Like Licensed to ill, Are You Experienced, and Kill ‘Em All, Magnate: The First City is a debut cut built to last. Designer James Naylor presents a very singular take on property development, propped up by an exorbitant production and clever satire. Moreover, he delivers all of it in less than two hours. Let’s talk…
If I’m lucky, each year offers a game which grasps my skull in a vice to wring ample fragments of consciousness from its hollows. These are the ones I sit in my car meditating over, lingering not to hear the end of a song but to consider artistry and dynamics. 2021 has presented two such…
Did you know Galaxy Trucker is 14 years old? It can almost legally operate a vehicle. What’s perhaps more surprising is that despite producing dozens of game since, this is still Vlaada Chvátil’s finest work. It encapsulates his aesthetic, sense of humor, and focus on creative agency in such a succinct and trim framework. This…
Bayonets & Tomahawks is an enthralling wargame. It’s a beautiful two player strategic simulation covering the entirety of the French & Indian War. It has novel mechanisms, astute detail, and a very slim and focused core. All of this surprisingly coming from first time designer Marc Rodrigue and published by GMT Games. The achievement of…
The PG series is a collection of articles featuring analysis incorporating the perspective of my eight year old daughter, Lila. It goes like this: each player is dealt a marker and a colorful laminated sheet. They also get a card that says “Rogue”, “Wizard”, “Fighter”, or “Cleric” as this is clothed in D&D and not…
I’m a Mantic fan. Hellboy: The Board Game is a top shelf dungeon crawler. The Walking Dead: All Out War is one of the most clever skirmish miniatures games of the past decade. Among their sports titles, OverDrive recently impressed. Now I’m here to claim that Deadzone may be the pinnacle of their work. Deadzone…
I don’t write about party games nearly as often as I play them. This is partially because it’s difficult to analyze this type of game through the lens of philosophy or as an introspective revelation of the self. It’s difficult to say anything interesting at all really. These products are simple things designed to scrape…
This is a nearly impossible task. Take a 40 year old board game – one which is a stunning masterpiece – and trim off three of the four hours while retaining something meaningful. It takes a certain degree of fortitude, or hubris, to look back at such a classic and even attempt to modernize it.…
Christian Marcussen is mystifying. Between 2010-2012, two prolific titles with this Dane’s name on the box were released. Each in turn domesticated their respective genres and remain to this day pinnacles of exemplary design. Merchants & Marauders came first, the definitive high-concept pirate game that remains relevant and exciting. It’s one of my favorite experiences…
Gascony’s Legacy is all wrong. In the current climate these types of games come stuffed with minis. Not three or four, but a whole damn tray and even better if there’s a second underneath. Here there’s nary a mini in sight. To snub the prevailing ethos in such a manner is almost offensive. That sense…
Player Elimination 