Broken & Beautiful: A Game About Kintsugi

TLDR: A rant, (containing elements of a review, without any claim to objectivity) on why Broken & Beautiful might be the best intro drafting game, or hate-drafting game, or drafting game, or small box game, this- "I love this Broken and Beautiful so much that it is a draft to collect sets game I like," … Continue reading Broken & Beautiful: A Game About Kintsugi →

Kitara: A View From Above Area Control

Kitara is a tight, fast, fairly abstract area control game in which the areas you control and your meeples form the core of an engine you build with a tablou of drafted cards. Fair warning; I know Eric Vogel, the designer, and did some playtesting. That's the only reason I could review a game this … Continue reading Kitara: A View From Above Area Control →

Let’s Have a Nuanced Discussion About The Implications of Insanity Mechanics in-

No. Stop Playing Board Games With Insanity Mechanics- no, not even on Halloween I clearly don't- I've tried to get through some of the rulebooks. I'm looking for a card game I can play solo. I'm asking you not to. Or more realistically eviscerating you on the assumption you play them. Don't play Mansion of … Continue reading Let’s Have a Nuanced Discussion About The Implications of Insanity Mechanics in- →

Terraforming Mars: It’s fine- FINE!

Terraforming Mars is fine- but like the recent hype-machine Wingspan, for which it is often used as a point of comparison, I just can’t understand the enthusiasm. It has grown on me through a series of totally uncoerced plays. Who doesn't like building tableaus of cards? I think this game falls through the floor in … Continue reading Terraforming Mars: It’s fine- FINE! →

Origins 2019 Report

This year Origins finally drove for me that cons are less about what I’m doing and more about who I’m doing it with. Cons are different, of course, regardless of who you’re with. They focus on different things and some are simply better at what they do than others. But pretty much everything I did … Continue reading Origins 2019 Report →

Kingdomino: A Prince among games

I was sitting around a table b********g about games with gamers instead of gaming, and one of them said that he wished he loved anything like I love Kingdomino. Someone pointed out that he was sitting next to his girlfriend, and she replied that she wished she loved anything like I love Kingdomino, too. I … Continue reading Kingdomino: A Prince among games →

My Intro Games: Blood Rage and Roll for the Galaxy

This is an atypical introduction to intro games. Let’s take it a little sideways; the games I mentioned are usually considered terrible for intro games, and were the first two modern board games I played, and they obviously hooked me. So let’s talk about why games you might not think of as intro games, (as … Continue reading My Intro Games: Blood Rage and Roll for the Galaxy →

Dinosaur Island: Gnarly New- School Neon

This is one of my favorite games: 5 Stars. With two worker-placement phases separated by a drafting/buying phase and capped with an interesting scoring mechanic, each round of Dinosaur Island is a series of simple steps that create mind-burning complexity as an emergent property. It is also one of the best examples in board … Continue reading Dinosaur Island: Gnarly New- School Neon →

Reef: A Colorful Coral Construction Favorite

Reef is a tile laying game I love because it is also a card game: you draft cards from a river and play them to gather and place coral, then score the coral formation on the same card. It is in the same product line as Azul- but where Azul is pure tile-drafting, Reef … Continue reading Reef: A Colorful Coral Construction Favorite →