I love Stone Age. I’ve been looking forward to the new Limited Edition Stone Age: Anniversary for months now and have done quite a bit of research into what’s new and different in it. How could the designer and publishers improve on this classic after 10 years in print? Well, let’s take a look. I’m not going to go into […]
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Lately I can’t get enough of Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition. I love how immersive it is. It’s as close to a D & D (Dungeons & Dragons) experience as a board game has ever come – that I’ve played so far. The app takes the place of a game master: describing rooms; items and monsters you encounter; directing the […]
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When I initially saw La Granja: No Siesta! on Board Game Geek, I thought it looked interesting. I enjoy short, light games with hard decisions as much as I enjoy my longer, more involved Euro strategy games. Unfortunately, in this case, I was a little turned off it after watching Rahdo Run Through it. It didn’t appear there were that […]
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I’m a fan of dicey Euro games. That is, games in which dice rolls determine your options for action – my husband calls this dice selection – and there’s some means to modify the dice results – though it may cost a bit. My favorite dicey Euro game of all time is Castles of Burgundy, which I still have yet […]
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I was raised on a cattle ranch on the edge of a one-horse town in the Valley of the Sun. My dad was a cowboy: an accomplished rider, handling everything around the ranch from sowing and bailing hay to breaking and training horses, to herding, cutting, and branding cattle. So, when I opened a door in my Brettspiele Advent Calendar […]
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I first played Istanbul at Atlanta Game Fest last year. It’s Euro-style play, colorful tiles and bits, and puzzley immersive play quickly enraptured my mind. After many plays since, I’ve decided that Istanbul boils down to a lesson in efficiency. Let’s see why. In Istanbul, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to be the first to acquire […]
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Las Vegas, a 2012 Spiel des Jahres Nominee, has been a hit with gamers of all types since its release. Casual gamers love it for its simple and easy play. Family gamers love that its flexible enough to play with kids. Hard-core gamers love its great mix of luck, strategy, friendly competitiveness, and how easy it is to entice non-gamers into […]
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Have you ever played a game that was so simple, components-wise, so elegant, rules-wise, yet so engaging, play-wise, that you thought to yourself, “Why didn’t I think of that?!!!” For me, Las Vegas is that game. Genius game designer Rüdiger Dorn, took essentially 5 sets of 8 dice, 6 pieces of cardboard illustrated with casinos numbered 1 thru 6, and […]
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I’ve been teaching and playing Qwixx a lot lately. It’s such a simple game – 6 dice and a scoresheet – yet so much fun. I wish I’d thought of it! Kudos to Steffen Benndorf, Qwixx’s designer. Qwixx is a quick-playing dice game with absolutely no boring downtime between turns. Your goal is to X off as many numbers in each of […]
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Stone Age is one of the first worker placement games I ever played – Agricola was the first. Designed by Bernd Brunnhofer, under the pseudonym Michael Tummelhofer, Stone Age was first published in the U.S. in 2008 by Rio Grande Games. Even though Stone Age is less than ten years old, I consider it a classic. It’s my go-to game when introducing new gamers to […]
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Unexploded Cow was the first Cheapass game I ever played. (It always gives me a little thrill to say that. Then in the face of a shocked response, I grin and explain that Cheapass Games is the name of game’s publisher. Unexploded Cow is a unique and hilarious light-hearted card game designed by James Ernest, owner and founder of Cheapass […]
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While I love my Euro-games, some of them feel like the theme was added as an afterthought. Not so with Discoveries: The Journals of Lewis & Clark cunningly designed by Cédrick Chaboussit, and beautifully illustrated by Vincent Dutrait. Discoveries, a gamers’ Euro worker-placement dice game, feels like the theme was the starting point and the mechanics were built around, and in support of, that concept. […]
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If you love Zombie Dice, but feel a little uncomfortable with the theme, especially for games with the wee ones, then you need to take a look at Dino Hunt Dice. Dino Hunt Dice features the same push-your-luck play as Zombie Dice, but with a more kid-friendly theme. Instead playing a zombie on the hunt for brains while trying to […]
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With Halloween right around the corner and The Walking Dead scheduled to return to our living rooms Sunday, October 11, Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game shambled into my brain as a good choice for a review this month. Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game is a semi-cooperative board game of Zombies versus a bunch of B-movie Hero […]
Read moreIn Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers vs. X-Men and Marvel Dice Masters: Uncanny X-Men you play a mastermind controlling a team of Marvel characters. Your goal is to use your team of superheroes and villains to take out your adversary, another mastermind team leader. Reduce his hit points to zero and you win! As in most deckbuilding games, each player starts with […]
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