Latest Posts
Bärenpark – Board Game Review
In Bärenpark, players are trying to build the best bear park. Every player starts with one 4×4 entrance tile and one of the green enclosure tiles, the size of which depends on your player order. These green enclosure tiles are small attractions, like a food stand or a porta-potty. They can be one, two, or three squares large and come either in a straight line or in a small L shape. On the central board in front of all players, there’s also a bunch of small bear enclosure tiles arranged in stacks. Each of these enclosures are 4 squares large and each of the 4 types are in the classic Tetris tetromino-style shapes, and the highest point value tile is on the top of each stack. Lastly, covering nearly half of the entire supply board are the coveted large enclosure tiles, which are five or six squares large and worth a healthy chunk of points.
Final Fantasy X-2
I initially didn’t plan on playing Final Fantasy X-2. But one of my friends decided to join me on my Final Fantasy X playthrough. And by join me, we played our games separately and texted each other our exciting and frustrating moments. When we both finished, I mentioned I was going to play Final Fantasy XII next. He suggested I wait a bit so he could have a bit of a JRPG detox, then he’d join me on that one as well. So with all the wonderfully deep and melancholic feelings in my heart from the end of Final Fantasy X, I decided to spin up Final Fantasy X-2. I wasn’t really ready to leave Spira, I really liked the world and the characters and the story. I was interested in what the first direct sequel in the Final Fantasy franchise would hold.
Jaipur – Board Game Review
The two-player-only category of games is a crowded genre. It’s crowded with a lot of extremely good games, and I’m not even talking about games that play more players but also happen to play really well at two, like Race for the Galaxy or Innovation. I’m talking about games that are specifically designed for two players and two players only. 7 Wonders Duel, Targi, Star Realms, Splendor Duel, Patchwork, you know the ones. Among all those two-player games, one of the first 2 player games I ever played, and to this day remains one of the best 2 player game in my mind, is Jaipur, designed by Sébastien Pauchon in 2009.
dnup – Board Game Review
dnup (Pronounced Down-Up (Holy cow does it ever feel wrong to not capitalize the name of the game)) is the latest game from Kei Kajino, the designer of the wonderfully brilliant and unique game Scout. dnup also uses the two-cards-in-one concept where a card has one number on one half, and if you flip it upside down, there’s a different number on the other side. But this time there’s no theme. I suspect that after every single review lamented how the circus theme in Scout just didn’t make any sense, he said, “f*** it,” and just made a great new card game.
World Order – First Impressions
I spend a lot of time looking at crowdfunding campaigns. I can’t really help it, they pop up in my social media feeds, or my friends send me the ones they like so we can ooh and ahh over them together. But I don’t back very many crowdfunding campaigns at the end of the day. I’ve backed about a dozen projects total. They’re always exciting, and I love receiving them when the game is finally released, but I’m just never willing to drop the cash for a new game years in advance when there are so many games deserving of my money on store shelves right now.
So when someone in my board game group pulls the trigger and backs a game, I’m more than ecstatic to fulfill my obligations, and be the person to sit down and play with their new toy with them. Today’s new game is World Order, designed by Vangelis Bagiartakis and Varnavas Timotheou, with art by Angga Satriohadi and Miłosz Wojtasik, and published by Hegemonic Project Games in 2026 (this is one of those moments where I’m very glad I work in a written medium, because my anglophone face would have butchered those names).
Kingsburg – Board Game Review
It’s kind of fascinating going back and playing older games. I get that in the grand scheme of the universe a mere 20 years is a blink of the eye, but in the board game hobby, a lot has changed in 20 years. Aesthetic preferences have evolved, who mechanics have fallen out of favour, and productions have been massively upgraded in the past two decades. But the wonderful thing about games is that when you buy a game it has the opportunity to become timeless. There’s no reason a game released in 2007 would be any better or worse than the new games that are coming out today? Right?
Hardback – Board Game Review
Hardback is a deck-building word game designed by Jeff Beck and Tim Fowers, and was published by Fowers Games in 2018. Perhaps it’s considered to be a spiritual successor to Paperback, Hardback uses the same deck-building word game core, but the mechanical changes to the way you acquire cards and how those cards work together change how the game feels in a pretty dramatic way, despite sharing the same categories on the BGG pages.
Things in Rings – Board Game Review
I’m not going to bury the lede here. It’s a special moment when I play a game with my wife at our local board game café and she immediately grabs a copy off the shelf to bring home. Things in Rings is that game.
Designed by Peter C. Hayward and published by AllPlay in 2024, Things in Rings is basically Venn Diagrams: The Board Game. One player takes on the role of the mastermind, or the “Knower”, while everyone else is trying to figure out the hidden logic by dropping clue cards into the appropriate intersections of coloured yarn circles.
