Pixies (Saturday Review)

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As we were walking through the forest on a mild, damp spring morning, with the mist still rising and the trees and other plants slowly waking up as the sun was peeking over the horizon, we saw, to our great surprise, little creatures emerging from flowers and the hollows of the trees. Some wore cupule hats, while others had slung oak leaf ponchos over their bodies. We even spotted some with little string instruments made from walnut halves. They were magical to behold as they walked along the forest floor and formed little groupings, three side-by-side and three deep. These were clearly Pixies by Johannes Goupy from Bombyx.

Not for the Win – games aren’t necessarily about winning (Topic Discussion)

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If you're a competitive person, you want to win. If you're a really competitive person, winning is your absolute goal. Competitive games will probably be your favourite, but even when you play cooperative games, you probably still try to do everything in your power to beat the game and take the win for the team. However, I don't think playing games is necessarily about winning. There are many other benefits of enjoying a board game together that I want to talk about in this article.

Hidden Agendas (Saturday Review)

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We all had our different plans. Getting the right bills through the Senate was never easy. There would always be compromises and endless debates. We all wanted to further our own goals. The odd promise of a bribe, digging up dirt on the other parties' representatives and some last-minute voting changes all helped to get what your party wanted. At the end of the day, we all had our own Hidden Agendas by Josh Rossman from Big Boom Games.

Cultural Games – board games as cultural assets (Topic Discussion)

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The term Kulturgut is very hard to translate into English. In fact, I don't think there is a similar concept in the UK. "Cultural asset" doesn't really do it justice, because the term describes things that have a cultural value and need to be preserved. Literature is a type of Kulturgut for example. As a British person, you can easily see how the works of Shakespeare have a cultural value and require to be preserved. Yet, when it comes to our hobby, people don't necessarily think of modern board games as Kulturgut. In this article, I want to look at this a little closer.

Berlin Brettspiel Con 2024 (Saturday Review)

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Over the weekend during a hot July in Germany at a different, but much cooler location compared to last year, around 16,000 people attended the "big summer board game festival for gamers, geeks and the whole family", as the event describes itself. Located in my home city, the convention I am talking about is, of course, Berlin Brettspiel Con 2024.

Knarr (Digital Eyes)

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Vikings were known for plundering, but what many people forget is that they also did a lot of trade. In fact, the Viking Era saw an increase in trade in the English Channel, the North Sea and the Baltic. There was one vessel that was specifically made for the exchange of large quantities of goods. It was a cargo ship with a shorter hull than the commonly known longships, which were mainly warships, and that had only a partial deck or sometimes none at all. It was specially adapted to the high seas to transport goods safely from shore to shore. To the Vikings, it was known as the Knarr by Thomas Dupont from Bombyx.

Flamme Rouge (Saturday Review)

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We had started in Florence when everyone was still fresh and raring to go. An endless sea of bicycles with teams sticking closely together had lined up at the starting line. The support teams had only done their last checks minutes before and everything was shiny and gleaming. Now, several thousand kilometres later, everyone started to show signs of slowing down. Yet, at the horizon a welcome sign became visible. We knew it wasn't going to be much further. There it was, the red flag, the Flamme Rouge by Asger Harding Granerud from Lautapelit.fi.

Early Finish – why we don’t always have to finish games (Topic Discussion)

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There is an unwritten social contract that, when you choose to play a board game, you agree to play it to its conclusion. Everyone around the table expects to finish the game. Everyone wants to have an equal chance of winning. People want to be able to come back from behind and snatch their victory right on their last turn. I think that expectation is perpetuated by how games are designed. So in this article, I want to explore this a bit further.

Shikoku 1889 (Saturday Review)

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The period of sakoku has only recently ended, and now with the Meiji Restoration in full swing, the country is investing heavily in new technologies. Locomotives have become the leading symbol of the nation's modernization. Across all four islands, new railway operations are created and entrepreneurs attempt to profit from the money being injected into the economy. Our small island is no different. It's the same here on Shikoku 1889 by Yasutaka Ikeda from Grand Trunk Games.

Round and Refined – when games are perfectly designed (Topic Discussion)

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Games come in all shapes and sizes. Designers create them in different ways and with different intentions. Some games are an interesting mix of mechanisms, others are a passion project that tries to evoke certain emotions when people play them. Games can have simple rules with deep emergent gameplay or they can be rules-heavy. While some games take minutes to play, others can take hours to complete. However games are designed, there are some that feel round and refined, while others seem awkward or overly difficult. So in this article, I want to investigate what it is that makes a game perfectly designed.