Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
NEOM is a modern city-building game featuring simultaneous drafting and tile placement that takes inspiration from games such as 7 Wonders, Carcassonne, and Sim City.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Closed Drafting
Choose from hidden cards or items before passing or revealing the remainder.
Tile Placement
Place tiles to build a shared or personal spatial arrangement.
Connections
Create meaningful links between locations, pieces, or concepts.
Take That
Direct negative effects at selected opponents.
Solo / Solitaire Game
Provide rules and objectives designed for a single player.
Read the full game description
NEOM is a modern city-building game featuring simultaneous drafting and tile placement that takes inspiration from games such as 7 Wonders, Carcassonne, and Sim City. Players compete to build the most impressive city utilizing a tree of 17 different goods (from three different tiers) that can each be unlocked, allowing the placement of increasingly powerful tiles as the game progresses. Tiles also feature roads which must be connected without being rotated, meaning that players must always plan their city layout with an eye to the future. At the start of each game, players draft cornerstones — powerful, unique tiles that heavily change what is most valuable from game to game. NEOM has been in development for seven years and the rules and tile set have been iterated on over the course of more than 3,500 games logged in a custom online prototype, leading to an exceptionally well balanced game with a wide variety of viable strategies. Rahdo's #3 game of 2018 Tom Vasel's Dice Tower Seal of Approval