If I was going to design a Crusader Kings board game, this would not be it. There’s a certain level of profusion I’d expect from a work derived from the massively complex PC simulation. The video game is full of rigor and depth, demanding many hours of input before you’re simply comfortable and many more before you’ve…
Brutal and cute are two words you don’t often see together. Perhaps when some weirdo is talking about Harley Quinn, or when my five year old lays a sick burn on her daddy-o, and maybe when we’re talking about Slide Quest. This fresh release from Blue Orange Games is every bit brutal and every bit cute.…
Sean Sweigart, Aaron Dill, and John Kovaleski are the three men behind some of the best thematic games of the past decade. They brought us Spartacus, Sons of Anarchy, and Star Trek: Ascendancy, among others. These are some of my favorite titles and still see regular play. That was before. Sean sadly passed away in 2016 and it…
Power Rangers: Heroes of the Grid is all kinds of interesting. Beyond the immediate jolt of huge 50mm+ miniatures and yet another IP we’re supposed to love, there’s the big draw of Jonathan Ying. This dude brought us the more recent DOOM board game from FFG, a high velocity dungeon crawler that couldn’t find an audience. While I’m…
One of the wonderful things about historical games is the process of learning that accompanies play. These games are fascinating tools to help increase cultural proficiency, better understand human nature, and re-shape our worldview. They challenge us in all the best of ways, both cognitively and emotionally; Pax Pamir perhaps doubly so. This second edition…
Street Masters blew me away. Not because my expectations were low, but because the debut release from Blacklist Games was that damn good. So Brook City has it rough as the primary measuring stick is a hall of famer. It’s not completely fair but it’s entirely unavoidable. So let’s measure. First, let’s get into what Brook City is. This is…
Pericles feels big. Partially it owes this quality to its stark simulation of the Peleponnesian War, a brutal conflict that reshaped the ancient Greek world and lead to Sparta’s prominence. Per standard GMT disposition, this one completely embodies the political and historical strife emblazoned upon its cardboard exactitude. Surprising it is not to find a doe-eyed…
Blue Orange knows what’s up. This publisher has been producing children and family games for years – they even supply Chick-Fil-A with miniature versions of Spot It! and other clever sundry for their kids meals. I’d put them right up there with HABA when it comes to this category, which is about as high praise as you…
I didn’t know it would happen. Legends Untold was just another game with a generic name and generic premise. I wrote a press release about its Kickstarter campaign at Geek & Sundry and sort of mailed it in. News pieces are the worst. The designer/publisher Kevin Young ended up sending me a copy of the…
There’s this moment where you’re sitting there, waiting to play. The room is full of silence and everyone is staring at a grid of cards. This is it, party gaming in the future. Codenames is a clever bastard. While it may be clever and popular just like Brandon Hughes in 7th grade, just like Brandon Codenames is a bore.…
