Cascadia is about to get a third dimension. Flatout Games and AEG have confirmed that Cascadia: Alpine Lakes, a standalone follow-up to one of the most-loved family games of recent years, lands in UK shops this October at around £33. If you have spent the past few years arranging foxes and salmon into tidy little ecosystems, this is the news your group has been waiting for.
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Start organising for freeFor anyone who has not played it, Cascadia is a relaxed tile-laying and token-drafting puzzle for 1 to 4 players. You build a slice of the Pacific Northwest, slotting together habitats and placing wildlife to score in clever, interlocking ways. It won the Spiel des Jahres in 2022, the closest thing the hobby has to a Game of the Year Oscar, and it has been a dependable gateway game and game-night staple ever since.
Alpine Lakes is fully standalone, so you do not need the original to play. The big change is height. Habitat tiles are now double-hexagons that you can stack on top of one another, turning Cascadia's flat spatial puzzle into a layered, three-dimensional one. You still draft a habitat-and-wildlife pairing each turn, but now you weigh up elevation, lake placement and how five alpine species sit across three habitats.
Got a regular group? Create a private community, poll for the best date, vote on games, and let your friends RSVP in one place.
Set up your group for freeIt plays in 30 to 45 minutes, ages 10 and up, and UK retailers including Thirsty Meeples already have it up for pre-order.
If Cascadia is your group's reliable opener, Alpine Lakes is an easy sell for a relaxed evening. It is also a natural fit for a learn-to-play night: gentle rules, quick turns and no player elimination make it friendly to newcomers. Fancy running one? Set up a game night near you and bring a few new faces into the hobby.
Sources: Flatout Games | Thirsty Meeples | GamesRadar
