signed it for a wider release. Reviewers who have played it are warm about it. Board Game Animal calls it a surprise hit of 2025, and Where There's A Wilz, There's a Play covered it three times: a playthrough, a ranking of their Underdog Games collection, and a list of two-player games they love. That channel received High Tide as a review copy from Underdog Games, which it states on camera. The shared view is that the game looks simple but plays with real tactical depth, while its hosts are candid that it rewards the player who reads the board better.

Core Mechanics That Define High Tide

Tile Stacking

Each player owns a color, pink or blue, and yellow tiles are neutral pieces that either player may move. In the Where There's A Wilz playthrough, the setup places a yellow tile in the center, surrounds it with a ring of six tiles, and then lays the rest around them to form a hexagon three tiles to a side. On a turn, a player picks up one of their own tiles or a yellow tile and moves it onto an adjacent stack, and the moved tile must finish higher than where it started. The hosts admit they first played it wrong: they thought a tile could only climb one level, but the rule is simply that it has to end up higher. A tile needs at least two open sides to move, and no move may leave part of the board stranded on its own.

Round-Based Area Control

The stacking feeds a simple scoring question: whose color shows most on top? As soon as the player whose turn it is cannot make a legal move, the round ends. Whoever has more tiles of their color showing wins the round and takes a stone, and in the playthrough a tie goes to the player who controls the highest stack. The first player to three stones wins. Because a player must move if any move is possible, nobody can simply stall. The hosts liked that the round ends the moment one player is stuck, which stops the other player from running up extra moves.

The High Tide Experience

Deceptively Thinky

The word reviewers keep returning to is thinky. In the two-player list episode, the Where There's A Wilz hosts describe how every lift makes a player ask what it will open up for the opponent. In the ranking video they call it partly a game of chance, because of how the tiles come out, but with plenty of planning, since a player tries to manipulate the opponent into moves that set up a block. The playthrough shows how quickly strategy shifts: rounds that started around the edges closed off the middle and ended fast, and the hosts concluded that players need to work toward the center early. Across four rounds they noted four completely different strategies.

Quick, Light and Portable

High Tide is a short game. During the playthrough, the first round took about five minutes including setup, and the hosts describe it as a nice little filler for two players who otherwise play heavier games. Everything, including the scoring stones, goes into the cloth bag it ships with, and they describe it as a great travel game with a really quick setup, something they would pull out at night when there is not much time.

What Makes High Tide Stand Out

A Handmade Origin Story

Part of the appeal is the story behind the box. Good Time Society describes a designer diary in which the game came together in a short burst from components lying around, and jokes that the design put together quickly is the one people fell for. In a Beyond Solitaire podcast conversation, Marceline Lyman explains that the indie pieces were stamped by hand, and argues that small imperfections breathe life into a handmade product, pointing to how people reacted to High Tide as proof. Board Game Animal adds that High Tide is one of the Night Market games picked up by another publisher for a wider release.

A Clean Two-Player Abstract

For the Where There's A Wilz hosts, being two-player only is a bonus rather than a limit. They play mostly as a pair and like games that do not leave pieces sitting unused in the box, which is why High Tide made their list of two-player games they love. Board Game Animal is even more direct, praising it as an awesome little abstract and later saying that another Night Market game, Rowan, is the same kind of small abstract they wish everyone owned. Board Game Animal also highlights an optional playmat released for the game, calling it incredibly functional and saying it genuinely improves the play experience.

Potential Drawbacks

The Better Board Reader Usually Wins

As a pure abstract with no hidden information, High Tide can be one-sided when one player sees further ahead. Stacy of Where There's A Wilz ranked it fifth in their Underdog Games collection for exactly that reason: she says she loves the game but is bad at it, and that Ian can still outwit her and draw her into his plays. In both of those episodes, a host jokes about not being sure of ever winning a game of it. Couples or friends with a wide skill gap may find some rounds decided early.

Setup Can Shape the Round

The random setup makes each round look different, but reviewers note its limits. In the ranking video, Ian points out that the starting tiles can only come out a certain number of ways, so over time the openings start to feel familiar, and he ranks it below bigger games when there is time for them. The playthrough also shows that some layouts favor one player: one round was settled in just a few moves, and Ian admits the tiles had been set up nicely for him.

If You Enjoy High Tide

Good Time Society describes High Tide as a tile game somewhat like Hive, calling it Hive in 3D, and adds that it has a little of Santorini in the way players build upward and try to get their pieces as high as possible. Players who enjoy those head-to-head abstracts should find the same sort of tension here. Board Game Animal connects High Tide to Rowan, a two-player abstract dice game from the same Night Market scene, describing it as the same kind of quick little abstract with plenty of tactical decisions.