I’m not an 18xx aficionado. To tell the truth, I’m not even much of a train gamer. Besides a single play of 1830: Railways & Robber Barons (which I didn’t enjoy) and a handful of attempts at Age of Steam (which I’m slowly warming up to but still far from in love with), my experience …
Read more “First Impressions of Railways of the Lost Atlas – 18xx for the Rest of Us”
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”
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?”
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”
When a friend asked me whether I could pick up a copy of Asian Tigers for them while I was at SPIEL Essen 2024, my first thought was: why haven’t I heard about this game? My second thought – after looking up picture on BoardGameGeek – was: of all the games available, you want me to …
Read more “First Impressions of Asian Tigers – Abstract as Abstract Can Be”
To say I’m a fan of publisher Floodgate Games’ output would be a bit of an overstatement, but they are on my radar and so far I have been quite fond of their output. 2022’s cooperative hourglass-turning Kites was a beautifully illustrated game about keeping kites up in the air. It looked gorgeous and charming, …
Read more “First Impressions of Landmarks – The Better Codenames?”
The action-selection, combo-driven, point-salady Euro as a sub-genre has definitely become overcrowded in recent years. I for one had my fair share of games that worked well mechanically but were ultimately forgettable and without any stand out moments, one play being the same as the next, always leading me to the same question: why should …
Read more “First Impression of Galileo Galilei – Being Good Is Better Than Just Standing Out”
Everybody likes an underdog, especially if it looks this pretty! Stamp Swap by Stonemeier Games hasn’t been out for long but it’s BGG rating has already dropped to a 7.2 and most reviews I’ve seen are somewhere in the “it’s not for me” (also known as the “I got this as a review copy and …
Read more “First Impressions of Stamp Swap – Sometimes The Right Framing Is Everything”
I don’t even remember how I got to my copy of the original Tokyo Highway. It might have been on a board game flee market or something like that, but I’m sure I hadn’t seen it on YouTube and I hadn’t read a review. I picked up that grey Ticket-to-Ride-sized box, looked at the back …
Read more “First Impressions of Tokyo Highway: Rainbow City – Smaller Package, More Toys”
Two years in board gaming really feels like an eternity! I realised this more than ever before when I finally receiving my copy of Unconscious Mind a few weeks ago. Hard to believe, but it’s been two years since I decided to back this game, mostly on the strength of its visuals, theme, and because …
Read more “First Impressions of Unconscious Mind – What it Means to be Truly Thematic”