A massive magnetic storm had hit our moon base. All of our supplies had been hit and were now scattered in a 20-mile radius around the base. The base itself was intact and secure, but we only had a handful of supplies left, including oxygen. We had to work together to recover as much as we could to have any chance of leaving the Moon and returning to Earth. It was going to be tough, but we were all ready for our Moon Adventure by Oink Games.
Things had gone missing - food, to be precise. Someone was taking bits of food here and there and stashing it away somewhere, hiding it from the eyes of everyone, especially the keepers. It quickly became clear that it wasn't any of the visitors to the zoo, but one of the animals - or a group of animals. The meerkats were acting suspiciously as well and were clearly involved. However, as security camera footage was closely monitored over the coming days, it came as a shock that the zoo had a group of Pilfering Pandas by Wren Games.
When we play board games together, each of us will have certain expectations, and it's when our expectations are met, that we feel we've had a good time. In this article, I want to talk about what these expectations can be and what we can do, as a group playing together, to enable everyone to enjoy themselves. (This topic was inspired by the always wonderful Bez.)
We had been transported to another world, another time maybe. The stars were all wrong, not matching any of the charts we had on board our ship, the Manticore. Captain Sofi Odessa decided we should make landfall and spotted a natural harbour nearby. As we got closer, we saw an old woman waving to us from the shore. It seemed like she had been expecting us. Once we had dropped anchor, we went to the starboard side to speak to the woman and find out what she wanted. She was clearly excited to see us and immediately told us that we were here to wake the Sleeping Gods by Red Raven Games.
Oliver KinnePost read time 2 min readLeave a Comment on Board Game Player Profile – Update (Topic Discussion)The last time I checked my board game player profile on Quantic Foundry was back in April 2020, so nearly a year ago. So I thought, it's time to run through the questions again and see if much has changed. You can check yours as well. Just follow the links at the bottom of this article.
Our peace had been shattered. We had been living underground for centuries, happily going about our daily chores. We had spread across many moons around the planet and were very content and happy until one day a meteor impacted and threatened everyone's lives. It was time for us to come above ground and start mining our moons for resources, so we could build new technologies that would save us. We were able to communicate with the other moons and co-ordinate our efforts, so we were hopeful. Yet, time was running out and we had to be quick and efficient if we wanted to escape our doom and flee to Uranus by The Dark Imp.
We all have a soft spot for the latest and greatest board game that's coming out next. After all, it'll be better and more wonderful than the game that came before it, or so we're told. We are entranced by the playthroughs, we gawp at the beautiful components and we imagine how much fun we'll have playing this amazing new game. Yet, sometimes these new games aren't actually that new and we're too blind to see it. So in this article, I want to explore what this means for us, as the board game buying public. (This topic was inspired by the always wonderful Bez.)
As is customary at the end of a calendar year, it's time for my top 5 board games of this, rather odd, year and for me to announce the winner of the Top Table Award 2020. Let me say that this year, I happily allowed games into the top 5 list that were published before 2020, as long as these games were new to me this year. There is a clear winner for me, not just based on the number of plays, the amount of enjoyment the game brought and the nostalgia factor that the game has for me, but because this game took a well-established genre and took it to the next step, making it more accessible to a wider range of people. However, let me not spoil it for you, but start at number 5 and work my way to the top slot.
As you can probably tell from my review of The Crew, I love trick-taking games. I grew up with them. I learned to shuffle cards when I was about six and started to play Skat with my family when I was about eight. In secondary school, I learned Doppelkopf. I didn't play them for many years after I left school and it was only when I played Vivaldi at Gaming Rules' evening during last year's Essen Spiel Messe that I rediscovered the genre. So I wanted to talk more about my fascination with these games.
Oliver KinnePost read time 4 min read2 Comments on The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine (Saturday Review)Space, the final frontier. We're on a 50 mission journey to find a new planet in our solar system. We have to work together to seek out new theories, new experiments and new proof. It's no trick and we have to boldly go, where no scientist has gone before. These are the adventures of The Crew by Kosmos.
