The Nostromo was returning to Earth with a seven-member crew in stasis. Detecting a transmission from a nearby moon, the ship's computer awakens the crew and they land on the moon. While one part of the crew tracks down the source of the signal, the rest decipher part of the transmission and discover it's a warning - but it's too late! Despite protestations, the returning crew brings with them an Alien: Fate of the Nostromo by Scott Rogers from Ravensburger . Read the full review here: https://t...
Oct 22, 2022•8 min
Growing up in Germany, I started playing traditional trick-taking games like Skat or Doppelkopf from a relatively young age. I'm used to the idea of suits, trump, following suit, taking tricks, gleaning information from what cards others play and much more. Traditional trick-taking games sort of have their own language. So I love to see modern games developing this mechanism further and incorporating it into other mechanisms, creating completely new game experiences. Read the full article here: ...
Oct 18, 2022•7 min
Natural resources had long been depleted on Earth, but the asteroid belt was rich in ion and ore. The battle for control of these invaluable commodities had begun. We were part of this fight and were operating from our own Outpost 18 by Adam Wilk . Read the full review here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/10/15/outpost-18-saturday-review/ Useful Links Outpost 18 on PNPArcade : https://www.pnparcade.com/products/outpost-18 BGG listing: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/278142/outpost-18 Sta...
Oct 15, 2022•6 min
I often play games with my wife. We have a fair few two-player-only games, but mostly we play games that were designed for two people or more. Some games do it really well and the experience is no different to higher player counts. Other games introduce two-player-specific setup or other rules and that can work too. In this article, I want to look at how games, that weren't specifically designed for two people, change, or don't change, when played with two people. Read the full article here: htt...
Oct 11, 2022•7 min
Changing your plumage from pure white to a rainbow of colours wasn't easy. It took time and patience. It was the fruit from the rainbow tree that contained the necessary pigment. Unfortunately, the fruit wasn't always in season and when it was, other birds were quick to eat it before I had a chance to get to it. It was a race, be it a slow and thoughtful one, to become Aves by Shi Chen from Play With Us Design . Read the full review here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/10/08/aves-saturday-re...
Oct 08, 2022•7 min
So sometimes you play a game and you just don't get on with it. That's understandable, because not every game is for everyone. At the same time, I do think there is a game for everyone. I also think that games deserve a second chance. In this article, I want to look at why we might bounce off games and why the game experience is a lot better when we play the game again at some point later. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/10/04/second-chance-giving-games-another-try...
Oct 04, 2022•6 min
The Great Plague was slowly becoming a thing of the past and you had decided to move into the country and start a new village. You had found the perfect location that was big enough to build new houses, workshops and other structures, while also being close enough to farmable land, a large wooded area and there were indications that coal could be mined nearby. It had everything to support a growing community of craftspeople and labourers. Now all you had to do was find Villagers by Haakon Gaarde...
Oct 01, 2022•7 min
Nobody likes losing. Most of us don't mind it, but I don't think anyone actually relishes it when they come last. When we play board games with others, we want to have an enjoyable time. That's something we should keep in mind. So in this article, I want to talk about how to try and be a good loser. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/09/27/salty-tears-losing-gracefully-topic-discussion/ Useful Links Player elimination article: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/09/13/...
Sep 27, 2022•9 min
After Earth had been mostly laid to waste, major corporations took charge and colonized much of the solar system. Interplanetary trade was the only source of money and therefore power. Earth's few remaining societies still held a fair amount of political influence, but controlling as many of the independent planetary parliaments as possible was probably even more important. If you timed it right and invested your money wisely, you could gain power in the solar system's ultimate authority, the Pl...
Sep 24, 2022•10 min
For some of us, not being able to see friends or family, or anyone else for that matter, in person is becoming a distant memory. I appreciate that for some of you, it's still very much the present, depending on where you are in the world or the health of the people you would otherwise meet, you live with or your own. In this article, I want to write about how it feels to be playing board games face-to-face with other people, as this has now been possible for me for quite some time. Read the full...
Sep 20, 2022•7 min
"Afloat, upon the surface of a smooth and silent river, slowly breathing, you observe the shifting currents [...]. There is little much to do, but let the river take you. Surrendering to its flow, slowly you realise that perhaps there is no separation between surface and sky, between your mind and the river itself and if your mind is the river and the river your mind, perhaps if you can balance the thoughts and feelings and sensations that arise, you may have some say in where you are taken" as ...
Sep 17, 2022•7 min
In many modern board games, all players participate until the very end. Everyone continues to take their turns until the game has finished and it's time to decide the winner or winners. That's true for co-operative as well as competitive games. Player elimination games are very different in that respect. In these games, some people around the table could be out of the game early on and end up sitting it out until it's all over. If done well, player elimination can be a very interesting mechanism...
Sep 13, 2022•7 min
A game about dancing sheep, rockets, lasers, cabbages and sometimes fun. I would like to add "death" to this list, but other than that, it's pretty much a good description of 3 Minutes to Freedom (or Death) by Samuel Edmondson and Daniel Somerville Roberts from Icarus Games . Read the full review here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/09/10/3-minutes-to-freedom-or-death-saturday-review/ Useful Links 3 Minutes to Freedom (or Death) : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/3minutestofreedom/3-minu...
Sep 10, 2022•6 min
Here is another article in my series about teaching games . Last time I spoke about the responsibilities the person has who teaches the game. This time I want to cover what is expected of the people learning the game. After all, the teacher will not get anywhere if no one is willing to actually learn the game. So, as a learner there are certain things you have to try and do to make the rules teach easier for everyone. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/09/06/teaching-...
Sep 06, 2022•8 min
It was hard to get the favour of the Emperor. Many noble houses were vying for their attention by offering their resources and manual labour to help restore the Emperor's wonderful monuments. As a way to remember the work everyone did and to honour the grace and power of the Emperor, artists were commissioned to create beautiful paintings. It was your hope to catch the Emperor's eye and receive the ultimate recognition: being invited as a guest at the Eternal Palace by Steven Aramini from Alley ...
Sep 03, 2022•12 min
Continuing my series of articles about teaching games , in this article I want to talk about what responsibilities the teacher has. It's not always obvious, but when you teach a game, you're not done after explaining the rules to the group. You have to continue to keep an eye on things, to make sure everyone plays correctly. You also have to be ready to answer questions during the game. That's a lot of responsibility to shoulder. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/08/...
Aug 30, 2022•8 min
The Durrani Empire had just collapsed and large swathes of Central Asia had fallen into disarray. It was an ideal opportunity for the ferengi to impose their power over the region and fight out their rivalries somewhere far away from their daily politics. The foreigners were completely unaware of how the local Afghan leaders were manipulating them to their own benefit. They played their own "Great Game" with these superpowers and knew that the imperial might would not survive for long. There was...
Aug 27, 2022•14 min
Depth in board games is often confused with complexity. They are related, but they're also very different. I wrote a whole article about complexity about two years ago. So now it's time for me to look at depth in more detail. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/08/23/the-deep-blue-depth-in-board-games-topic-discussion/ Useful Links Article about complexity in board games: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2020/08/11/complex-complexity-topic-discussion/ Splotter : https://w...
Aug 23, 2022•7 min
I wasn't sure what it was. It was certainly yellow. Maybe it was a banana. Or it was a pencil. Actually, it could have even been a lemon. I just couldn't remember. There were just too many cards on the table. I wish I could Recollect from Pikkii . Read the full review here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/08/20/recollect-saturday-review/ Useful Links Recollect : https://pikkii.com/products/recollect-memory-challenge-game Pikkii : https://pikkii.com/ BGG listing: https://boardgamegeek.com/boar...
Aug 20, 2022•6 min
It's been a long-standing tradition in the board game hobby to show others your lovely collection. People love posting photos of their board game shelves. It's no surprise really. People are proud of the games they've got. Some of the games in your collection will be rarities, they might be out of print, maybe you have games signed by the designer or you just love the latest and greatest. In a similar vein are so-called "haul photos" showing off the games you managed to get your hands on at a co...
Aug 16, 2022•8 min
A brand new greenfield site was ready for development. The architects had submitted their drawings and the planners were satisfied that everything was in order. Everyone was in agreement that this new place should grow organically, but had to follow strict rules. New houses could only be placed in certain ways to create this brand new Town 66 by Christoph Cantzler and Anja Wrede from Oink Games . Read the full review here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/08/13/town-66-saturday-review/ Useful ...
Aug 13, 2022•7 min
It's always interesting to see how different games decide when they end. There are so many different ways of ending a game. Some games are played over a fixed number of rounds and others end when a certain goal or goals are achieved. There are also games that have a slightly more random timer. What happens when a game ends is also not always the same. In some games, all players get one more turn or the current round is played out. Other games end immediately and nobody gets another chance. In th...
Aug 09, 2022•7 min
As an artist, I knew this was going to be a challenging project. Making stained glass window masterpieces required clever and careful planning and meticulous execution. The prospect of having one of your pieces be seen by people around the world was a daunting prospect, but working for such a prestigious family made up for it. I was honoured to be employed by the famous family of Sagrada by Adrian Adamescu and Daryl Andrews from Floodgate Games . Read the full review here: https://tabletopgamesb...
Aug 06, 2022•7 min
Reviewing board games is something I take quite seriously. It's important to me that people reading my reviews know that what they read are my own, independent thoughts. I also want to ensure that my views properly reflect my experience of a game. I want my reviews to be relatively thorough and a fair assessment of the game. In this article, I want to look at how often I feel I need to have played a game before I'm ready to review it. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/202...
Aug 02, 2022•8 min
It was a glorious time of progress, industry and opportunity. The turn of the 20th century promised so much and if you were flush with cash, there were plenty of opportunities to invest and reap huge rewards. That was especially true for the railroad industry in the United States. In one place alone, there were five companies working together to build the greatest station in the world. They all bought stock in one of the potentially most lucrative companies in Chicago. Their hopes and dreams all...
Jul 30, 2022•10 min
The goal of board game reviews is to give the reader the information they need to make a decision about whether a game is for them or not. Reviews are always going to be subjective and people may agree with them or they may not - or most likely they'll agree with some things and not others. Either way, reviews have to convey what a game is like, from a product perspective as well as a gameplay experience angle. In this article, I want to focus on the latter and explain why I think gameplay exper...
Jul 26, 2022•8 min
We had just landed in Normandy. It was the summer of 1944, but it was relatively cold. We were thousands of miles from home and the landscape was unknown to us. Yet, we had to push deeper into a country we didn't know in our goal to push the German forces out of France. There was regular machine gun fire and mortar bombardment. It was really scary, but we remained Undaunted: Normandy by Trevor Benjamin and David Thompson from Osprey Games . Read the full review here: https://tabletopgamesblog.co...
Jul 23, 2022•13 min
I think a lot of people in the board game hobby play together for fun and for the social aspect. Sure, many of us want to win the game. We don't play to lose. However, I think only very few people are hugely competitive. Playing board games is more of a hobby. In this article, I look at different ways of improving your game and what it might take to become better at winning. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/07/19/winning-at-all-cost-topic-discussion/ Useful Links Sc...
Jul 19, 2022•8 min
It was a beautiful day. The sea was calm and the sun was shining. The water was crystal clear and even while you were sitting on the side of the boat, in your full diving gear, you could see the corals and wonderful sea creatures in the water. You knew it was going to be a long day and you would probably split it into two or three dives. You did one last check of your gear and then you leant back and dropped into the Aquamarine by Matthew Dunstan and Rory Muldoon from Postmark Games . Read the f...
Jul 16, 2022•8 min
As we know, and as I always say, there are so many games, chances are there is something for everyone. Not only that, there will be games for all sorts of different types and sizes of groups. That has always been true for family games that can be enjoyed by a wide range of ages and interests. In this article, I want to look at what it is I enjoy so much about playing games with my family. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/07/12/family-fun-enjoying-games-as-a-family-t...
Jul 12, 2022•6 min
