Big chunky pieces of wood and plastic clacking together, no complicated rules, and an innate human fascination with playing with things. Abstracts are great. Mandala Stones is the latest such game from Board&Dice, and it’s a beautiful boxful of pink, yellow, blue and purple discs.
The last weekend of July 2021 saw the rescheduled UK Games Expo roll into the NEC in Birmingham. This was my first trip to the Expo, and despite the anxiety of attending a major public event during the middle of a big spike of Covid-19 cases, I had a great time.
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me! Punchboard.co.uk is one year old today! What started out as a project to keep me busy during the pandemic, has lasted a whole year, and I can’t quite believe it.
We’re heading back to Garphill Games’ West Kingdom, taking a look at the first game in the trilogy. I started the series with Paladins, then Viscounts, and now I’m looping back around to the game that started it all – Architects of the West Kingdom.
Ride The Rails, from Capstone Games, takes the ‘invest in a train company’ formula and boils it down into a much simpler, quicker game. It’s from a sub-genre known as Cube Rails, and it’s number 2 in Capstone’s Iron Rail series
Through a mixture of placing tiles and rolling dice, players assume the role of a character in each scenario, and choose how best to fulfil their own destiny, while others race to do the same.
Looks can be misleading. The first time you take a look at Root’s box and artwork, you could be forgiven for thinking this is a cutesy woodland game.
One of those odd questions that people seem to ask is, “Do you prefer dogs or cats?”. I’m not sure why it matters, but whether you prefer canine of feline, Atikin Games have you covered with their latest 3-in-1 Kickstarter for Playful Pets.
The aim of the game is to either grow your clan large enough to form the nation of Bjarmia (I googled it, it was a real thing), or kick enough ass to win through sheer dominance.
Those three words on their own – “solo board gaming” – seem pretty paradoxical to many. Taking a hobby that relies on people around a table, and doing it on your own.
