I love a game that makes me feel like I’m running a whimsical, over-complicated invention lab. That’s exactly what Gizmos is. From the moment you reach into the marble dispenser to draw a new energy sphere, you can feel the gears of something magical begin to turn. While setting up the game, we just couldn’t stop playing with the dispenser.

The goal of the game is to build a better machine—though what that means is entirely up to you. Some machines focus on research, letting you peek deeper into the deck for high-value contraptions. Others focus on efficiency, giving you extra energy marbles or building discounts. My personal favorite? The chain reactors—the ones that let you take a single, simple action and then suddenly find yourself triggering three more actions in a row. It’s a symphony of satisfying cause and effect.

Each turn, you can file a card for later, pick a card to build, draw marbles from the dispenser, or do a little scientific research. What starts off as simple decisions quickly grows into a humming engine of quirky interactions. You might build something that gives you a bonus marble every time you construct a yellow card. Then that bonus marble helps you trigger a converter that turns it into any color you want. And that fuels the next build. Suddenly, you’re grinning like a mad scientist. Once a player gains the marble you hold it in the energy ring.

One moment from our game still makes me laugh. I had carefully built a chain that would earn me two points every time I grabbed a red marble. So naturally, I dove headfirst into a red-marble-focused strategy. Only problem? Everyone else figured out what I was doing and started hoarding the reds. I had to scramble and rebuild around blue instead, which—thankfully—ended up being even more chaotic. There’s something endlessly entertaining about having to rewire your plan mid-game, especially when the rewiring is literal.

And can we talk about that dispenser? There’s just something inherently joyful about watching those marbles clink into the tray. It’s like playing with a toy and building a machine all at once. Kids are drawn to it instantly, and grown-ups pretend they’re not just as enchanted, but we all know better.

Gizmos is clever and approachable, with enough depth to keep hobby gamers engaged and enough charm to pull in just about anyone. It scratches the same itch as Splendor but with marbles. And marbles make everything better. This is a photo from our table.

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