Sometimes a game just hits you. It scratches an itch you didn’t know you had, like when I first played Horseless Carriage and its spatial puzzle just completely fried my brain. It was too complex a system for me to understand, too many things to think through, and so I gave up, had fun, and …
Read more “First impressions of Rival Cities – Multi-Dimensional Tug of War”
I just got Rival Cities in the other day and thought it would have been great if a solo mode would have been in the box. Since there isn’t, I of course started creating one myself 😀 This is still in development, but it plays surprisingly well for a first attempt. I will continue to tweak …
The last couple of days, I’ve been enamoured with Rival Cities, the new 2p games from Andreas Steding (also the designer of Hansa Teutonica). It’s a clever, has a beautiful production, but I had one minor gripe with: sliding the court case cards down the line and managing the cardboard tracks next to them is …
It’s only the second expansion for Heat: Pedal to the Metal, but Heat: Tunnel Vision presents what by now feels like a familiar recipe: two new tracks (again only one of which features the titular mechanism), a new upgrade / sponsor card type, a new 4-card championship, and a new color of racer. But does …
Read more “First Impressions of Heat: Tunnel Vision – Is More of the Same a Good or Bad Thing?”
Looking back at 2024, Rise & Fall was one of the few stand-out games for me that a) did something radically different I hadn’t seen in another game before and b) I could see myself actually still playing in five years time. What initially looked like just another over-produced crowd funding game turned out to …
Read more “Origin Stories: Rise & Fall – An Interview With Designer Christophe Boelinger”
Molly House – the brand new game from publisher Wehrlegig (Pax Pamir 2nd Edition, John Company 2nd Edition) – has arrived! As much as I appreciate small, compact boxes, this one was a bit tricky to pack. So here is another quick packing guide. While there are some images on BGG of people squeezing both …
Hi everyone and welcome back to On The Table, my top-of-mind catch-you-up-with-what-I’m-playing format. Here’s what’s been on my table in last two months that I haven’t written about in my normal format yet … or in some cases will never do if I don’t find a good story to tell for a particular game. As …
Read more “On The Table: Greed Incorporated, Wondrous Creatures, Heat: Tunnel Version, and more …”
From time to time, someone asks me if I could add some form of score or pros/cons summary to the end of my reviews. I intentionally don’t do that because I think it works better to read the whole piece and make up your own mind. But the other day someone contacted me with an …
Besides metal coins and inserts – both of which are usually game-specific – poker chips are one of the most popular ways to enhance the playing experience. The most common used variety among enthusiastic board gamers are Iron Clays by Roxley Games. I recently replaced my Iron Clays 100 set with the larger Iron Clays …
Ryan Laukat (and in extension Red Raven Games) is best known for his story-infused big box titles such as Sleeping Gods, Near & Far, or Empires of the Void II. The degree in which story is the driving factor varies from game to game – from being at the forefront in Sleeping Gods to pretty …
