Category: First Impressions

Tell me if this sounds familiar: you’re browsing through Kickstarter projects, skip over a whole bunch of projects that look just plain boring or like another fulfilment disaster waiting to happen, and suddenly you stop. You’ve found a game that looks amazing! The visuals speak to you, the production is lavish, and the few sentences …

Read more “First Impressions of Rise & Fall – There Might Still Be Hope for Crowd Funding”

Sometimes, surprisingly, the BGG games market can be a source of inspiration for me what newly released games to try. With every pre-order or crowd funding project that is being fulfilled, someone inevitably will have had their life situation changed between backing and receiving a project … or they found that they didn’t get what …

Read more “First Impressions of I, Napoleon: Swipe Left for Conflict”

Ah, Kickstarter, you gotta love it. Sure, we all had our fair share of duds over the years but overall it’s always been an enjoyable spectacle for me. From the videos listing upcoming games to the hype-inducing previews that more often than not made me wonder “what were they thinking?” when I held the final …

Read more “First Impressions of Pampero – How Many Plays Do You Owe A Game?”

In recent years, board games have made some giant leaps when it comes to their production. Just look at an ICE or Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies, they are pieces of art! Despite my interest in Lacerda games and fondness of Foundations of Rome, I’ve come to dread giant Kickstarter productions though. Sure, they might look …

Read more “First Impressions of Salton Sea – A Mechanism, an Eye Test, and a Theme Walk into a Bar …”

Expansions are always tricky to write about. Some of you might never have played the base game and be curious to learn if the combined game is now something they should check out. Others already have played the base game extensively and come with a whole range of expectations what an expansion should and should …

Read more “First Impressions of Anno 1800: The Expansion – A Welcome Update to Version 1.2”

Vital Lacerda, master of interweaving mechanisms, has given us a new game, hurray! Vital is one of only a handful designers for which I actively seek out to try as much of their oeuvre as possible: Ryan Laukat, Vladimir Suchy, Jeroen & Joris from Splotter, Vital Lacerda are all designers that constantly seem to challenge …

Read more “First Impressions of Inventions: Evolution of Ideas – Chains, Chains, So Many Chains”

I enjoy keeping my finger on the pulse, checking out what new games get released, what new mechanisms or themes get introduced to the hobby. As someone who writes about games, it’s gratifying to do deep dives into games that just came out and help them find their right audience. It’s a similar story on …

Read more “First Impressions of Indonesia – Beating the Competition”

Here we go again! It’s finally time for Heat’s first expansion to hit the market and it’s timing couldn’t have been more perfect: I’ve got a couple of days off work, a serious cold is keeping me mostly indoors, and even the weather here in Hamburg has decided to play along and be appropriately dreadful …

Read more “First Impressions of Heat: Heavy Rain – Rainy Forecast Turns Out to Be Sunny With Clouds”

There are many good reasons to be interested in a board game: a unique mechanism that hasn’t been seen before, a great theme, a designer one really enjoys. From the top of my head, I can’t think of a game where the outstanding feature that intrigued me was its play length, but that’s exactly what …

Read more “First Impressions of Last Light – A 4x Stratego in Space”

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!”