Tabletop Games Blog - board game reviews and discussions with a personal touch

I was reading Dan Thurot’s most recent article, titled "Anti-Fun", when, as so often with his writing, I found myself challenged in the best possible way. Few people in board game criticism can cut to the heart of a topic like Dan can. That is why his work is so valuable and important. So, as I say, I felt challenged. His argument that the word "fun" has no real use in criticism struck me as too dismissive. To m...

Your skin is cold as you awaken in the dark. You have nothing but a flickering candle. A terrifying foreboding is constricting your throat, just like the narrow passageway is squashing your body. You know you are trapped in the tightest, most claustrophobic tunnel labyrinth imaginable. Yet, you must find keys and gates that may vanish at any moment, your only path to freedom. You must press on and escape The Night Cage by Christoph...

As board gamers, we are obsessed with size. We love sharing shelfies to show off the size of our giant board game collection. Board games that come in a giant box that could double up as a garage for a small car are appealing to us. We love giant miniatures that we could use for weight training. War games that come with thousands of chits and other little tokens are standard. So, this article obsesses over how much table space some...

The wind rustled gently through the trees. Dappled sunshine bathed the garden in a warm yellow tint, catching on the edges of the leaves and shimmering on the glass of a small bird bath. A hummingbird flitted from branch to branch, pausing briefly to inspect a cluster of flowers. Further away, a woodpecker drilled purposefully into the thick trunk of an old oak. The seasons were starting to change though. The time for migration was...

We are all so very conditioned to play board games to the end. Most games have some sort of end game trigger and a form of end game scoring. They want us to play them all the way through. Yet, when a player’s win is all but guaranteed, continuing to the end seems pointless. The enjoyment of a game often matters more than strictly following the rules. Adapting play to the situation and the group’s mood can keep board gaming fun and ...

It was like there were pixels: red ones, blue ones and black ones. There was one, two, three or four for each, sometimes none, in all sorts of combinations. You could combine them to give you five, six, seven or eight in the different colours. It was a real puzzle. You wanted to create the lowest or highest difference between the numbers in the centre and those in your hand. That difference changed over time. It was D.O.T by Chris ...

Sometimes I want to become the character on my player board, living out their adventure and experiencing a dramatic story filled with excitement and suspense. Other times, I just want to move some wooden pieces across a plain board, while I am deep in thought, and a giant decision tree that’s unfolding further with every turn fills my mind. Sometimes I yearn for a thematic experience, other times I crave something purely abstract. ...

The sun had just begun its slow climb over the horizon, casting molten gold across the waves. In the harbour of Puri, the scent of salt and spices mingled as the Sadhabas prepared for the season’s voyage. Families murmured blessings, drums echoed from the shore, and the rhythm of the sea promised both peril and fortune. Odisha’s maritime heritage would continue when the sailors left in their Pattachitra-patterned Boitas by Sidhant ...

Working by candlelight, we carefully stepped between endless shelves of books, books whose vivid imagination and terrible thoughts had become real and had entered our world. There were giant kraken, the frightful Fenrir and other monsters, as well as infamous characters, such as Count Dracula or Grendel’s Mother, prowling in the shadows. However, luckily, wonderful women, such as Marie Curie, Anne of Green Gables and even Red Ridin...

There is something fascinating about making things up that could never exist. The mind wanders. Ideas that go against all logic are conjured up. Taken to the edge of existence, to a time when everything ceases to exist, it creates a sense of weird foreboding. Ultimately, we all know that there is no escaping the grand finale. All we can do is watch the Doomlings: Imaginary Ends by Justus Meyer and Andrew Meyer from Doomlings.

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Most of us have heard of situations in our hobby where someone has behaved in a toxic way. Some of us have even experienced this directly. We can often name at least one bad actor who is still around in our community. We may have also seen publishers releasing games with an IP that is linked to a person whose behaviour has been widely condemned. As a reviewer, my instinct has always been not to review games linked to toxic people. ...

It started as a thought experiment, sealed away from the certainty of observation. We sat at the table, hands of cards like particles suspended in probability. No suit existed until declared, collapsing the wave of potential into a single, immutable state. Every choice rewrote the shape of the universe we shared, while paradoxes loomed like black holes at the edge of play. The research board became our map of reality, and each toke...

I think board games aren't just entertainment. They're not just a way to spend time with friends or family, or even alone. I think board games can be thought-provoking. They can tease our interest in a topic that we want to investigate further. Some board games can even carry an important message that is shared as we play them. These are games that I have always felt drawn to. This article is an ode to them.

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A great, furry creature once stumbled upon a golden treasure hidden within an old, hollowed-out tree trunk. Tempted by its sweetness, its giant paws struck without thought, only to be driven back by the stinging guardians, who fought to their deaths to protect their home. So goes the story of The Bears and the Bees by Jeffery Beck from Grandpa Beck’s Games with art by David Bock and Apryl Stott.

Read the full review here: https://ta...

I love Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory. It's an amazing economic simulation with huge ambitions. And yet, it rarely comes to the table. The reason is simple. It takes about half an hour to set up. You have to separate card decks, shuffle them, put a number of different components into different locations and do various other things before you can start playing. While Hegemony is a heavy game, it's not its complexity th...

The skyline cracked open in a bright flash. Buildings around us collapsed into dust. There was no way out. Sirens wailed, the air stank of ozone, and there was a huge, deep roar that shook the ground around us. Then came another roar and another. Suddenly, we saw Mothra through the smoke. There was also King Ghidorah looming over the skyline. Then Megalon burst from the rubble. Finally, we saw the king of monsters. It was Godzilla:...

Seeing a paper belly band, instead of plastic shrink wrap, around the decks of cards in Isle of Night from Red Raven Games made me realise that now might be the time to write again about sustainability and eco-friendliness in the board game hobby. Thinking back over the last few months, it feels as if publishers and players alike have started thinking more about making games greener. So in this article, I am looking at where the in...

As the green candlelight flickered lower and lower, a group of tireless paranormal researchers who had gathered around a reconstructed ritual circle were casting ancient manuscripts into the flames. Whispers rose with the smoke, and strange omens shimmered where the veil between reality and the land of the Ancient Ones had thinned. They knew the risks. They knew they were slowly losing their minds. Yet, they pressed on, drawn to th...

Atmosphere in board games is one of those things that is felt. It is not just about how a game looks or sounds, nor simply the story it tells. Instead, atmosphere is the subtle, almost elusive quality that emerges from the right mixture of art and illustrations, sound, gameplay and a player's imagination. It is what remains with us when all the noise fades and we are left with a sense of immersion and feeling unique to that gam...