Robotech means nothing to me. Maybe less than nothing as the general anime aesthetic is not something I find appealing. Thus, I can’t speak to how well Robotech: Reconstruction captures its intellectual property or evokes themes therein, but I do know a little something about GMT’s COIN (COunter INsurgency) series, enough to identify the throughline…
I began my Cosmic Frog review by pointing out how weird of a board game it was. This has always been true of Jim Felli’s designs, even in the beginning with Shadows of Malice. The Mirroring of Mary King fits right in by once again establishing that it doesn’t. The Mirroring of Mary King is…
I wonder how the crew at Leder Games feel about every asymmetric post-2018 game being directly compared to Root. Cole Wehrle’s bellwether design has become the genre reference point, for better or for worse. Here though, it’s totally appropriate. A competitive bout between anthropomorphs. Check. Asymmetric factions with unique player boards and distinct mechanisms. Check.…
It’s easy to lose the thread on this one. The problem is that we’ve breached the upper threshold of games based on Frank Herbert’s Dune and they’re all starting to blend together. This one is the latest from Gale Force Nine and is effectively a re-working of the 1982 Eon title Borderlands. Fantasy Flight Games…
There’s a mystique about Crescent Moon. Some of this is attributable to the Eastern setting, and some to its strategically dense ecosystem. This is an opaque game, one that can be difficult to discern, but it possesses an inviting presence that is deceptive. These are the types of titles I seek, ones I can fall…
What strikes me about Wonderland’s War is that it’s intensely modern. I say this for several reasons. It’s visually gorgeous and wonderfully tactile. It wraps the game around conflict, but there’s no sense of cruelty or aggression. It checks the box of strong variability with rotational content. It’s also engineered from the souls of others,…
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…
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.…
I just finished reading my original review of Tyrants of the Underdark. I don’t normally go back and read my old work as sometimes it can be difficult. But this time it was a necessity In order to re-examine my feelings on this game and how they’ve changed over the past five years. It’s been…
This book, this book again. I am nervous to report that it’s beginning to make sense! My unease persists as the understanding is thin and wispy, threatening to float away. I’ve begun to revisit earlier passages. These words jitter through my eyes and into my brain like whispers upwind. Crook thy head. “We’ve come to…
Player Elimination 