The rather wonderful people at Big Potato Games sent me a selection of their games to play, so I made the most of the Christmas break to test them out. A collection of people from 9 to 70-something helped me out, and here’s what we thought.
The brain you stole, Fritz. Think of it. The brain of a dead man waiting to live again in a body I made with my own hands! Dr Frankenstein gave life to one of the all-time classic movie monsters in the 1931 version of Frankenstein. In Horrified, by Ravensburger, players have to work together to bring down the monster, along with his bride!
Holidays, as I understand it, are coming. As I write this, Christmas is barrelling down on us like a festive red-and-white juggernaut, and it’s the time of year when families reach for games. If your experience of games at gatherings can be summed-up with Charades and Pictionary, you might be pleased to know that there are loads more to choose from.
In space, no-one can hear you scream. Luckily they can hear you shouting “Oh my god, I can’t believe you did that! You absolute nerf-herder!”, because you’ll be saying things like that quite often when you play Gravwell: 2nd Edition.
You’re sitting in a busy train station, wearing a pink carnation in your buttonhole, and reading a copy of The Times. A man in a fedora sits down on the bench behind you and says “The geese have flown south for the winter”. You reply with “Yes, but they’ll return in the spring”.
Complete challenges, earn points, laugh, and get to know your guests a bit better. Let me tell you, when you play Final Challenge, you’re going to know everyone around the room a lot better than when you started.
When I first saw the name ‘Subastral’, I immediately thought “Cool, definitely a space game”. I was wrong. Subastral in this context refers to exactly what it describes – below the stars. The focus is our own blue marble, our own speck of beauty on the canvas of cosmic insignificance: planet Earth.
Tiny Towns is a damning indictment on urban sprawl, overcrowding, and an ever-expanding society’s need for quick, affordable housing! Actually, it’s not. It’s a really cute abstract puzzle about space optimisation, forward planning, and the most adorable little wooden buildings.
They say good things come in small packages, and they don’t get much smaller than Zuuli, which is about the size of a pack of playing cards. Zuuli is a card game from Unfringed, where players are building and upgrading enclosures at their wildlife parks, while rescuing the animals who’ll live there
I really like Z-Ball. It quickly turned from a game I wanted to play a few times to give it a fair review, to a game my son and I take when we go somewhere, because we really enjoy playing it.
