Shapers of Gaia is a goofy game. The cover is a bit loopy, it’s a game for strictly two or three players, and the systems are foreign yet also vaguely familiar. Designed by Ian Cooper and Jan M. Gonzalez, it’s important to note that this is a Wizkids game. I continue to belabor the point…
Five years is quite the gap between debut and expansion, particularly for a game that’s grown such a cult following. Part of it is that Sidereal Confluence took some time to really find its audience. Part of it is that as a design, it’s a very tightly woven and intricately balanced machine. The math behind…
Atlantic Robot League offers inspiration. You inhabit the role of a savvy gambler, placing indiscriminate bets on mile high robots slugging away at each other. It’s the kind of dramatic far-future concept I’d liken to Robot Jocks meets The Cincinatti Kid. Plus, it’s a Wizkids game. I don’t embrace all of their releases, but Zev…
I’m still chuckling at the absurd length of both the game’s and this article’s title. However, it fits with the way the MCU has slammed together sequels and crossovers with reckless abandon. I’ve written at length of my own personal Marvel cinematic renaissance. Since then, I’ve kept up with most of the ongoing films and…
The best quality of this Wizkids release is that it’s educational. Admit it, you’re unfamiliar with Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev and his model of measuring a civilization’s technology level. His hypothetical scale is bracketed around how much energy a society is able to use, and it extends to a cosmic level. Nifty. And there’s half…
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…
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…
A couple of years ago Wizkids released a little card game that was better than it had any right to be. Fantasy Realms was a stunner. It offered contemplative strategy, a gripping pace, and an expansive content base that saw play vary considerably session to session. This was all accomplished with 53 cards. I was a little…
I love a quality escape room tabletop experience. Unlock, Exit, Escape Room: The Game – bring ’em all on. The main conceit of all of these designs is that you can’t replay them. You finish a scenario, possibly shredding the components, and you toss it out in the garbage like a dream you’ve forgotten before…
Player Elimination 