Board game reviews and previews
Board game reviews and previews
Short games
Maquis from Side Room Games is an unusual worker-placement game, set in Nazi-occupied France in World War II. It's unusual, because unlike just about every other worker-placement game out there, Maquis is designed for solo play. That's right, a proper Euro game that's just you against the game.
The word canopy conjures up three images for me. Parachutes, rainforests, and misheard hors d'ouevres. Canopy in this instance is about the one in the middle - rainforests.
Lots of good things come in bags. I'm a big fan of crisps, for example. But now, now dear reader, you can get a whole freaking dungeon in a bag! Bag of Dungeon is a dungeon-crawler game from Gunpowder Studios, which, unsurprisingly, comes in a bag.
"You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?". Why yes, yes I do Harry Callahan. It's a good thing too, as push-your-luck is one of my favourite things in a game.
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.
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.
Roll-and-write games are bigger now than they've ever been. The runaway success of games like Railroad Ink and Ganz Schön Clever paved the way for more ambitious, complex games like Hadrian's Wall. There are plenty of games out to the gap between those light and heavy titles, and Rolling Realms is one of the latest.
Do you know that feeling at the start of a game of Chess? Your opponent makes their first move and you immediately start trying to get into their head. What are they doing? What's their plan? That's how Senjutsu gets after just a game or two.
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.