Telestrations: Sketching Out a Good Time

What are games for? Are they to challenge us? Yes, which is why Chess has been around for ages. Are they to tweak our imagination? Of course, through great thematic games like Survive and Scotland Yard. But what is the primary purpose of games? Why do we really play games in the first place? Why, […]

Blokus: More than Just Tabletop Tetris

It’s easy to mistake Blokus as the board game version of Tetris on appearance alone. It’s full of brightly coloured blocks arranged in varying assortments which must be configured within proper spaces. But Blokus really is its own game and has strategy and gameplay all its own. While Tetris is about compacting these bricks into […]

Small World Underground: A Step Below the Original

I love Small World. I love the theme, the artwork, the variable player powers, the strategies. I love all of the expansions. So when I heard that a whole new base game with a new board set in a subterranean world with all new races and powers was going to be released, I was very […]

7 Wonders – Leaders: Adds Personality

Seven Wonders is probably the most popular new game of the past year. It has that ability to really catch people and pull them in, and so it caught on with gamer groups really well. But for as much as I loved that other people love it, I myself wanted to love it more. Well […]

Pandemic – On the Brink: Because Four Deadly Viruses Just Weren’t Enough

The Black Death ravages the middle east as the Red Tide covers eastern Asia. The Blue Flu sweeps across North America and most of Europe while the Yellow Fever hits South America and Africa hard. Crowds hush as the CDC spokesman gets up to the podium to make their press statement: “Saving the world from […]

Tobago: X Marks the Fun

Within the realms of board game geekdom, there are games which are considered vastly more popular than others. This may seem weird to those people who don’t know much about board games beyond Monopoly or even those who think that more serious board gamers just play Catan. But within board game circles, there are varying […]

Carcassonne – Abbey & Mayor: Farms? Where we’re going we don’t need farms.

Carcassonne’s plethora of expansions each seem to have their own purpose. Inns & Cathedrals was meant to add more risk into the game while Traders & Builders added more rewards for growing and finishing cities. Princess & Dragon added a destructive element to the game while The Tower provided a more combative experience. The purpose […]

Small World – Be Not Afraid…: Pygmies, Pixies, and Ghosts, Oh My!

Small World has proven to be a very expandable game since it can incorporate many more races and powers without really affecting the games gestalt. Be Not Afraid is another excellent expansion which adds many more fantastic races and powers and is perhaps Small World’s best expansion to date. Be Not Afraid goes a little […]

Scotland Yard: The Thrill of the Chase

Board games are great, though sometimes they can all start to feel the same. There are some games, however, which can rise above this and give a unique texture to your gaming experience. Scotland Yard is such a game. Scotland Yard adds the element of a tense, thrilling chase to your gaming group,. Even though […]

Grand Dames of Small World: Gender Equity on the Battlefield

Small World is an incredibly fun and highly addictive game whose appeal largely comes from the races available to play as. However, the producers of the game must have looked at those races and thought that the Amazons looked lonely. They were the only females in the entirety of this small world! They realized that […]

Stone Age: Tribal Tedium or a Prehistoric Pleasure?

Stone Age is a game of worker placement, resource collection, and civilization building. There are many other games with these same ideas. So is Stone Age special, or is it just another run of the mill Eurogame designed to bore your pants off? Let’s find out, shall we? Looking into the game mechanics without going […]

Small World – Cursed!: A Nasty Bit of Fun

Board game expansions are tricky. The whole point of them is to add new freshness to the game and give a richer experience. However, if this ends up changing the game too much, the original experience of the game can seem muddied and enthusiasm can quickly be drenched. Yet some games seem to be tailor-made […]

Ticket to Ride: All Aboard the Bandwagon

Every once in a while a game comes along with captures the attention of casual and serious gamers alike, which dominates the leisure room table, whose reputation spreads through word of mouth like wildfire. Ticket to Ride is certainly one of the best examples of this type of game. Released in 2004, Ticket to Ride […]

Backgammon: Famous Yet Unknown

It’s hard for me not to relate Backgammon to chess. After all, both are games which exist in the public domain, both have been around for centuries, and both are included among the most fundamental and historic of all board games. However despite backgammon’s fame and notoriety, I feel like very few people are actually […]

Zooloretto: Strategy in Camouflage

Zooloretto looks like a children’s game. And at first glance is may seem and feel like a children’s game. By behind all the flashy colours, underneath the furry spots and stripes, beyond the cute and cuddly animals, lies a game which is full of strategy and wit. The game may be quick and simple, but […]