Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Easier to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Light strategy
More strategic control
How it plays
How does it play?
Place numbered mountain tiles, send hikers onto promising routes, and decide when to cooperate or sabotage before every trail is locked in.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Read the full game description
Switchbacks is a compact tile-placement game about building continuous hiking trails through a shared mountain. Players add numbered elevation tiles and place hikers, hoping those hikers finish on runs of at least four consecutive numbers. The same route may benefit several players, so temporary cooperation is often useful, but a single well-placed tile can strand an opponent or redirect the best path. Hidden information about a tile removed from play gives observant hikers one more clue to exploit.
