Understandably, the board game community is pumped for Brass: Pittsburgh. The successor to a line of ultra-successful strategy titles, Pittsburgh will innovate on what's widely considered the most acclaimed board game of all time. We won't see a wink of it until 2026, though. If you're looking to fill a Brass-shaped hole in your life until then, I'd seriously recommend Skyrise.
Brass: Pittsburgh (and Brass: Birmingham before it) is the brainchild of two designers of the best board games around. One of those is Gavan Brown, who also happens to be behind Skyrise, a strategy board game released in 2024. This relatively new board game shares precious few features with Brass: Birmingham, but it nevertheless gives insight into one of the minds that'll shape Pittsburgh.
In Skyrise, you'll play as one of up to four architects. Your dreams for your local metropolis are sky-high, and the mayor has hired you and your rivals to help construct the greatest city imaginable.
Play begins with an empty board separated into five quadrants. Every player has a unique selection of buildings placed next to their player board. These display unique numbers on the bottom, and they're used to bid on spaces in the city that you'd like to purchase for construction.
A round of bidding goes as follows. The starting player places a building of their choice in the city's central quadrant or adjacent to an existing construction. Their neighboring player then decides whether to pass their turn or place a building with a higher value adjacent to the one that was just placed. This continues until all players have passed or no one can outbid the last building played.
If you win a bid, congratulations! You can construct the building you bid with, permanently placing it in the metropolis. You can no longer bid with that building, but you do pick up any token that happened to be on your construction space.
Tokens offer additional ways to score points. Many of these, once collected, slot into your personal player board, and they increase the value of a district color for end-game scoring. Beware greed, however, as collecting too many of these tokens can eventually make a district color worth less.
Some tokens also allow you to score points for collaborating with a particular visionary. Four of these are in play, and their points values are concealed until you pick up a token that shows their corresponding letter. After that, you're free to peep (though try not to give away too much to other players). These lettered tokens can also net extra points if you pick up +1 tokens for your player board.
Play continues until one architect has constructed all their buildings. At this point, the second round begins, and new buildings are added to your pool. This includes a unique monument that automatically wins any bids and triggers a secret points-scoring power. After everyone has placed every construct in their pool, scoring can begin, with the biggest scorer taking home the prize.
Skyrise is light on rules, but the decision points quickly spread out before you like a well-designed city block. Is it better to hoard your highest-value buildings or assert your dominance over a space early? Can you guarantee a win with a cheap building by leading the bid to a closed-off space, and will the turn order allow you to steal it before someone else does? Can you maximize your score by fulfilling the requirements of the extra missions Skyrise introduces - or can you block another player from doing the same?
Those are just a few of the factors you'll need to consider when bidding. Skyrise encourages thoughtful plays, but the light rules help prevent any agonizing bouts of analysis paralysis. Sometimes, the best strategy is seeing where the flow of bidding takes you and being prepared to adapt your plans.
Skyrise plays like a game of tic-tac-toe with the boundary walls knocked down. It's the perfect palette cleanser to play between lengthy strategy board game sessions. There's enough for heavy game lovers to chew on, but it's not likely to overwhelm those who are more used to party games.
Overall, Skyrise is tactile, considered, and immensely replayable (plus, the deluxe version I've based my first impressions on is particularly stunning). It's proof that Gavan Brown hasn't lost his spark since Brass: Birmingham released in 2018, and it gives me faith that Brass: Pittsburgh is in good hands.
Want to share your own thoughts on Gavan Brown's work? Tell us all your hot takes in the Wargamer Discord. Or, for more recommendations, here are the couples' board games we love most.