Touchy feely

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Pretty much all tabletop games require the use of your senses - sight, hearing and touch at least. You need to look at the board or your cards, listen to what other players do and use your hands to move your meeples or roll dice. Many recent games incorporate elements to help colour blind people, and of course hearing is often also not required and can be replaced with sign language to communicate with other players. However, no modern tabletop game makes your senses an integral mechanism - that is, until the release of Nyctophobia: The Hunted by Pandasaurus Games.

Appy gaming

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Tabletop games can be enjoyed in a large variety of ways. There are many people who prefer to play solo, usually playing against some sort of AI or automa, others prefer two-player games, often co-operative, but also competitive of course, then there are people who prefer games with several players, and of course there are plenty of people who enjoy a mix of all of the above.

There can be only one

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Ever so often something new hits the tabletop game industry and when this happens, it is always hard to say if it is just a flash in the pan or a new breakthrough that will turn out to be a game changer. However, I will stick my head out and make a prediction - and be happy to swallow my hat, if I turn out to be wrong.

Teach me

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After playing games for a while, it is time for something new. If you are part of a games group, you may find that others in the group buy new games from time to time and bring them along - or maybe you find a new game that you really like and want to bring along. Either way, the game has to fit the group of course, because otherwise it will not get played at all, or some people in the group will not enjoy it and maybe feel sidelined. So assuming the new game that is being introduced is a good fit, what will happen at your next games night? How will you go about playing? There are several options.

Cutting cakes

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There is a great mechanism in tabletop games called "I cut, you choose", also known as "I split, you choose", which creates a very interesting dynamic. The mechanism is based on the method used by two people to fairly divide something - let's say a cake. One person cuts the cake into two slices. That person can decide to make one slice bigger than the other, but it's the other person who chooses which slice they want. So if the cutter makes one slice bigger than the other, the chooser can decide to just take the bigger slice, which of course encourages the cutter to make both slices equal.

Merge in turn

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Prompted by the recent announcement of Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig, I thought I would look at co-productions in the games industry as a whole. So, in case you don't know, Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig is a collaboration between Bézier Games and Stonemaier Games. Designed by Ben Rosset and Matthew O’Malley, with artwork from Agnieszka Dabrowiecka, Laura Bevon and Barlomiej Kordowski, this game is an amalgamation of Between Two Cities and Castles of Mad King Ludwig.

Out with the old?

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There has been a boom in tabletop games recently. A huge number of games were published through Kickstarter campaigns on top of the slew of games that publishers released to the market. It has become a matter of "too many games, too little time" - or maybe even "too many games, too little money". New, hot games are all the talk and many games groups flit from game to game, hunting for the latest and greatest.

You're barred

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If you play tabletop games with friends or maybe even in a games group, you may have come across certain taboos. There are things that people don't like you doing. Some of these are to with ensuring that there is no cheating, others are about keeping a game in pristine condition, others are just some sort of personal house rules or traditions. Different people or groups will have different rules, and many will seem obvious or sensible, but others may feel unusual.

Box clever?

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As everyone knows, tabletop games come in boxes - most of them cardboard, some metal, others maybe plastic, and a small handful simply come in an envelope. Game boxes are often beautifully illustrated, and for many it is important to display the boxes prominently to show off the artwork or at the very least marvel at their collection of games. However, some people see the box as merely a way of storing their games. So the games end up in a cupboard or under the bed, rather than on display. It is more about finding a place to store them.