Topic Discussions
Topic Discussions 358 posts
Reviews
Reviews 317 posts
Let me illustrate
Let me illustrate 24 posts
Women in Board Games
Women in Board Games 60 posts

Tapestry (Saturday Review)

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Through five millennia you guide your civilization from the discovery of fire through vastly different eras to its ultimate end. You discover and develop different technologies, flex your military muscle, explore new lands and execute unexpected and sometimes devastating science experiments as your people advance from generation to generation. In Tapestry by Stonemaier Games, you write an alternative history that has echoes of mankind's but turns out completely different, but hopefully for the better.

Post-show blues

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I'm sure, many of you are tired of hearing all about Essen Spiel 2019. Everyone who went is talking about all the games they saw, played and bought, and anyone who didn't go is reading about all the games everyone saw, played and bought. So I want to talk about the people side of the exhibition and share my experiences of attending this major event for the first time.

Roam (Saturday Review)

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Here is another beautifully illustrated game by Ryan Laukat. You will immediately recognize it from his other games, such as Near and Far. You will also recognize a lot of the characters he created in his other games and which appear in Roam as well. Yet, this game from Red Raven Games is quite different from the others. There is no resource management, no movement and no storytelling. Instead, you get a lovely, light game that is very easy to explain and learn and relatively quick to play.

Tabletop Player Profile – Updated

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It has been nearly a year since I last updated my tabletop player profile using the Quantic Foundry‘s online form. Let’s see what has changed since December 2018. I have played a lot of games since then, so there must be some change. If you look at the image, you will see my results from end of last year in red, and my results from now in blue. It is immediately clear there has been a big change, not surprising given how long ago I took the test last.

Rising Sun (Saturday Review)

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Feudal Japan is in turmoil. Warring clans are roaming the land to claim territories and gain influence and power, while vying for the favour of the spirits, the Kami, whose support will help cement the superiority over the enemies. As clans form alliances and recruit legendary monsters to bolster their armies' ranks, everyone prepares for multiple battles which will change the face of Japan. Yet, territories are often held only fleetingly as alliances are betrayed and powers shift. It is up to you to use your cunning and strategic planning to come out the victor in Rising Sun by CMON.

One of a kind

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I have previously spoken about unique games, which were something new at the time - see my article "There can be only one". It was KeyForge by Fantasy Flight Games and designed by Richard Garfield of Magic: The Gathering fame, which started this new way of making games. There is probably a better and longer description of the term, but in short, the term unique in this context describes games where every published copy is different in a number of ways. In KeyForge this is, for example, the name and logo, as well as the composition of the different cards, but different decks will still have some cards the same. I want to look at some aspects of unique game design in more detail to explore the concept.

Jetpack Joyride (Saturday Review)

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When struggling gramophone salesman Barry discovers a not-so-secret secret lab (I recommend you watch the trailer on Halfbrick's website) which has developed a number of different and increasingly crazy jetpacks, his life changes. He starts with a basic jetpack and flies through the various rooms of the lab to avoid obstacles and find the next and better jetpack to try out for himself. A lot of frantic horizontally scrolling fun ensues, which the boardgame conversion of Jetpack Joyride by Lucky Duck Games tries to reproduce on your dining room table.

Games with friends

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Trying to organize a group of people to regularly play games with isn't always straightforward. I am lucky to have a weekly games night group of four, including myself, with people who live quite close, making it easy for us to meet up. I have previously described how you can play games with different groups of people (see "Night, night"). So this time I want to focus on what to consider when trying to organize regular games nights with friends.

Breaking down

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Classifying things we encounter is important. It gives us a way to describe them to others, allows us to decide whether things are similar or different and provides a method to create connections between them. Classifications help us with decision making and prediction. However, classifications alone don't fully describe things and especially when we talk about classifying tabletop games, there are a lot more nuances and details that cannot be described by classifications alone. So I want to explore how far classifications can go until their usefulness deteriorates.