Review: My Shelfie

Introduction & Overview

You have just arrived home with your new bookshelf, and it is time to display your favorite belongings: books, board games, photos… And do not forget to make room for your cats! Who will organize their bookshelf best?

This is the premise of My Shelfie, designed by Phil Walker-Harding (Sushi Go!, Bärenpark) and Matthew Dunstan (Pioneer Days, Elysium). First published in 2022 by Cranio Creations in an English and Italian edition. The artwork is by Shannon Grosenbacher and Sara Valentino (marking the first time these artists work in the board game industry).

It is published in Spanish by Maldito Games (the game is completely language independent). It supports 2 to 4 players, with a recommended minimum age of 8 and an approximate playing time of 25 minutes. The MSRP is €35. For this review, a copy of the Spanish edition by Maldito Games was used, kindly provided to us by the publisher as a review copy.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Go to Personal Opinion

Components

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom), measuring 26×26×5.5 cm (a medium square box similar in size to Gardens or Viceroy), we find the following items:

• Living Room Board (cardboard)
• 132 Item Tiles (cardboard)
• 8 Scoring Tokens (cardboard)
• End Game Token (cardboard)
• First Player Armchair (cardboard)
• 4 Bookshelves (plastic)
• 4 Card Stands (plastic)
• 24 Cards (56×87 mm):
  • 12 Common Goal Cards
  • 12 Personal Goal Cards
• Bag (cloth)
• Rulebook

How to Play

My Shelfie is a light-medium weight game where each player tries to complete a bookshelf of six rows and five columns by taking colored tiles from a central supply that have at least one free side. These pieces must be dropped into a single column from the top of the 3D bookshelf. The goal is to complete a series of patterns, both public and private, as well as grouping tiles of the same color. The game ends when a player completes their bookshelf, giving the remaining players one final turn.

Key Concepts

Let us start with the Item Tiles. There are six types of tiles, distinguishable by their background color (with various illustrations within each type). The key concept is that item tiles will provide points when connected orthogonally to one another.

These tiles are taken from a shared Living Room Board, where tiles are placed at the beginning of the game and whenever the board needs refilling. Here, the key concept is that to take a tile, it must have at least one free side. It is possible to take more than one tile, but they must be connected to each other in a straight line, and all of them must have at least one free side.

These tiles are inserted into the Bookshelf. It is a vertical grid of five columns and six rows. Players drop the item tiles into the top of a single column, letting them slide down until they rest. The crucial rule is that if a player picks multiple tiles, all of them must be inserted into the exact same column.

In addition to groups of adjacent tiles, there are two scoring elements at the end of the game. The first is the Personal Goal Card that each player receives at the start of the game. These cards highlight specific spaces on the bookshelf that must be filled with specific types of item tiles. The points scored depend on how many of those spaces match the indicated items.

The second is the Common Goal Cards, which show a specific pattern requirement for placing item tiles on the bookshelf. At the beginning of the game, two goal cards are revealed, and scoring tokens of decreasing value are placed on top of them. Whenever a player completes the requirement for the first time, they take the highest available scoring token from the card.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

1. Place the Living Room Board in the center of the table.
2. Place the End Game token in its designated space on the board.
3. Put the item tiles into the bag, mix them well, and fill the board by placing tiles on the spaces matching the player count.
4. Shuffle the Common Goal cards and draw 2 face up, placing them to the side of the table (return the rest to the box).
5. Place scoring tokens on the goal cards depending on the player count:
   • 2 Players: 4-8 Points.
   • 3 Players: 4-6-8 Points.
   • 4 Players: 2-4-6-8 Points.
6. Each player takes a 3D bookshelf structure, a card stand, and a randomly dealt Personal Goal card.
7. Choose the first player randomly and give them the armchair token.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of My Shelfie is played over an indeterminate number of turns, starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise.

On their turn, the active player proceeds as follows:

• First, they must choose 1 to 3 item tiles from the central board, provided they are in a straight line and each chosen tile has at least one free side before any of them are removed.
• Next, the player must insert the chosen tiles into one of the columns of their bookshelf (the player chooses the insertion order). If a column has fewer empty spaces than tiles chosen, the tiles cannot be inserted into that column. Therefore, a player cannot take more tiles than can fit into at least one column.
• If, after placing the tiles on the bookshelf, the player meets the criteria of any Common Goal cards they have not yet achieved, they claim the highest value scoring token available on that card.
• Finally, if only 4 or fewer tiles remain on the central board, return them to the bag and refill the board by drawing tiles from the bag, following the same rules as setup.

After this, play passes to the player on the left.

Game End

The end of the game is triggered when a player completely fills their bookshelf, claiming the End Game token. The remaining players take one final turn. Once all other players have finished their last turn, the final scoring takes place, where each player scores:

• The points shown on the goal tokens they have collected.
• 1/2/4/6/9/12 Points for having 1/2/3/4/5/6 tiles in the corresponding spaces matching their Personal Goal card.
• 2/3/5/8 Points for each adjacent group of 2/3/4/5+ tiles of the same color connected orthogonally.

The player with the most victory points wins. In case of a tie, the tied player who had their turn later in turn order relative to the first player wins.

Personal Opinion

It was not so long ago (relative to when this review was written) that Paolo Mori made us raise an eyebrow when he presented a game whose centerpiece was a gadget with a vertical grid into which you could drop tiles through the top openings of its columns.

After all… who didn’t own a Connect 4 during their childhood? Perhaps it is not as popular nowadays, but back when I was still writing letters to Santa Claus and the Three Wise Men, it was one of the most requested gifts by kids. Dropping those checkers left an indelible impression on many of our memories. Holding a token with your thumb and middle finger and using your index finger to push it down, feeling it clack against the pieces below, was and remains a delightful tactile feeling.

Of course, we still had to see if there was a proper game underneath it all, because man cannot live on nostalgia alone. The game I just referred to is Fairy Tale Inn (here is its tocho-review), in case you want to check if it delivered or not. But today we are not here to talk about Paolo Mori, but rather about the great Phil Walker-Harding, this time teaming up with Matthew Dunstan.

Both are designers who excel in the light-to-medium-weight territory, especially the Australian designer, who knows how to calibrate his designs exceptionally well—rare is the title from him that misses the mark. Both have taken up Paolo’s baton to offer us another design featuring a vertical grid to slide tiles into. Let us see how My Shelfie turned out, not without first thanking Maldito Games for providing the review copy that made this lengthy review possible.

Let us start with what has become something of a mantra within this genre. Once again, we find ourselves before a game driven by drafting, tile placement, and pattern building. It is a winning combination in the sense that it is widely accepted by the community and hard to mess up (though not impossible—just ask Matthew himself). So, at this point, relying on this core formula alone is not quite enough; you need a little something extra (beyond the plastic gadget for dropping tiles).

Here, the authors bring back the mechanism previously seen in Dragon Castle (here is its tocho-review) by providing players with a central market from which they can draft tiles using Mahjong Solitaire selection rules—meaning you can only take tiles that have at least one free side. To add a bit more spice, players can take from one to three tiles, but all picked tiles must be connected in a straight line and each must have at least one free side before any are taken. Those picked tiles must then be dropped into the 3D bookshelf, with the sole restriction that they must all go into the same column, though the player chooses the insertion order.

When choosing and placing tiles, players will juggle three distinct goals. First and foremost, forming groups. Ideally, you want to form contiguous clusters of six tiles to score the maximum points per group. Of course, this is tricky in itself because, being restricted to vertical drops, you either get lucky and find a line of three matching tiles on your turn, or you must carefully time your plays across multiple columns to connect groups horizontally. Second, the common goals. At the start of the game, two criteria are established that players will race to complete as early as possible, as the first player to achieve one receives eight bonus points, a reward that diminishes for subsequent players. And third, a personal goal card that rewards players with up to twelve points if they manage to match specific shelf spaces with the correct tile types.

This ensures players will face tough decisions when selecting tiles on every turn. First, because it is rare to find a line of three tiles that perfectly aligns with all these goals—mostly because the player acting before you will be well aware of what you need, at least regarding the visible clusters you are building and the common objectives.

Second, because the game also operates as a race: the end is triggered as soon as one player completely fills their bookshelf, setting the absolute minimum game length at ten turns (if a player takes three tiles on every single turn). This introduces genuine tension, preventing players from dawdling or taking single tiles and pairs solely to maximize spatial efficiency.

It is true that everything I have described might sound like a familiar recipe. And I will not argue with that (as I said, it is the most utilized mechanical combination in recent years). But the truth is that games of My Shelfie are brisk, engaging, nicely tense, and filled with meaningful decisions. In that regard, compared to Fairy Tale Inn, today’s title emerges as the clear winner. Naturally, if you already have your all-time favorite drafting, tile-placement, and pattern-building game, My Shelfie might feel redundant. But what it sets out to do, it does remarkably well.

Perhaps its biggest flaw is that the game’s pacing stalls every time the central board needs refilling. A nimble player will handle it quickly enough, but it is no exaggeration to say this process can easily eat up a quarter of the total play time. That is the price to pay for a Mahjong Solitaire-style supply. In Azul (here is its tocho-review), at least, you do not need to align tiles neatly—you just dump them onto the factory displays. In Cascadia (here is its tocho-review), tiles and tokens are refilled immediately, so one player can hold the bag and act like a meticulous butler to keep things flowing seamlessly. My Shelfie may not dethrone those two titans, but it certainly will not disappoint fans of the genre.

On the bright side, laying out the supply in this manner significantly reduces luck, since randomness only really enters the equation during refills. Granted, during crucial late-game turns, whether a specific tile color appears along the perimeter during a refill right before your turn can matter. However, its overall impact is much lower than in games with continuous market churning.

Like all the titles mentioned earlier, it scales smoothly because the player interaction is relatively indirect. There is definitely that subtle element of keeping an eye on the next player to avoid teeing up an easy play—since removing tiles exposes new ones on the board—but this dynamic works across any player count. The race factor is also present throughout, both for common goals and for triggering game end (since empty slots mean lost points). It is perhaps most enjoyable at two players, where you have tighter tactical control and the match plays out in the blink of an eye.

In terms of variety, the game includes multiple goal cards. While the overall feel across plays remains fairly consistent, the puzzle shifts nicely thanks to different objective pairings and randomized market setups. Being the kind of pleasant game that leaves everyone with a good taste in their mouth, unless you are strictly looking for heavy complexity, it is bound to hit the table with decent regularity—standard replayability for this weight class.

Moving on to production. Overall, component quality is solid, starting with the plastic 3D bookshelves. While you have to disassemble them to fit everything back into the box, they snap together and pull apart smoothly. The cardboard item tiles are adequately thick, nicely pressed, and durable enough to withstand repeated plays. The cards, while having decent stock and acceptable snap (especially considering they are rarely shuffled and never held in hand), feel prone to edge-wear over time. In fact, the plastic card stands do not seem like the best idea, as you have to slide cards into them very carefully to prevent damage. The rulebook is clearly structured and leaves no ambiguities.

Visually, the game is charming, especially given its quirky theme. For most mortals, tidying a shelf is a chore. But for those of us with extensive board game collections, constantly rearranging our shelves to optimize space or devise imaginative sorting systems is a genuine delight. It is a theme made for us. The cover art is eye-catching (even if it looks like an IKEA catalog photo), and the tiles are functional, peppered with fun little easter eggs (such as glimpses of Carcassonne and Codenames on some of the boxes).

And let’s wrap this up. My Shelfie is another light-medium weight title combining drafting, pattern building, and tile placement. It may not innovate beyond its 3D vertical grid mechanism (and the game could just as easily have functioned without it), but the delicate balance it demands when drafting and placing tiles creates an engaging puzzle that will readily tempt you into playing another game right away. Its most noticeable flaw is the board refill procedure, which disrupts the otherwise snappy pace of play (though an efficient player can minimize the downtime). Beyond that, it is brisk, entertaining, and scales well, more than delivering on its premise. For all these reasons, I give it a…