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Thoughts on the nominees
As usual, the Spiel des Jahres jury threw up some surprises in the choice of nominees for this year’s awards. For the main award, the nominees were Qwixx, Hanabi and Augustus. This is really odd as two of the games are small box card / dice games and, as the aim of the award is [...]
And the nominees are….
The jury of the Spiel des Jahres have decided the shortlist for this year’s award should be Qwixx, Augustus and Hanabi. Meanwhile the Kennerspiel des Jahres (gamer’s games) nominees are Legends of Andor, Palaces of Carrara and Brugge. The list of recommended games is Riff Raff, Rondo, Yay!, La Boca, Escape, Mixtour, Hand aufs Herz, Divinare, Libertalia, [...]
Iteration: What GMing Can Take From GameDev, a Guest Article by Richard Dansky
Today’s guest article is by Richard Dansky, who tabletop gamers are most likely to know for his extensive work with White Wolf, particularly Wraith: The Oblivion. He’s a GM, a 14-year veteran of the video game industry, and the author of six novels, including Firefly Rain. Show More Summary
Card Game Review - Cavemen: The Quest for Fire
One of two things has recently occurred. One, Rio Grande Games forgot who I was. That, or they have forgiven me for my trespasses. Either way, they recently decided to up and send me some review copies. Only instead of sending me the...Show More Summary
Predicting the Spiel des Jahres Nominees
The SdJ jury announces tomorrow the nominees for the Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres. I don’t have much idea this year as there are several key contenders I’ve not played but here are my predictions (probably way off the mark): SdJ nominees - La Boca, Escape: The Curse of the Temple, Smash Up KedJ nominees - [...]
Lucky Fudge
Random luck affects us all the time. Just last week, the sewer line backed up in my house. As it happened, a local plumbing company dropped off a coupon the next day, fixing our headache at a very reasonable cost. Conversely, several years ago, my brother called me to announce that my first niece was due to be born any minute. Show More Summary
The Joys of Critical Feedback
And I'm not being sarcastic! So last weekend as I mentioned last week, my mate Tim was up for a long weekend with his family. During the day we all hung out together and entertained the kids, but once the sun had set and the kids were in bed it was gaming time. Show More Summary
Notre Dame
Played a good two player game of Notre Dame last night. Works really well and finished well within an hour even though it was Jan’s first play. Sad to say, she beat me 50-40 as she made good use of the VP-generating area (the Residence), while I had one or two problems controlling rats.
Excellent Idea Review - Fantasy Gaming Figures
Last weekend, I wrote about Galaxy Defenders, and explained that I will only review your Kickstarter game if I am really impressed. And then, to prove that I am a lying bag of koala poop, I went on to review nothing but Kickstarter stuff...Show More Summary
Silly Card Game Review - Princess Bride: Prepare to Die!
It seems silly to be writing a review of a game that is basically two cards that you put together to make something kind of dumb, but Game Salute has been very good to me and Dan Yarrington is a bad-ass (and he's the head dude at Game Salute). Show More Summary
A Grown-up Game Business
On Facebook recently, my friend Miranda Horner — an accomplished game editor who works primarily on Dungeons & Dragons for Wizards of the Coast — posted this: I want my chosen industry, the tabletop gaming industry, to be so successful overall that it can afford to take people away from the computer gaming industry instead of [...]
Suburbia
The game: Suburbia by Ted Alspach, published by Bézier Games in 2012. Elevator pitch: Sim City board game. Manage an economic engine, draft tiles to build your borough, and try to have your tiles interact well with the other tiles in play. What’s in the box? Lots of hexagon tiles. The tiles look plain by themselves, but [...]
Rules Shifting – Part 1
I love my Underground campaign. Its been one of the best things I have run in some time, and it has done wonders for breaking me out of my slump. The game has been rolling along well, until we came to a small bump in the road…the rules. Show More Summary
Review: Just in Time
Just in Time is a competitive puzzle game designed by Gunther Burkhardt and published by Ravensburger. It is in the same mould as Ubongo and FITS (the latter also a Ravensburger game) but is different enough that fans of this type of game should give it a try. What’s in the box? The game comes with 52 [...]
Not good enough to win a Two on One yet
For our second game I wanted to play something quick (we had less than an hour) and still use some toys I hadn't played with yet so I set up a 2 on 1 fight with myself controlling a Fokker E.III and my opponents working together with a Morane-Saulnier Type N and an Airco DH-2. Show More Summary
One afternoon over Italy in 1917 ... a Wings of War/Glory session report
Baracca's SPAD lines up for an early shot At the local game shop played a couple of quick games of Wings of War/Glory. Turns out there are some interested players so i hope to get a few more sessions in over the summer.The first game was an excuse to try out the big Bomber models and rules. Show More Summary
Download a 9-Page Preview of Odyssey, our Upcoming Guide to Campaign Management
Preorders for our next book, Odyssey: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Campaign Management, will be opening on June 3, and we want you to be able to check out the book before deciding whether to preorder. You can now download a free 9-page PDF preview of Odyssey that includes the cover, table of contents, introduction, and opening section. Show More Summary
The Magicking of wargames
I played a couple of games of Wings of War and had a blast -- but also found myself with a nagging touch of dissatisfaction because of how hard it was to craft a historically realistic scenario with the tools at hand.That's not because of excessive abstraction or some flaw in the game design. Show More Summary
Rise of the Fellowship
Here are some essential notes of the games played between 19.4. and 15.5.2013. Enjoy. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Deck-building Game has been the biggest hit recently. I saw a session report on Google+, got interested and decided to buy the game. The fact that my son is a huge Lord of [...]
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Deck-building Game
I was thinking about writing reviews, again, and came up with this kind of format. What do you think? The game: The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Deck-building Game by Ben Stoll and Patrick Sullivan, published by Cryptozoic in 2013. Elevator pitch: A deck-building game with Lord of the Rings movie theme. Based [...]
- Fantasy Flight Games
- Settlers of Catan
- Board Game
- Star Wars
- Conquest of Nerath
- Martin Wallace
- Avalon Hill
- Ascension Chronicle of the Godslayer
- Origins Game Fair
- Sid Meier's Civilization
- Wrath of Ashardalon
- Magic The Gathering
- Reiner Knizia
- World War
- Ticket To Ride
- Glory to Rome
- Legend of Drizzt
- Milton Bradley
- Kingdom Builder
- Castle Ravenloft
