Braided Skies opens the Smoking Bones world for Stonemaier

Braided Skies is live on the Stonemaier Games webstore as of October 14, and it is the first board game set in the Smoking Bones universe from artist and worldbuilder Andrew Bosley (Everdell, Tapestry). Dan Germain designed it. The official Braided Skies page lists it at 1 to 5 players, 60 to 90 minutes, with a seven minute setup, and shows $60 on the US webstore, with $75 listed as the regular price.

You play an airship captain in the Shallows, trying to build the best magical travel company in the Northlands. In practice that means sending drop ships onto a map that opens up as cloud overlays come off, ferrying tourists, harvesting tapstones (the gems that power everything), and upgrading your company with outposts, crewmates, harvesters, and outfittings. Stonemaier is clear that it is a standalone, single-session competitive game, not a campaign. If you saw "first in a series" and braced for a legacy box, relax.

A one-sitting Euro with this much art on the table is the right way to open a whole universe. Nobody wants homework before they know if they like the world.

Stonemaier pitches it to fans of Lost Ruins of Arnak, Dwellings of Eldervale, and Galactic Cruise. The Board Game Quest review gives it 3.5 stars and calls it "almost zen-like," praising the art, production, dual-layer engine, and the way worker placement spots change through the game. Its misses are fair ones: interaction is mild, the special abilities you pick up are "only so exciting," and some players may not love the randomness of event rewards. That reads like a gateway-plus Euro with a gorgeous table presence, which is a real audience.

The solo mode is not an afterthought

The designer diary has a full entry from David Studley of Automa Factory. The Automa plays as a single captain, blocks spots, steals the wonder card you wanted, and leaves resources behind as she goes. Her turn boils down to three actions, there are six difficulty settings, and she gets four exclusive starting Wonder cards with art Andrew Bosley drew just for her. That is more care than a lot of solo modes get. If you mostly play alone, this is the part of the box I would be most excited about.

When you can actually get it

This is the first-hand bit, because Stonemaier spreads the dates across two pages and a comment thread. Here is the buying window in one place.

That last row is the one I would use. Stonemaier links a Tabletopia version of Braided Skies from the product page, so you can push drop ships around for an evening before deciding if $60 is your number. Localized editions are also lined up through Feuerland (German), Grail Games (French), Maldito (Spanish), and Delta Vision (Hungarian).

Who should buy now, and who should wait

• Buy during the five-day launch window if you are a Stonemaier Champion or you want the $60 price and do not mind a November table date in the US.
• Wait for your local store if you want to support it and can live with mid to late November.
• Try Tabletopia first if mild interaction is a deal breaker for your group. Board Game Quest flagged it, and it is the most common complaint.
• Grab it for solo if you liked the Automa in other Stonemaier games. Six difficulty levels and custom starting Wonders is a strong package.
• Skip it if you want deep combo engines. The review says heavier gamers may find it samey after a few plays.

The board game desk has had a busy October. Our Galactic Cruise: Excursions piece covers one of the games Stonemaier names as a comparison, and our Satisfactory board game note is the crowdfunded side of the same engine-building itch. For something lighter with a video game license on top, the Ragnarok Online board game brief is still worth a look.

My take: the most telling line on the product page is "standalone, single-session." Opening a new universe with a game you can learn and finish in one night is smart, and it gives the Smoking Bones books room to do the heavy story lifting. The design diary also shows the game started in 2022 as a Silk Road drafting and delivery game before it moved into Bosley's world in 2023. You can still feel that logistics core under the airships, and I mean that as a compliment. It is a pick-up-and-deliver game that looks like a storybook. My table will be on it the week it lands.

How we made this: researched and drafted with AI assistance. Sources are linked in the piece.