Reviews reviewed (Topic Discussion)

The longer we enjoy our hobby and the more games we play, the more our taste in games is likely to change. As a reviewer, I can only write about a game as I feel about it at the time, but even if my taste in games changes, the review will remain on the blog. So the question is whether a review should stay frozen in time or if it should be revisited with a fresh perspective. Let me try and answer those questions in this article.

Micro City (Saturday Review)

We had all the plans ready, planning permissions had been sought and approved, contractors had been signed up, the project manager was ready and a rough schedule had been put together. We also knew what building materials we needed and where to get them, so it was time to build our Micro City by Thistroy Games.

Natalia Rojas (Let me illustrate)

Natalia Rojas is a self-taught artist and illustrator from Colombia living in Tampa, Florida. She specializes in highly detailed and realistic graphite and coloured pencil drawings and loves to create portraits of people, pets and wildlife, as well as meaningful pieces that could be anything from a portrait of a loved one to a special item or a still life. She has worked on the board game Wingspan by Stonemaier Games, as well as all its expansions.

Flexible gaming (Topic Discussion)

As we all know, different people play games for different reasons and with different goals. Even the heaviest of games can be played in all sorts of different ways, and I don't mean with different strategies in mind. Sure, in an 18xx game, you probably want to do everything to win and it's unlikely that people will play it who just want to build scenic routes going through cities that they like - but it is a possibility. In this article, I want to look at the different motivations players have and how different games accommodate them to a larger or smaller extent.

Seasons of Rice (Saturday Review)

The seasons began again. We had to build our rice paddies, fill them with water, plough them with our buffalos, plant our rice and wait for it to grow. We had to be clever about how we divided the land to make the best use of the most fertile soil. We also had to have enough help to get the harvest in, but overall, we had to be patient and wait for the end of the Seasons of Rice by Button Shy.

Virtually there (Topic Discussion)

So, the convention season for 2020 has drawn to a close, and it’s obviously been a very different set of experiences compared to The Before Times. The last show I actually physically attended was AireCon back in spring, and even that was under the shadow of the then-upcoming nationwide lockdown in the UK, a last hurrah before we all spent the summer indoors. Since then, many and various show organisers have done their damnedest to pivot and transform their events into an online format, all with varying degrees of success. And frankly, despite their best efforts, no single event has managed to get close to the real deal. Lessons have been learned, of course, and if things continue as they seem to be on track to do, Year Two of the Online Convention will invariably be better - but what would I like to see from them?

Q.E. (Saturday Review)

"...crisis on Wall Street as Lehman totters towards..." - "...worries could wreak havoc on markets..." - "...banking giants rush to raise capital..." - "...markets in disarray as lending locks up..." - "...sweeping plan to fight crisis..." - "...vast bailout..." - I switched off the television. The news wasn't good and it was clear what we had to do to stop the world markets from collapse. It was time for some Q.E. by BoardGameTables.com.

Jessi Cabasan (Let me illustrate)

Jessi Cabasan is a freelance artist based in Co. Meath, Ireland. She works in a variety of industries including games, logo making and traditional pencil portraits. She designed the artwork for the game board and cards for Luzon Rails published on Kickstarter in 2020. She is skilled in graphic design and illustration with Affinity Designer on the PC, Artstudio Pro and Procreate on the iPad and photo editing with Adobe Lightroom.

Keeping pace (Topic Discussion)

If you have played a number of games, you will have noticed how the pace in some games changes over time. A game might start slow and then speed up towards the end, or it keeps an even pace throughout. Some games even slow right down in the last round. In this article, I want to look at this more closely and see what affects the pace of a game.

On Tour (Saturday Review)

It was going to be great. We were going to visit most of the USA and play to millions of people over a few months. It was going to be fun, but also a lot of hard work and the planning was the most difficult. In the end, we decided to roll the dice to decide what states we were going to visit in what order, but rather than making it completely random, we turned it into a little game. It would let us build an almost circular route, so we could finally go On Tour by BoardGameTables.com.