Review: Queen Alice

Introduction & Overview

Alice has received a strange cry for help. Passing by the living room mirror, she is startled to see the following words written backward upon the glass: “Alice, we need a new queen.” Without a moment’s hesitation, she reaches out and discovers that her hand can pass right through it. The rest of her body soon follows, pulled across to the other side. You will become denizens of the Looking-Glass Court, tasked with preparing Alice’s coronation banquet. Whoever does the finest job will be appointed right hand to the new queen.

This is the premise behind Queen Alice, designed by Héctor Carrión (Future Inc.) and David Heras (Amritsar: The Golden Temple). First published in 2026 by Combo Games in a bilingual English and Spanish edition following a successful crowdfunding campaign, the artwork is illustrated by Amelia Sales (Orloj: The Prague Astronomical Clock, Salton Sea).

The game is completely language-independent (aside from the rulebook). It accommodates 1 to 4 players, with a recommended minimum age of 14 and an approximate playing time of 30 minutes per player. The MSRP is €70. For this review, a copy of the English and Spanish edition from Combo Games was used, kindly provided 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 31.8 × 22.9 × 9.4 cm (a rectangular format similar to Agricola or Le Havre, though notably deeper), we find the following components:
Central Board (cardboard)

• 4 Action Boards (Hearts, Spades, Clubs, and Diamonds) (cardboard)
• Card Market Board (cardboard)
• 4 Court Boards (cardboard)
• 160 Cards (56 × 87 mm):
  • 90 Market Cards (30 bronze, 30 silver, and 30 gold)
  • 40 Starting Cards (10 in each player color)
  • 16 Train Cards
  • 10 Solo Cards
  • 4 Chess Movement Reference Cards
• 4 Reference Tiles (1 in each player color) (cardboard)
• 16 Alice’s Wish Tiles (cardboard)
• 42 Bookmark Tiles (cardboard)
• 40 Diamond Tokens (10 in each player color) (cardboard)
• 40 Heart Tokens (10 in each player color) (cardboard)
• 32 Flower Tokens (8 of each type) (cardboard)
• 27 Book Tokens (in 3 colors) (cardboard)
• 11 Crown Tokens (cardboard)
• 4 200/300 Victory Point Tokens (cardboard)
• Mirror Marker (cardboard)
• 4 Clock Hands (plastic)
• 18 Chess Pieces (9 Red and 9 White) (wood or plastic)
• 2 Alice Figures (1 Red and 1 White) (wood or plastic)
• 2 Humpty Dumpty Figures (1 Red and 1 White) (wood or plastic)
• 2 Gardener Figures (1 Red and 1 White) (wood or plastic)
• 2 King’s Messenger Figures (Red Mad Hatter and White March Hare) (wood or plastic)
• 2 Twin Figures (Red Tweedledum and White Tweedledee) (wood or plastic)
• 8 Pawprint Markers (2 in each player color) (wood)
• 4 Victory Point Markers (1 in each player color) (wood)
• 12 Colored Cubes (3 in each player color) (wood)
• 5 Black Cubes (wood)
• Rulebook

How to Play

Queen Alice is a eurogame driven primarily by deck-building and action selection across a central chessboard. Set in the universe of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, players take on the roles of members of the Looking-Glass Court preparing Alice’s coronation feast. Throughout the game, participants alternate taking turns structured into four phases: first, they discard a card from hand to gain its immediate benefit; next, they play a second card to move or rescue the matching chess piece (or activate its current space if blocked), which dictates the resource gained according to the row reached and the main action performed based on the column (planting rosebushes and gaining flowers with permanent abilities in Hearts, advancing messengers to purchase or trash cards in Spades, climbing the tree to gather books and bookmarks in Clubs, or building Humpty Dumpty’s wall in Diamonds, along with the chance to capture opposing pieces); optionally, they may spend Time to repeat the action just executed; finally, they rest by refilling their hand, replenishing the market, and scoring Alice’s Wishes if she reached a milestone space during the turn. Resolving actions also advances the Red and White Alice tracks, allowing players to place point-multiplying crowns ahead of her path, as well as advancing their pawprint markers along the cat tracks. The game concludes at the end of the round in which the last crown is claimed from the central supply. Alice is then crowned according to the color that progressed the furthest (determining which crowns award direct victory points and which Wishes are upgraded to their platinum side), followed by tallying points from Wishes based on cat track progress, the values of cards invited to the feast, and endgame bookmarks. The player with the most victory points is crowned the winner.

Key Concepts

Let us begin with the Central Board. Its main area displays a chessboard grid where columns determine the action to execute and rows dictate the resource gained when moving pieces. Flanking both sides of this grid are the Alice progression tracks (one for the Red faction and one for the White), featuring movement spaces, mid-game scoring checkpoints, and reserved slots for the future monarch’s requirements. Along the bottom edge lies the supply of crowns that triggers the endgame, while the two cat tracks run down the outer flanks, and a traditional victory point track wraps around the entire perimeter.

The Chess Pieces represent subjects of the Looking-Glass Court, divided into two distinct factions: White and Red. Every participant has access to pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, queens, and kings positioned across the central grid, moving according to standard chess rules. Their purpose is to trigger action columns and resource-generating rows depending on the destination space where their move ends, while also offering the ability to capture opposing pieces to imprison them or rescue figures previously jailed.

Let us turn to the four possible actions, each governed by its own dedicated board. First is the Diamonds Action Board alongside the Humpty Dumpty Figures. This area represents the realm’s wall, divided into two sections. Resting on this board are the two halves of Humpty Dumpty (one red, one white), which climb upward each time players complete an entire row of bricks. The grid of the wall features spaces with specific resource costs where construction pieces must be placed from the bottom up to earn immediate perks and bonus points for matching the character’s current height. Each Diamond Token represents a construction brick that players remove from their personal board to build onto the wall. Clearing one of these square tokens from an individual board unlocks an instant reward printed beneath it; the token is then placed onto the lowest available space in one of the diamond columns to claim the reward of that occupied space as well.

Next is the Hearts Action Board and the Gardener Figures. This section depicts the royal garden where the kingdom’s flowers bloom. It features several colored plots overseen by Gardener figures (one red, one white), who can move by spending tea to supervise planting. Spaces across this board showcase benefits that players can activate. To do so, each player has a set of Heart Tokens. Participants arrange these tokens on their court boards, removing them in sequence by paying their food costs to plant them in the active gardener’s current section, thereby unlocking rewards printed on their player board as well as bonuses on the shared board.

The Flower Tokens represent botanical specimens harvested from the garden, coming in four distinct colors. Once earned by covering their matching spaces on the hearts board, they are placed in the player’s personal area, granting passive, permanent advantages throughout the game, such as increased hand limits, discounts when repeating actions, or reduced time costs when acquiring resources.

We continue with the Spades Action Board and the King’s Messenger Figures. This board depicts a path of arrow-connected spaces traversed by the Mad Hatter and the March Hare (each player controls one figure of each character in their color). By advancing these messengers and paying the required movement costs, players claim the reward printed on the destination space and earn the right to buy a new card from the market or invite a card to the royal feast, in addition to claiming special bonuses upon crossing postal seals along the route.

Regarding the Clubs Action Board and the Twin Figures, we are presented with a tree whose branches Tweedledum and Tweedledee climb. The figures branch out along pathways with various resource tolls to reach higher heights, allowing players to collect literary volumes along the forks and qualify for the purchase of bookmarks.

The Book Tokens come in three colors. These tokens represent lore gathered from the looking-glass world and serve as currency to acquire bookmark tiles.

Divided by cost categories, these Bookmark Tiles can be purchased by players using their collected books. They grant direct advantages across three categories: instant effects, abilities activated once per turn by flipping the tile until the maintenance phase, or victory point multipliers calculated at the end of the game.

Let us discuss the cards next. First are the Starting Cards, which form the opening deck for each participant. These cards display a chess piece tied to a specific color governing movement on the central board, a reward gained when discarding it at the start of a turn, a benefit received when playing it to move the piece, and an endgame victory point value if sent as a banquet guest.

To expand this card pool, we use the Card Market Board and Market Cards. Here, cards are grouped into three tiers: bronze, silver, and gold. They share the same layout as the starting cards. Each slot on the board shows a purchase cost along with icons indicating that, with the appropriate rose, players may access a card tier higher or lower than the one granted by the acquisition effect.

Each player receives a Court Board and Clock Hands. This board organizes the storage of cherry tarts, buttered toast, and tea; features a prison to hold pieces captured from rivals; accommodates columns of heart and diamond tokens; and provides space for locked cubes. In its top-right corner, a clock face fitted with a clock hand tracks the player’s available Time, which ranges from 0 to 10 to pay for actions, repeat turns, or substitute for resources. If a player hits the maximum time limit and continues to gain time, the excess converts into victory points.

The Resource Cubes are markers used to track supplies on the individual board. Cubes in the player’s color move from the silver tray to the cherry tart, tea, or buttered toast tracks as goods are gained or spent. Meanwhile, black cubes represent storage capacity locked at the start; once unlocked, they can be assigned to store any resource or spent directly for bonus resources.

During setup, players receive double-sided Train Cards (one red side, one white side). They provide an asymmetric starting setup determining the opening positions of pawns on certain action boards, along with a batch of starting resources, time, or components to shape each participant’s opening strategy.

Placed onto special spaces on the central board are the double-sided Alice’s Wish Tiles (standard yellow side and platinum side). These tiles establish collective scoring objectives that trigger immediately during the turn Alice lands on their space. They are scored once more during final scoring according to progress along the cat tracks, flipping to their platinum side to double their value if Alice is crowned queen in the matching color.

The physical fate of the realm is marked by the Alice Figures, consisting of two pawns (Red Alice and White Alice) advancing along their respective side tracks on the main board. Moving toward the central throne awards victory points, triggers the evaluation of wish tiles, and determines which faction reigns supreme at the end of the game based on who moved further.

Serving as the pacing clock of the game are the Crown Tokens. When earned through milestones on action boards, they are taken from the common supply and placed ahead of Alice on her path to double the points of the covered space and make the pawn skip that space on future moves. Once the last crown is claimed from the supply, the end of the game is triggered.

Each player’s Pawprint Markers advance along the Red Cat and White Cat tracks whenever pawprint icons are gained from actions, gathering crossing bonuses and determining how many of Alice’s wishes each player may score at game end.

Finally, Victory Point Markers are small wooden discs in each player’s color placed on the score track. Over the course of the game, players score victory points by advancing either Alice figure along the central board, placing crown tokens ahead of her to double space values, triggering immediate wish scorings when Alice reaches them, completing wall rows at Humpty Dumpty’s height, and crossing milestone seals with Messengers. At game end, points are awarded for crowns gained matching the winning color, fulfilled Wish tiles unlocked by progress on the Cat tracks, values from cards sent as guests to the banquet, and final bonuses from purchased bookmarks.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

1. Place the central board in the center of the table on the side corresponding to player count.
2. Arrange the four action boards (Hearts, Spades, Clubs, and Diamonds) and the card market board around the central board, all on their appropriate side for the player count.
3. Shuffle the reference tiles, draw one at random, and place the chess pieces on the central board following the setup shown on its back.
4. Separate the Alice’s Wish tiles into four piles by icon, shuffle them separately, and draw one tile from each pile to create a set of four. After shuffling these four together, place them randomly onto the four Wish spaces on the central board with their yellow side face up.
5. Place the crown tokens onto their spaces at the bottom of the central board with the “x2” side showing, using 6, 7, or 8 tokens in games with 2, 3, or 4 players, respectively.
6. Place the Red Alice and White Alice pieces onto the starting spaces of their respective tracks.
7. Place the action figures onto their corresponding boards: the Red Gardener and White Gardener on the Hearts board; the Red and White Humpty Dumpty halves on the Diamonds board.
8. Separate the bookmark tiles into stacks by purchase cost and place them next to the Clubs board, returning any tiles not used for the current player count to the box.
9. Form supply piles of book tokens by color near the Clubs board, and flower tokens by color near the Hearts board.
10. Place one white book token onto every space of the Clubs board that does not already show a printed book icon.
11. In 3-player games, cover the indicated spaces on the Red and White Alice tracks with crown tokens, and cover the corresponding spaces on the Hearts and Diamonds boards using Heart and Diamond tokens of the unused color.
12. Separate the starting cards from the rest. With the remaining cards, form three separate draw decks sorted by tier (bronze, silver, and gold), shuffle each independently, and place them on their respective tiers on the card market board, drawing two cards face up to the left and leaving the deck face down to the right with its top card revealed.
13. Place the 200/300 victory point tokens near the play area in case they are needed.
14. Each player selects a color and receives:
    • A court board, placed in their player area.
    • A clock hand, placed pointing at 0 on their board’s time dial.
    • Ten Heart tokens (five of each color), placed on the matching spaces of their court board.
    • Ten Diamond tokens (five of each color), placed on the matching spaces of their court board.
    • Two messengers (one hatter, one hare), placed on the starting spaces of the spades action board.
      Two twins (one red, one white), placed on the starting spaces of the clubs action board.
    • Three cubes in their player color, placed on the silver tray of their board.
    • Five black cubes, placed in the locked storage area.
    • A victory point marker in their color, placed on space 0 of the victory point track on the central board.
    • Two pawprint markers in their color, placing the red pawprint on the start of the Red Cat track and the white pawprint on the start of the White Cat track.
    • A reference tile in their color, kept next to their player board.
    • The ten starting cards of their color, shuffled to form their draw deck, drawing an opening hand of 3 cards.
15. Shuffle the train cards and deal 2 at random to each player. Everyone secretly chooses one card, decides whether to play it on its Red or White side, and discards the other. All players then reveal their card simultaneously and, in turn order, immediately collect the resources and track advances shown on the chosen face.
16. The player who most recently looked in a mirror receives the mirror marker and becomes the first player; if tied, choose randomly.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Queen Alice is played over an indeterminate number of rounds where players alternate turns clockwise, beginning with the first player.

On their turn, the active player performs the following steps:

1. Discard a Card. The player selects a card from hand, places it face up onto their discard pile, and immediately collects its discard reward.
2. Play a Card. The player selects a second card from hand and places it on top of the newly discarded card:
3. Collect the play reward shown on the card (starting cards do not grant this benefit).
4. Move the depicted chess piece according to standard chess rules (pawns never advance more than 1 space; if a piece is blocked, activate its current space instead). Alternatively, rescue a piece of that type from any player’s prison by placing it onto an open respawn space of its color (the prison owner receives 1 Time as compensation). If the move ends on an opponent’s piece, capture it and place it in your prison, collecting time, resources, or pawprints according to the captured piece type. If a Pawn reaches the final rank, it promotes: granting 1 pawprint of its color and immediately respawning on a starting space of its color to activate that new space.
5. Activate the destination space. The row determines the resource gained (Cherry Tart, Tea, or Buttered Toast), and the column dictates the main action resolved, always executed in the color of the played piece. If the piece ends in the central wild column, the player may select any of the four actions by paying an additional resource of their choice. If unable or unwilling to take the action, they gain 2 Time and proceed to the Rest phase.
6. Repeat Action (Optional). Once per turn, the player may spend 6 Time to resolve the main action just executed a second time in the same color, paying its normal costs once more without playing extra cards or paying the wild column fee again.
7. Rest. End-of-turn maintenance is resolved:
   • The player refills their hand by drawing or discarding to their hand limit (usually 3 cards, shuffling their discard pile if the deck runs out).
   • Slide cards left to refill market gaps.
   • Ready once-per-turn bookmarks by flipping them face up.
   • If Alice reached a Wish space during the turn, all players score that Wish immediately.

After completing these steps, the turn passes to the next player clockwise.

The main actions available, determined by the column where the piece lands and resolved in the color of that piece, are:

• Hearts (The Garden of Live Flowers). Proceed as follows:
  • Optionally, the player may move the Gardener of the active color to an adjacent space of the same color by spending 1 Tea per movement (moving from the rest space onto the Garden is free).
  • Next, remove the bottommost Heart token from their personal board by paying the indicated cost (Cherry Tart or Buttered Toast), gaining the reward revealed beneath it.
  • Place this Heart token over an open space in the Gardener’s current section and collect the reward of the covered space (typically flower tokens granting permanent ongoing benefits). If the Gardener’s section is fully occupied, the figure returns to its rest space.
• Spades (The King’s Messengers). Proceed as follows:
  • The player pays the indicated resources to advance the Messenger of the active color (Red Mad Hatter or White March Hare) 1, 2, or 3 spaces along the arrows.
  • Collect the reward printed on the destination space and, in addition, choose one card reward: purchase a card from the displayed tier by paying its market cost in time or resources, or invite a card of any tier from hand or discard pile by tucking it under their personal board for coronation.
  • If the movement crosses milestone seals, the central crossroads, or reaches the end of the path, claim the corresponding bonuses (such as crowns or Alice advances).
• Clubs (The Tree of Tweedledum and Tweedledee). Proceed as follows:
  • The player chooses a path to advance the Twin of the active color (Red Tweedledum or White Tweedledee) and pays the cost printed on the matching arrow.
  • Take the physical book token if present on the destination space, as well as any printed books or uncovered visible rewards. Transitioning from the 2nd to the 3rd level advances the Alice piece of that color, while reaching the top awards a crown.
  • Optionally, spend collected book tokens to buy an available bookmark tile, gaining instant perks, once-per-turn abilities, or endgame scoring conditions.
• Diamonds (Humpty Dumpty’s Wall). Proceed as follows:
  • The player selects an empty space in the wall column of the active color, always placing on the lowest open space of that column.
  • Pay the resource cost associated with the chosen row plus any additional column surcharge (1 Tea on outer columns).
  • Remove a Diamond token of choice from their personal board to gain its uncovered reward, place it like a brick onto the chosen wall space, and collect the covered bonus.
  • Building in the same row occupied by the matching Humpty Dumpty half awards 2 victory points; if that brick completes the row, advance Humpty Dumpty to the next row and earn 4 points instead.

Throughout the game, taking actions or activating effects may trigger cross-cutting mechanisms:

• Mini-actions. These grant partial perks from a main action (removing a Heart or Diamond of any color for free, advancing a Messenger 1 space for free, or moving a Twin along a black arrow for free). They carry no color restrictions and trigger all normal associated rewards.
• Alice Tracks and Wishes. Advancing the Red or White Alice figure earns the victory points printed on the reached space. When Alice enters a Wish space, a crown is moved from the supply to the Wish, and all players evaluate that scoring condition at the end of the turn during the Rest phase. Reaching the Throne crowns Alice and discards a crown.
• Gaining and Placing Crowns. When a crown is earned from milestones or actions, take a crown token from the supply and place it onto the next empty space ahead of Alice on her path, immediately scoring double the points printed on that space (spaces holding crowns are skipped during future Alice advances). If no empty spaces remain or the supply is exhausted, score 10 victory points instead.

Game End

The game ends after completing the round in which the final crown is taken from the crown supply, ensuring all participants take an equal number of turns (finishing with the player seated to the right of whoever holds the Mirror marker). If either Alice has advanced further than the other, her wish tiles flip to their platinum side. Final player scores are calculated based on:

• Crowns. 8 victory points for each crown collected matching the color of the crowned Alice (the one furthest ahead). In the event of a tie between both Alicias, every crown earned awards 8 victory points regardless of color.
• Alice’s Wishes. Scored according to your marker’s position on each color’s Cat track:
  • Marker below x1: no wishes of that color are scored.
  • Marker between x1 and x2: score one wish of that color of the player’s choice.
  • Marker beyond x2: score both wishes of that color.
• Invited Cards. Victory points granted by bonuses printed in the upper right corner of all cards sent to the coronation banquet.
  Bookmarks. Victory points awarded by endgame scoring conditions on purchased bookmark tiles.

The player with the most victory points is crowned the winner. Ties are shared.

Variants

Solo Mode. The human player competes against Dinah, an automated bot in a two-player setup that ignores resource costs and never banks time, instead converting it directly into victory points. On Dinah’s turn, the top card of her deck is revealed, and the position of her cube on the track dictates whether she activates the Red or White faction. Dinah then operates the corresponding piece following a strict priority list: prioritizing capturing opposing pieces, freeing her own from prison, or moving according to directional arrows on the card. At the end of movement, Dinah takes the row resource to advance her track, but ignores the board column to execute the action printed directly on her card. Dinah advances along the Alice tracks, places crowns, can repeat actions, and scores Wishes just like a human opponent. Once the game ends when crowns run out, the human player tallies their standard score and compares it to Dinah’s total, which combines standard points with flat values for uninvited cards, flowers, and bookmarks based on the chosen difficulty.

Hidden Objectives. Each participant is secretly dealt an objective card before play begins. Cards marked for four players are included only at that player count, while a 3-player game uses a specific objective awarding 16 victory points if both Alice figures finish within one space of each other, or 24 points if tied. Remaining objectives grant two crowns of the indicated color, scored normally during end-of-game calculations.

Alternative Crown Rewards. Standard crown tokens are mixed with mini-action crowns. They are arranged alternating between double-value crowns and mini-action crowns, and must be taken from left to right as they are claimed. When placing a mini-action crown onto a path, the player earns the base points of the covered space alongside the depicted mini-action, though they may forfeit this bonus effect to double the space’s points instead.

Upgraded Starting Cards. This variant introduces asymmetric cards to replace cards in the standard starting deck. At setup, each player draws two upgraded cards, keeps one, and drafts the other to their left. Next, players locate and remove the two basic cards from their starting deck matching the type and color of their two drafted cards, replacing them with the upgraded versions. In solo mode, no drafting occurs: simply draw two upgraded cards and swap them straight in.

Personal Opinion

It is fantastic to see how homegrown Spanish designs have cemented their place on the international stage, turning the Essen fair into a showcase where domestic designers do not just attend, but set trends. We have plenty of examples. In 2023, The White Castle (read tocho-review here) and Barcelona (read tocho-review here) were resounding hits. In 2024, we saw Men-Nefer (read tocho-review here) and Phoenix New Horizon (read tocho-review here). And in 2025, Orloj: The Prague Astronomical Clock (read tocho-review here) captured considerable buzz.

At the time of writing this tocho-review, the 2026 edition of the world’s premier board game fair along the Ruhr in North Rhine-Westphalia is about to begin, and another title with Spanish pedigree is turning heads. On paper, Queen Alice has all the right ingredients to emerge as one of the standout darlings of the fair. Let us explore why, but not before thanking Combo Games for providing the review copy that makes this deep dive possible.

We journey into Lewis Carroll’s whimsical and surreal literary universe, landing just on the other side of the looking glass following the events of Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. Taking on the roles of influential courtiers tasked with staging young Alice’s lavish coronation feast, we vie to win her favor and become the right hand of the new sovereign.

Far from being passive bystanders, we find ourselves caught in courtly intrigue where every effort helps mold the political destiny of the realm. Organizing the festivities requires securing the backing of iconic characters like the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee, or Humpty Dumpty himself.

To secure victory, players compete to amass the most Influence points, showing the Looking-Glass Court who is best equipped to serve as the sovereign’s premier advisor. The crux lies in the tug-of-war between the two factions: depending on which Alice progresses further along her track, she will be crowned either the Red Queen or the White Queen. This outcome dictates which of Alice’s Wishes are upgraded and which collected crowns will yield a massive haul of points at the finish line.

Mechanically, the design revolves around a clever deck-building engine whose cards dictate movements across a unique chessboard on the main board. Each turn presents an immediate dilemma: players must sacrifice one card from hand to harvest its instant discard bonus, followed by playing a second card to maneuver the matching chess piece along its classic path. The landing space governs both the resource received and which of the four main actions may be taken.

Opposing pieces can also be captured and locked away in player board dungeons, yielding immediate windfalls in time and resources. Captured figures are never out of the fight permanently, however, as any player can rescue jailed pieces and return them to the board, handing a time bonus to the jailer in the process. To top it off, players can spend six units of time to trigger their main action a second time. This opens the door to spectacular combos where a well-timed move bends the game’s tempo and wrings every ounce of value from the board.

Let us dig into the four minigames anchoring the gameplay. We start with the Garden of Live Flowers, where royal gardeners labor to plant rosebushes in plots matching their color. Players spend resources to clear heart tokens from their player boards and root them in the garden, securing both instant rewards and flower tokens that bestow powerful ongoing abilities. As players interact with this board, moving the gardener of the matching color becomes necessary to dictate valid planting spots, incurring extra costs.

Next up are spades, featuring the King’s Messengers embodied by the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. Charged with delivering formal invitations to prospective guests, their pawns advance along a branching track by paying movement costs. Speed is vital here: the first messenger to cross certain postal seals claims superior rewards compared to latecomers. Landing on a space delivers an instant bonus and allows players to purchase advanced market cards to bolster their deck, or take the invite action to purge a card, tucking it under their board to lock in endgame victory points.

Then we have the clubs action, taking us up the Tree of Tweedledum and Tweedledee—a vertical climb where the twins gather fables and lore. Paying the required route cost lets players climb with the matching pawn, collecting colored books that can later be traded for bookmarks. Players must weigh whether to cash in these books immediately or hoard them for later turns to afford more potent bookmark tiles.

Finally, the diamonds action sees us rebuilding Humpty Dumpty’s Wall, whose precarious figure overlooks the capital split in two. Players place diamond-shaped bricks across matching wall columns by paying costs determined by row and column, triggering double rewards by emptying their personal supply and occupying wall slots. A built-in incentive encourages building along the row currently occupied by Humpty Dumpty’s half for bonus points, with completed rows sending him climbing higher for an even larger payout.

When weighing choices, the overarching tension remains the constant tug-of-war between both courts. Alice’s coronation looms over every single move. Pushing either figure yields direct points and triggers mid-game Wish scoring, but it also dictates which color upgrades to platinum and which crowns will pay out handsomely in the endgame. This forces players to constantly gauge whether to double down on one sovereign or hedge their bets so they are not left empty-handed if the political tide turns.

Concurrently, advancing along the Cat tracks introduces a strict filter governing access to those very same Wishes. Fulfilling the conditions on a tile is useless if your pawprint markers have failed to reach the required threshold to validate it during final scoring. This dual requirement of global progress and personal validation infuses decision-making with razor-sharp tension; ignoring the cats means squandering your own hard work.

Additional scoring avenues stem from deck-thinning via the invite action and acquiring bookmarks, which inject long-term rewards for specialization. Purging cards to the banquet cleanses hands for leaner future cycles while seeding victory points via piece-type and color synergies. Combined with individual scoring criteria offered by tree bookmarks, the game delivers rich, satisfying strategic variety.

Crowns also demand close attention. Placing one onto an active path yields an immediate burst of points while accelerating that specific Alice’s momentum. Covering a space allows the pawn to leap directly over it on future moves, propelling her forward in the race to the throne.

These crowns function as the game’s pacing clock, as claiming the final crown from the supply triggers the endgame. Crowns are awarded whenever a player completes a minigame milestone (such as placing all five hearts of a color or reaching the end of a messenger track). As a result, the game possesses a deceptively shifting tempo.

Placing the first crown takes considerable time, requiring multiple focused actions in a single color—something rarely achieved until well into the session. Once crowns begin to drop, however, the game hits cruising speed, and the finish line arrives far faster than newcomers anticipate.

As players build momentum through refined decks, larger resource pools, and rose perks, chaining double actions with time becomes routine, accelerating the pace dramatically.

With that foundation established, we can dive into feel and table dynamics. Mechanically, the standout achievement is pairing brisk deck-building with a chess-inspired action grid. Having to evaluate which card to discard for immediate fuel and which to spend maneuvering a piece keeps players thoroughly engaged.

Granted, combining 2D spatial movement with a broad selection of pieces can trigger serious analysis paralysis. That is precisely why the initial hand size is kept small. Having only three options for piece movement (often fewer with duplicates) proves to be a wise design choice.

Things change once a player unlocks a five-card hand limit. Table flow can bog down if an overly analytical player attempts to map out five distinct piece movements to optimize every fraction of their turn.

Beyond that, the system’s true charm lies in how enticing it feels. You might enter a turn with a clear action in mind, only for the board state to tempt you down another path. The opportunity to capture an opposing piece, for instance, throws a wrench into the best-laid plans.

Capturing a piece—especially a major one—yields tangible perks and clears space, facilitating easier moves on subsequent turns (though depending on the state of play, that breathing room might benefit your opponents just as much), while dangling latent perks if someone rescues it later.

Resisting a capture is difficult, yet it often acts as a poisoned chalice. Advancing deeply across all four minigames is nearly impossible, making it far wiser to channel your efforts into a couple of areas to maximize synergies.

Spades and hearts stand out here. Spades powers deck-building; slimming your deck and injecting high-impact cards expands tactical freedom, particularly regarding resource generation, which acts as the main choke point for taking actions.

Hearts, on the other hand, unlocks game-changing passives: repeating an action for one less Time, reducing any resource purchase to two Time, or converting tea into Time. This effectively turns tea into a wild resource, though you will sometimes hoard it to bank the points required for a double turn.

Diamonds might seem the least glamorous initially in terms of building long-term engine momentum, as it focuses strictly on immediate payoffs. Yet many of those rewards unlock extra resource cubes. These cubes are essential for pulling off double turns, since that repeated action must match both the type and color of the original, requiring a hefty stockpile of that faction’s preferred currency.

Another neat design flourish appears here: resolving actions frequently generates resources of the opposing faction, creating a natural back-and-forth rhythm. This dynamic is especially pronounced early on when players can store only three resources physically. Pulling off a double action in the opening rounds requires not just 5 or 6 Time, but careful planning to afford three, four, or five matching resources.

This interlocks neatly with hand management. Taking an action with White pieces on one turn often means you will need to pivot to Red pieces on your next. Holding back a Red card rather than relying on the draw can be wise, even if that card’s discard effect looks tempting.

The fourth minigame offers the most versatility. It provides the quickest route to a crown, as a mere three high-cost actions can rush a twin to the top of the tree. Along the way, climbing yields books to purchase bookmarks that offer immediate boosts, recurring perks, or endgame scoring conditions.

Advancing along the cat tracks cannot be neglected either. Come game end, they represent your only guaranteed scoring avenue outside of bookmarks and purged cards. Championing one faction while neglecting its cat track leads to disaster; even if wish tiles are boosted to platinum, failing to unlock them leaves those points on the table.

A sound approach involves identifying which minigames align best with your starting position, pushing those forward while advancing matching cat tracks to unlock scoring thresholds. Prioritizing the lower threshold is often safest, as both Alicias typically reach their initial milestone, while hitting the second is far less guaranteed.

All told, this stands as one of the most compelling designs hitting tables in 2026, though it carries a few caveats. First, it firmly embraces a Feldian philosophy: a core action selection mechanism chaining together several minigames that feed back into one another, sparking the cascading combos beloved by fans of the style.

Not every gamer warms to that design philosophy, however. These systems can feel less like an organic world and more like an intricate Frankenstein of interconnected mechanisms. You are presented with a spread of tasks, denied the capacity to tackle them all, and forced to choose. Success hinges on finding the tightest synergies to squeeze more value out of each turn than your opponents.

If designs like Men-Nefer or Orloj: The Prague Astronomical Clock failed to click with your group, Queen Alice may run into the same hurdles. There is no singular thematic through-line guiding you. In Agricola (read tocho-review here), everything anchors to building a functional farm, with strategic variety flowing naturally from that premise. In Queen Alice, strategic variety serves as the destination rather than the journey.

Another hitch in combo-heavy designs is the procedural discipline demanded of players. These are not breezy games where you resolve a tidy, atomic action and pass the turn. Here, a single turn can string together up to three actions if mini-actions are triggered.

Every action spawns downstream perks and bonuses that require strict bookkeeping to resolve correctly. For your first session, having at least one experienced player at the table to audit maintenance steps and prevent illegal plays is invaluable.

Downtime also rears its head. Disparity between turns is an inherent quirk of the genre: one player might execute a quick single action, while the next chains a double action, grabs a bonus, advances Alice, and triggers an immediate wish scoring. When several players string together massive turns back-to-back, the wait between actions can stretch thin.

While monster turns are not constant, failing to handle steps methodically can turn gameplay messy, leading to take-backs and disrupted pacing. Fortunately, once players internalize the flow, these hiccups fade.

Consequently, the game shines brightest at two players, where interaction remains largely indirect. The sharpest friction comes from claiming coveted spots on the garden or wall boards. On linear tracks, interaction reduces to a race for milestone bonuses, where the difference between first and second place is minor. A quieter board also keeps pieces from shifting wildly between your turns, preserving tactical setups while curbing downtime.

Replayability is high, bolstered by strong setup variability: a thick stack of starting cards, a varied pool of wish tiles, and deep market decks. Optional variants—such as hidden objectives or crown mini-actions—add further flavor. If this style of puzzle appeals to you, it will easily command regular table time.

Production-wise, Combo Games pulled out all the stops. The punchboard is thick, dense, and punches out cleanly. The dual-layer player boards keep components secure, especially the inset acrylic clock dial. Cards feature a crisp linen finish with excellent snap (though frequent play warrants sleeves). The custom wooden pieces steal the show, sporting detailed double-sided screen printing and distinctive silhouettes. The rulebook is logically organized and leaves little ambiguity.

Visually, the aesthetic channels classic storybook flair blended with caricature and whimsical illustration. Expressive ink line work and playful character poses capture Lewis Carroll’s satirical, off-kilter tone to perfection. This artistic identity carries across the cards, screen-printed wood, and central board, striking a harmonious balance between Victorian ornamentation and clean modern graphic design. The iconography is dense, and a few symbols may require a second glance early on, but nothing impedes play.

And let’s wrap this up. Queen Alice ingeniously merges deck-building with a chess-inspired action matrix. Sacrificing cards for instant fuel, managing the tug-of-war between both Alicias, and resisting tempting captures create an engrossing puzzle where chaining double actions feels immensely rewarding. While the procedural upkeep of its interconnected minigames can induce downtime and analysis paralysis, its strategic depth and rich combo potential deliver an absorbing, deeply satisfying eurogame experience. Taking all this into account, I give it a…