We weren’t ready for its even moderate complexity the first time. After laboring through that first play, the game sat on our shelf for quite some time while we tried to develop a mental category for what we had experienced.Ĭompounded is a game, however, that keeps finding its way back to our table.

I specifically remember wondering what I had gotten us into as I stickered the wooden discs and punched the tiny little diamond-shaped chits. My wife is a biochemist and we’ve always sought out games with a scientific setting, but I would hardly label this little box a gateway game. Certainly before Everdell carried me through the tabletop floodgates, there was this little chemistry engine that could. Before Ticket to Ride: Europe or New York 1901-even before Catan (obviously I’m a supremely late bloomer). I would need a Wayback to verify, but I believe Compounded was the first modern era board game to enter my collection.