This review is based on the Board Game Arena implementation.
If I had a nickel for every time a board game about making board games came out, I’d have 2 nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s odd that it happened twice in such a short time frame. The first to hit crowdfunding was Tabletop Incin March of 2024. That game was originally called Meeple Inc, but had to change their name after receiving a cease and desist letter from Hans Im Gluck claiming they own the rights to the term Meeple. I’m not sure how that case ever really shook out, but it felt like a pretty ridiculous claim to make.
But this post is about The Game Makers. Unlike Tabletop Inc, The Game Makers reached out to hundreds of board game publishers and secured the rights to use their games assets in their own game about making games. The theme here is that you are a board game publisher, and you spend your actions sending forklifts all over your warehouse collecting the resources needed to make these games. Wood, plastics, cardboard, dice, you name it. But what makes The Game Makers feel magical for the hobbyist board gamer is that every card is a real life game. Almost certainly your favourite game is included (although a healthy amount are being locked behind a Kickstarter Exclusive paywall), and the love you feel for your favourite game is certainly going to give you good vibes towards this one, as well.
There is no denying there’s a thrill when you flip over a card and recognize the box art. Perhaps for even just a moment you’ll be transported to some of your favourite gaming moments, playing that game with your loved ones 10 years ago. Maybe you’ll see games you haven’t thought of in years, the games that brought you into the hobby! The Game Makers is billing itself as a celebration of the industry itself. A homage stitched together from hundreds of real, licensed games whose box covers show up on the cards you draw and manufacture.
And that effort, the hundreds of contracts that publisher Bezier games had to draft and get signed, is the magic that sets The Game Makers apart from any other mid-weight economic Euro game. You’re not just collecting cubes of different colours to complete recipes. You’re not sifting through abstract icons and terms, you’re cataloguing and building your own collection, offering flashes of nostalgia at every turn.
The game mechanics itself, designed by Ben Rosset, who also designed Fromage and Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig, features a massive rondel, ringed with resources and opportunities. Your workers are miniature forklifts that you’ll shuttle around the wheel. Wherever you choose to land them, they’ll scoop up resources: wood, cardboard, plastic, dice, or cards. Every resource pulls double duty, they’re all used to build the cards that will ultimately earn you points to win the game, but they can all also be used to improve your factory, or increase your marketing. The cards can be either the game you’re trying to build, or a resource to pay to build a different game.
This is where The Game Makers shines. Every turn brings a little agony. Do I try to complete this beloved game and put it on my shelf, or break it down for parts to chase something else? You need to make that choice for every resource, each time you take something, you’re pulled in two directions.
Not only do you have to decide how to use each of the resources, but each resource has 3 levels to it. Obtaining the higher level resources requires you to send your forklifts further around the rondel, meaning it’ll take more turns until you get to use that worker again. It’s a great puzzle that kept me engaged for the entire play.
All that said, some decisions beg to be questioned. The production looks enormous, plastic forklifts, oversized plastic rondel, piles of manufactured wood and plastic bits, the Kickstarter itself boasts “over 700 premium components”, and the irony is hard to ignore when the game itself includes a “Go Green” scoring path of planting trees to make your factory more environmentally conscious. It sure looks spectacular in the advertising photos, but it also feels like a game that could have done more with less.
And commenting on the epic scale of the production swings me around to the price. I don’t usually comment on the cost of a game unless it’s particularly noteworthy. A copy of The Game Makers will set you back $208CAD ($150USD). The complete edition costs an eye watering $277CAD ($199USD). I know I won’t pony up that kind of cash for any game, no matter how charming the theme may be.
I guess the theme brings up another question. The diary of its creation reveals a story of passion: hundreds of publishers collaborating, big and small, to make this tribute to the hobby possible. But at the table, it doesn’t always feel like a love letter to board gaming. Instead, it comes across more of a love letter to board game manufacturing. The model of a game as “components in a box plus a shelf-scoring bonus” is satisfying when you can get synergies, and I can’t think of a better way to incorporate all these different games, but it reduces all of these games to abstractions of their raw components. If you think of Carcassonne as Sunday afternoons with family, reducing it to “level 3 tiles and level 2 wooden bits” feels flat. The abstraction works mechanically, but emotionally, it doesn’t land.
As a simulation as a board game producer, it’s quite flat. There’s no currency, so all the resources are free, You don’t need to grapple with the questions of how many of each game to print, or faff about with distribution, find prototypes, liaise with designers, respond to community feed back, nothing. I’m not saying that I need an event that says “you massively underestimated how many copies of Wingspanyou’ll need, now the public is accusing you of artificially keeping supply low to drive hype and demand”, but considering this is called “a love letter to board games”, it is a bit disappointing that no other aspect of the board gaming hobby is represented here.
Gameplay-wise, Ben Rosset pedigree has already proven himself to be a competent designer, and The Game Makers is another star on his hat. Deceptively simple turns, resource gathering that makes you struggle with your decisions, and simultaneous play that keeps the flow moving, it all works really well. The Game Makers is approachable, despite its table presence, it’s a pretty great design! But I do suspect that the core gameplay loop will feel repetitive after the initial wonder seeing your favourite games on the cards wears off.
And for me, that was the main draw of The Game Makers. The first thrill of drawing a card and seeing your favourite games. I’ll confess that in my plays I’ve been swayed more by wanting to build my favourite games, than by building the games that would score me the post points. The Game Makers is a great design, it’s clever and playful. But with that price tag, it’s obvious it’s not for me.
The more I played The Game Makers, the more I felt the theme was less a love-letter, and more a self indulgent testament to unchecked consumerism. This is a game for that board game fan who has hundreds of games, dozens of which are still in their shrinkwrap and are unplayed. For that enthusiast who goes to board game conventions and buys the 30 hottest games, because they can’t stomach the FOMO of waiting a few months for wider distribution. It’s a game for those who are willing to drop $300 on a Kickstarter, even while they have 8 projects outstanding. And that’s not the kind of board gamer that I am.
I do think The Game Makers will be an exciting toy for hobbyists who want to see their shelves reflected back at them in cardboard form. I can’t deny that every card flip is a dopamine hit, nor will I deny that the core gameplay loop is pretty solid. Just don’t expect The Game Makers to be truly representative of the hobby that you’ve put so much time and money into, nor does it tell the personal story of why these games matter. I do enjoy the game, I’ll happily play it again, and will probably rope my friends into playing it on BGA in the future. But I cannot in good conscience recommend anyone pony up that much cash for any board game, let alone this one.
My only experience with Richard Osman comes from watching him compete in Taskmaster Season 2, where I thought he was quite funny. So when my wife pulled The Thursday Murder Club out of a Little Free Library in our neighbourhood, I was intrigued to see just what the tall funny man wanted to write about.
The Thursday Murder Club takes place at a retirement facility named Coopers Chase, and consists of 4 retirees who meet every Thursday to review cold cases to see if they can solve murders by noticing details that the police of the day overlooked. Much of the story is told from Joyce’s diary, as she is the newest member of the Thursday Murder Club, now that Penny (who was a former police detective) has had to quit due to dementia.
What follows is a story about a new development being planned at Coopers Chase (the retirement community), and the sudden murder of the lead builder (Tony), and shortly after, the landowner (Ian). The Thursday Murder Club is excited at the idea of a fresh case that just landed in their laps, and take it upon themselves to solve the crime before the police do.
The characters in The Thursday Murder Club are delightful. From the mysterious Elizabeth, who seems to have been everywhere and still holds a valid tank operator’s license, to surly and argumentative Ron, to tech-savvy and meticulous Ibrahim. Each character has lived a long life, and they use their experiences and connections to uncover mysteries. That said, there are a LOT of characters. Outside of the 4 main characters, there’s another 70 characters to juggle in your brain as they all pop in and out of the story.
The Thursday Murder Club is a stellar book from first time author Richard Osman. It should come as no surprise that he can write well, considering he’s been writing and entertaining on TV for decades. But still, I wasn’t quite ready for just how much I enjoyed this book.
At least part of my enjoyment comes from the protagonists being septuagenarians. They’re immediately disarming and overlooked, which kind of makes them the best people to manipulate the cops and follow-up leads with potential murderers. There are a couple of twists in the book, right from the start, as Tony is planning to kill Ian after Ian cuts him out of a deal, but then gets wacked off instead. Then a couple of days later, Ian is murdered regardless, snuffing the prime suspect in the Tony murder case. And in between all this, a 3rd body is discovered. These murders all seem obviously related, but watching each thread unravel is a delightful journey.
A criticism, I do have, is the idea of a few of the older characters so quickly committing suicide after a brief conversation with the authorities. Sure, they could have been living with their guilt for decades, but it felt a little icky when multiple characters had their past sins revealed, only for them to immediately off themselves, even if only to alleviate them from suspicion of the main murders.
I do think I would characterize The Thursday Murder Club as a comedy book with a mystery, rather than a mystery book with humour. It may seem like an odd distinction, but armchair Sherlocks will probably find themselves at least a little disappointed by the conclusion. The Thursday Murder Club is not for diehards of the murder mystery genre or for the true crime aficionados, but instead more for fans of Only Murders in the Building, and those who want a delightfully dramatic journey with some quirky old people.
Oh, it’s also very English. A bunch of old English people prattling on, using their specific slang and terms, such as using stones as measurement for a person’s weight. Personally, I found it charming, but I can see others taking umbrage with the distinctly English voice.
While the mystery itself didn’t fully grip me, the characters absolutely did. I fell in love with each of them, and I’m already itching to dive into book two. If you’re looking for a cozy, character-driven whodunit with heart and humour, this one is worth the read.
My Island was the hotly anticipated 2023 follow-up to 2020’s eminently popular My City, both games designed by Reiner Knizia and published by KOSMOS. This review was 2 years in the making, as my first game of My Island was on October 28th, 2023, and the final game was August 9th, 2025. There were some significant gaps in time between games, which probably tells you how this review is going to end.
Just like in My City, My Island is played over 24 games, broken into 8 chapters. Each game introduces new rules that twist the game in different and interesting ways. The gameplay itself is similar, every player has the same pieces available to them. Each turn, a card is flipped, and all players need to fit the piece depicted on the card into their personal player board. My Island features a series of hexagon tiles that need to be placed in a dominos style; each tile you put down needs to have at least one hexagon touching another hexagon of the same type.
The tiles come in 2, 3, and 4 hexagon shapes, with the same element rarely doubled within a single tile. At the start of the campaign, you can only place your tiles on the beach, but as the campaign goes on, you gain the ability to adventure deeper into the jungle. Where you put your tile is up to you, within the placement rules, but efficiency is the name of the game. Clusters and connections score you points, while awkward gaps and poor planning come back to bite you.
My Island is 8 chapters long, each chapter broken into 3 episodes each. Every chapter brings in a new twist, perhaps some new pieces, or something gets placed on your player board, while each episode within the chapter offers a small change on the chapter quirk. Sometimes these twists add tension, but other times it’s just confusing, especially when a rule changes a rule from a previous chapter, but the rulebook says “all rules from previous chapters apply”. It didn’t help that each chapter would introduce 3 or 4 new rules, then each episode in that chapter would twist only one or two of those rules, making it really difficult to keep in your mind what still scored and what didn’t. In the end, we just ended up using the chapter scoring summary as our definitive list of what rules still apply.
As the list of rules grew, so did the opportunities to earn points. As I said, you have to place tiles ‘dominos style’. By that, I mean when you place a tile, at least one of the hexagons on the tile needs to touch another hexagon of the same type that’s already on the board. Then by the middle of the game, My Island is asking you to make clusters of 5 hexagons of the same type, along with green paths snaking through your island, all while trying to have houses on the beaches. Further still, you’re asked to have clusters of 8 tiles or more, while also surrounding certain objects with a specific colour, and have 4 different tiles around another thing, and have a path from the water to the centre of the board.
My City was a breezy, cozy experience. Games took 15 minutes, and while you were always chasing optimal tile placements, you were never really shutting yourself off from most of the scoring opportunities. My Island reminds me more of Calico. There are so many competing objectives and scoring opportunities, that every time you place a tile, you are progressing one of those opportunities, but closing the door on three others. I can’t tell you how many times we would put down our second or third tile in the game, and there would be a chorus of “oh no, I’ve already ruined everything” around the table. By the back half of the campaign, each game took in excess of 40 minutes, which is A LOT when you’re ostensively playing a ‘light’ tile laying game.
Something else to mention, with My City, it was easy to complete a whole chapter in 45 minutes. It was a great game to pull out after we finished whatever mid-weight euro was the main event for the evening. But with every game of My Island hitting 40 minutes, we would go months between single plays. We’d forget what rule episode 7 introduced, and how episode 8 twisted it, making it even more challenging to return to.
It’s kind of impossible to not compare My Island to My City, but that’s the path you choose when you create a spiritual sequel with a nearly identical title and gameplay mechanics. You’re going to get compared. My City was full of charm and whimsy. When someone won, it was good cheer all around, you could see how you could have done better, but hey, that was the luck of the draw. In My Island, my head was constantly in my hands, I was always trying to snap off a single hexagon so I could just finish that one damn cluster. I was stymied by the card draws, and quickly fell behind in victory points.
In the last two chapters of the campaign, you’re tasked with building 3 buildings, and filling up a portal track. In Chapter 7, you aren’t told what these elements do, just that you should probably do them. In the last chapter it’s revealed that each of those buildings you don’t build will cost you 2 victory points per stage you don’t complete. And the overall winner is whomever has the portal track filled up the most, then subtract the victory points you’ve accumulated throughout the entire campaign. When I play a legacy game, I’m always the person whos trying to complete the objectives first, even to the detriment of winning each individual game, so by chapter 8, I had already completed all 3 buildings. My opponents were a little taken aback, but in the end, it all came out in the wash. We all finished all 3 buildings, and all finished the portal tracks. But I can see that being really jarring for someone if they had completely neglected the buildings that weren’t fully explained in the previous chapter.
My Island was good, but not as great as My City. In My City I was excited to start every chapter, to unlock new polyomino tiles, to have some asymmetric tiles depending on who won a specific episode. In My Island, the most asymmetric you’ll get is that you’ll get to put a little sticker on some of your tiles that makes on hex count for 2 of the specific type. Not very exciting. I don’t know if the lack of excitement comes from the bar being set so high in My City, but regardless, I didn’t feel like My Island had as many unique and interesting ideas as the game that came before it. If you’re a die hard fan of My City and are thirsting for more Knizia tile laying puzzles, you’ll probably enjoy My Island. But for most people, I suspect they’ll find themselves missing the joy and simplicity of the game where it all began.
I always forget how difficult it can be to make these lists. A lot of these games I haven’t played in 15 years, so I’m really just relying on gut feelings and vibes at this point. But that’s kind of the fun of a blog, right? This isn’t necessarily an objective look at the best video games ever according to a harsh rubric. This is my heart, and sometimes, my heart is stupid.
80 – XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Year Released: 2012 | Platform: Playstation 3
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is widely regarded as one of the best squad-based tactical RPGs of the modern era. You command a team of soldiers, facing off in turn-based combat against an alien invasion. XCOM does a great job of building tension by having the government caught flatfooted by the invasion, so your crew are weak, ill-equipped, and low on resources to handle all the pressing needs, as well as having permadeath be a consequence for letting one of your squad members fall in battle.
One of my favourite tidbits is that the majority of players didn’t complete XCOM, so when XCOM 2 came out, the story picks up as if the aliens won the invasion and took over. Now you take the role of an underground resistance committing guerrilla warfare upon the alien overlords.
Overall, the superb tactical and strategic gameplay combined with the emotional attachment to the survival of your squad members makes XCOM a magnificent and memorable experience.
79 – No More Heroes
Year Released: 2007 | Platform: Nintendo Wii
Perhaps sacrilegious, but this is the only Suda51 game I’ve played, and damn does it drop with style. In No More Heroes, Scrawny Travis Touchdown leaves his anime nerd haven of a motel room after winning a beam katana and takes on a job to assassinate local villain. This earns him rank 11 with the United Assassins Association, and he just chooses to claw his way to the top.
The gameplay is pretty hack and slash, with plenty of references to general anime and wrestling fandoms. The humour is crass and juvenile, complete with the need to shake the Wii Remote in a furious up and down motion to recharge your katana, and the save game location being toilet stalls. It’s stupid, I wouldn’t really recommend anyone play it, as it’s kinda stupid, but it’s also fun. If Suda51’s humour and aesthetic appeal to you, you’ll probably dig No More Heroes, but if it doesn’t, then you wouldn’t be missing out on any kind of important cultural milestone by skipping this title.
78 – Mega Man Zero 2
Year Released: 2003 | Platform: Game Boy Advance
I always considered this to be my second favourite Mega Man game, right after Mega Man X, which you’ll see much higher on the list. Mega Man Zero 2 begins with Zero wandering, battered and close to collapse in a sandstorm. With only his sword and buster gun operational, he fights through the wave of baddies, only to collapse at the end of the first level.
Zero awakes in the new Resistance Base, where Ciel and her team repair Zero, equip him with some new gear, and he joins their cause while seeking out the baby elves.
Mega Man Zero 2 is everything I want from a Mega Man game. It’s fast paced, each of the weapons have their uses, as you memorize and get better at each level, you’re rewarded with various new armors and abilities, it’s just utterly satisfying to get really good at a game and be rewarded for it. Mega Man Zero 2 lived in my Game Boy for months on end, until I got an S rank on every mission, and could complete the game without taking a single hit. I have played some of the other Mega Man Zero games, but without the memory of all the levels in the back of my head, I feel less intrested in actually getting good at these ‘new’ games, instead choosing to just replay Mega Man Zero 2 over and over again. What can I say? I like feeling competent in my limited game time!
77 – Plok
Year Released: 1993 | Platform: SNES
Gosh Plok has such serious memories for me. On some level, I kind of miss the wild west of video games that existed back in 1993 when you could just make a wacky ass game like this. Plok is a side scrolling platformer about a… I don’t even know what Plok is, some kind of goblin? Either way, he throws his hands and his feet to attack his foes, if he loses them, they appear on clothes hangers somewhere else in the level. Giant presents are littered throughout the levels that transform Plok into a saw blade, a helicopter, a boxer, and so much more.
It’s bright, colourful, and crazy, everything that mattered to me when I was 5 years old. I never actually beat Plok, I should really go back and give it another play now that i’m all grown up.
76 – Fallout 3
Year Released: 2008 | Platform: Xbox 360
I came into Fallout 3 almost entirely blind. I was walking around the mall in Winnipeg, saw a cardboard cutout of the power armor pictured above, and said “hell yes”. I walked in, bought the game, went home, and fell in love.
Fallout 3 is a post apocalyptic first-person shooter that starts the players in an underground vault. As you progress through the introduction, you’re introduced to the tight group of people that live in the vault under the iron grip of the Overseer. Something goes terribly wrong, people die, your father disappears, and you manage to escape the vault. The first time you leave the cave that hides the vault entrance, and you look out at the blinding light of the wasteland, my jaw dropped. What follows is a haunting adventure through the “what if” future of humanity post nuclear armageddon.
Fallout 3 was my introduciton to the series, and I fell utterly in love with the series. Unfortunately, Fallout 4 was a bit to action/adventure for my tastes, and I’ve completely boycotted Fallout 76 due to the lifeless world upon launch to the $130 per year subscription fee. I’ve resolved myself to enjoying Fallout 3, and hoping for something better on the horizon.
75 – Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Year Released: 2009 | Platform: PlayStation 3
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is often described as a thrilling, cinematic experience, much like an action-packed summer blockbuster. The hero Nathan Drake is likable, every character has sharp dialogue, all in service of an epic story to create a narrative-driven adventure that hooks and engages you. At the time of launch, Uncharted 2’s visuals, audio, and score were all top-tier, making it one of the hottest games at the time.
The gameplay combines tense platforming in-between cover-based shooting sections. While the platforming is not particularly challenging, it feels exciting, especially when Nathan is dangling by one hand above certain death. The voice acting, storytelling, and plot set pieces kept me utterly engaged throughout the game’s runtime.
However, Uncharted 2 is very linear, with limited exploration compared to many other action-adventure games. It feels like the platforming just exists to transition between combat and cutscenes. Despite this, playing Uncharted 2 feels like a rollercoaster, blending memorable cinematic moments with exciting gameplay, making it (and the series) a perfect example of the “game as an experience” philosophy.
74 – Pokémon Diamond and Pearl
Year Released: 2006 | Platform: Nintendo DS
I distinctly remember picking up Pokémon Diamond after a vacation to Dallas. I was on the way home to my small village, we stopped off at the nearest Walmart (4 hours away), and I saw a huge banner on the side of the building. Internet wasn’t great where I grew up, and nerd media was nearly impossible to come by, so I had no idea that a new Pokémon game was even in development. At this point, I had played my Pokémon Sapphire to utter death. I hated Diamond at first, thinking it was inferior to Sapphire in every way. By the end of this generation of Pokémon, I accrued much more hours in Diamond than I ever did in Sapphire.
73 – Bastion
Year Released: 2011 | Platform: PC
Another one of my early PC games, as I built my first PC around 2012, and Bastion was still being highly praised at the time. The gameplay is action packed as you control The Kid wandering around a world that is being built and falling apart around him. What really hooked me in Bastion, was the dynamic narration. Beautifully voiced by Logan Cunningham, commentary and exposition came up in response to your actions. And the music is utterly enchanting, so much so, that it’s still one of my default OST’s to this day.
Supergiant Games has produced several fantastic games since Bastion (Pyre, Transistor, and their most popular hit to date, Hades), but this one has a special place in my heart. For so long, I was a console fanboy, but playing Bastion on the PC made me realize that I was missing out on so many great experiences. And for that, I thank it.
72 – Pikmin
Year Released: 2001 | Platform: Nintendo GameCube
This might be one of the most recent additions to my list. I somehow skipped over Pikmin in my gaming life, dismissing it as a game for children, right up until early this year when I borrowed Pikmin 1 and 2 for the Nintendo Switch. Once I actually got my hands on it and started playing, I was in love. A RTS game on a console, with cute charm and puzzles to overcome, I was kicking myself for not being a fan of Pikmin 20 years ago.
71 – Final Fantasy X
Year Released: 2001 | Platform: PlayStation 2
I’ve long been one of those insufferable snobs that firmly believe that the best Final Fantasy games are sprite based, and the series progression into 3D has made me very angry and is generally regarded as a bad move. But even more so, I believe Final Fantasy X marks a turning point as the ‘last good game’ before the series left what I really look for in a JRPG, behind (read, not MMOs or gambit systems that play the game for you).
I’m being a jerk again. Final Fantasy X follows Tidus as he is thrown back and forth in time as Sin destroys the world around him. He encounters Yuna, a young summoner who is about to embark on a pilgrimage to obtain the Final Aeon so she can defeat Sin once and for all.
Final Fantasy X is a beautiful tale, and I played it much later than I should have. I didn’t get a PS2 until the PS3 was well into it’s life cycle, so I had to circle back to enjoy this entry. I enjoyed the characters growth, the twisting story, and the gameplay where you get to watch the numbers go up, everything that really I look for in a JRPG, but it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be. The cutscenes were beautiful, but some of the ingame graphics were rough. The music was amazing, but the voice acting had some truly awful moments.
Also, I find Blitzball to be boring.
You know, with all the above complaints, you’d be forgiven if you forgot that Final Fantasy X is number 71 on my FAVOURITE games list. It’s still a great game, but I just wanted it to be so much more. I know Final Fantasy is capable of creating some of the best JRPG experiences out there, and even when they miss, it’s still a good game. But I can’t help but feel twinges of disappointment in my heart when I think about Final Fantasy X.
I also never played X-2, and probably never well. Sorry!
Automobiles: Racing Season feels like a Monkey’s Paw type of expansion. It’s something you thought you really wanted, but when it comes to fruition, you’re left with regrets. You see, this expansion adds 3 more maps, and a Grand Prix mode where you carry over your cubes from race to race, plus individual player powers and in-between race abilities in the form of sponsors.
Now, I’ve already covered Automobiles in-depth (in fact, Automobiles was one of the first reviews I ever wrote), but for those who need it, here’s a quick rundown: Automobiles is a bag building racing game. Each turn, players pull cubes from their bags, and use those cubes to propel their cars around the track. The white, greys, and black cubes are straightforward and present in every race, they move you one space on their associated colour. The colourful dice have variable powers that you set at the start of the race, and do vary pretty wildly, offering some nice replayability, as a different set of cards will make your race feel quite different. The base game also came with 2 different maps for a bit more variety from game to game.
The new tracks and action cards that Automobiles: Racing Season adds can be folded into the base game with no concern for complexity or bloat. Even the driver cards are fairly simple in execution, now each player gets a player power at the start of the race they can use ones per turn. The real meat of the expansion comes in the season campaign.
The season campaign has players carrying over their bag of cubes from one race to another to see who can score the most points over a series of races. Players still pick a driver at the start of the racing season, but once the driver and action cards have been decided, they’re locked in place for the duration of the season. In between races, players can pick a sponsor to help modify their bag of cubes before going onto the next race. Some will prioritize removing wear cubes, while others will let you remove some and add others.
It sounds like everything I wanted in an expansion, but the more I’ve played it, the more frustrated I’ve felt with this set-up. Some of the player powers, specifically the ones that just let players draw extra cubes, feel a lot more helpful than others. Having the action cards being locked for the whole season make sense, but it rips the variability away from the game in general. If one player gets ahead in the first few races, it can be quite challenging to catch up to them.
Perhaps the worst part of all, is the limited nature of the cubes. I’ve found that more often than not, by the end of the first or second race, the majority of the cubes have already been bought, making it quite impossible to modify your racing strategy for future races. You’re stuck with the bag you’ve built, hope it works for all races. This also nerfs the between race sponsers, as the ones that give you a chance to get more cubes are simply less helpful than the ones that will clear the wear out of your bag.
I’ve been playing a lot of Automobiles on Board Game Arena lately, playing a season with each of the recommended action card sets, and some of them are really not geared toward this style of play. In one season, the purple cubes had the ability to remove up to 3 cubes, then add one back in. As I said before, every cube was purchased, aside from the useless yellow and the brown wear cubes, so each purple cube is taking 3 wear out and adding one back in. Near the end of the fourth race, all of our cars had more wear than would have been possible in a physical game, and ensuring that each car could only move one or two spaces each round.
I’m not quite sure how I’d recommend fixing this experience. Locking the action cards and carrying over your bag from race to race makes sense, and it should create a sense of momentum, but in reality, it just saps the variability away, making the 3rd, 4th, and 5th race in the season a dull experience of just running the bag you’ve built and trying to come in first. The mid-game sponsors are comparatively boring, and the driver cards are unbalanced, making it feel a little unfair for one player to hold the best one for 5 races in a row.
Perhaps most importantly, racing games have come a long way in the past 10 years. Restoration Games released Downforce in 2017, which gives players the ability to control all the cars with betting being the way for players to win, Thunder Road: Vandetta is ostensibly a race, albeit a violent one, and a race that ends with one car standing more often than a car passing the finish line. 2022’s Heat: Pedal to the Metal garnered a ton of praise the year it released, and one that I keep meaning to go back to. All of these games do a better job of instilling the feeling of a race, the feeling of momentum, and the excitement of that nail-biting finish
Automobiles: Racing Season ultimately feels like it’s a lap too long. The new tracks and action cards are excellent additions and easily worth mixing into the base game. But once you step into the marquee Season mode, the excitement sputters out. What should feel like a grand championship instead drags into a grind, where you’re stuck with the same bag for race after race, and your ability to modify it is totally diminished.
Automobiles remains a clever and underrated racing game that I’ll happily keep returning to, but the Racing Season expansion doesn’t add fuel to the engine. It’s the kind of expansion that sounds thrilling on paper, but when the rubber hits the road, it only makes me want to pack the new maps and action cards into the base box, and leave the rest behind.
