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 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 it …
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 …
Over the past year, I have been on sort of a deep dive, trying to explore as many games from Dutch design duo / boutique publisher Splotter Spellen as I can. If you are not aware of their oeuvre, their games are highly diverse in topics and mechanisms – from managing org-charts of a fast …
Read more “First Impressions of Bus – A Masterclass In Board Game Design”
As part of my continued deep dive into Splotter titles, I finally got myself a copy of Bus as well. Since I wasn’t sure when I would be able to get it to the table, I started designing another solo mode as I’ve done with Horseless Carriage and Indonesia. It’s still in an early stage and …