I’m not much of a conflict/war gamer. Direct aggression just doesn’t seem to be something I enjoy. I tried Blood Rage once and it wasn’t for me, Cubra Libre for some reason gave me headaches, and playing Clash of Cultures put me in a state of such anxiety that it caused me to preventive strike …
Read more “First Impressions of Halls of Hegra – Congratulations, You Lost!”
As I’ve written before, I like using metal coins when playing board games, especially if they are unique to the game I’m playing. Since a lot of you enjoyed that post, here are some recent acquisitions. I thought I try also something new and give you a close up to enjoy the detail. Metal coin …
Read more “Metal Coins in Board Games 2 – So You’ve Got MORE Metal Coins?”
I was quite disappointed to realise Last Light has no solo mode, so I started creating my own. It’s still under development, but today it produced the first session where it seemed competitive and actually created some nice battles. I’m mainly aiming for full support of all rules/techs/factions, no extra components, and ease of use. …
For me, the the only flaw the excellent Horseless Carriage has is that my friends won’t play it nearly often enough with me! So I designed an automa that can be used both for solo play as well as a third when playing with two players. There are still some elements that need tweaking and …
Welcome back to part 2 of my conversation with Vangelis about Hegemony. If you haven’t read part 1 already, you should do so here. In this part, we talk about the economic aspects of the game, playtesting, running a Kickstarter, and what the future holds for Hegemony but also Hegemonic Project Games. Enjoy! The Economy …
Read more “Origin Stories: Hegemony – An Interview With Co-Designer Vangelis Bagiartakis – Part 2”
Can board games be art? What might have been a controversial question back when I started in the hobby has without a doubt by now been answered by a resounding “YES!”. We have more and more artists that no longer are only mentioned in the fine print (or not at all) but are printed on …
Read more “First Impressions of ICE – A Coffee Table Board Game”
To say Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies was my most anticipated game of 2023 would be true, but kind of missing the point: it was my only anticipated game of 2023! I usually don’t “anticipate” games. Sure, I’ve backed a handful of crowd funding projects I would like to play right now, like Pampero or Inventions: …
Read more “First Impressions of Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies – A More Mature Experience”
One of my most unique gaming experiences of 2023 was without a doubt Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory, designed by Vangelis Bagiartakis and Varnavas Timotheou. It’s a thriller woven out of heavily interconnected political and economical concepts that pits up to four players against each other, each trying to get their unique, asymmetric faction to …
Read more “Origin Stories: Hegemony – An Interview With Co-Designer Vangelis Bagiartakis – Part 1”
It all started when the sheer gigantuous box that is the Galactic Edition of Voidfall arrived at a good friend’s doorstep after many months of anticipation. Would I be interested in playing it? Of course! I had been close to backing Voidfall myself but ultimately decided not to, mainly because I couldn’t decide whether I …
Read more “First Impressions of Voidfall – But wait, there’s more!”
When discussing modern classics of the board game hobby, one quickly ends up talking about 2013’s Concordia. While its theme of trading in the Mediterranean nowadays is considered a cliché of the hobby and a synonym for unremarkableness, the gameplay of Concordia is far from it. In fact, Concordia can be seen as a master …
Read more “Origin Stories: Concordia – An Interview With Designer Mac Gerdts”