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SmashUp earns a Narragansett Shandy

SmashUp, put out by AEG and designed by Paul Peterson, is one of those cross-over games that gets hobby gamers and casual players together for a good time. The theme and simple rules appeal to folks used to mass-market games and the strategic depth of some of the factions will keep the thinkers engaged. There are […]

Print and Play for Treasure of Skeleton Island

I’ve put together the print and play files for our Treasure of Skeleton Island prototype using a handy Python script. It’s not super flexible yet, but it is solid enough that I’m ready to release it to the world, so go visit the bitbucket repository. For future projects, I’m hoping to take advantage of Squib for […]

Cursed! now at DriveThruCards.com

Cursed! is now available at DriveThruCards as both print-and-play or print-on-demand. I just got the proof copy today and it came out great! If you missed out on the Kickstarter or just want another copy, stop by and check it out.

Pull! by Chevee Dodd rates a Modelo Especial

Chevee Dodd has one of the most transparent design processes of any game designer we’ve come across. He discusses graphics, game design, and other related (and not so related) topics on his website. Roughly half of his games are available freely as print-and-play options and many are also on print-on-demand services like The Game Crafter. Earlier this year, […]

Pairs by Cheapass Games

If you have a Kickstarter account, and you are reading this blog, then it’s likely that you backed Pairs by Cheapass Games in February or March of 2014. It’s one of those projects that got ever so slightly overfunded to the tune of 2700% of its goal. It had some things going for it to […]

Love Letter: A Fun, Quick Game for All Ages

Love Letter, designed by Seiji Kanai and published by AEG, was all the rage in 2012 and 2013, so of course, we ignored it until the summer of 2014. It turns out that our aversion to the hip and happening served us poorly in this case, and Love Letter is an enjoyable microgame. Gameplay Summary Draw […]

Introducing Treasure Island: The Microgame

In late July, Steve Cole of Escape Velocity Games announced a contest he was running for microgames based on classic novels. You can view lots of the entries in the corresponding BoardGameGeek thread. Strangeland Games threw our hat into the right with a set collection game based on Treasure Island. The rules didn’t require a new game […]

Fast Setup Deckbuilders: LotR and DC Comics

We recently played two games I would classify as fast-setup deck builders: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Deck Building Game (isn’t that a mouthful?) and DC Comics Deck Building Game. Now, you know a game mechanic has made the big time when big franchises come out using the mechanic AND feel […]

Gothic Doctor Game Review

We recently got a chance to play an advance copy of Gothic Doctor from Meltdown Games (we received a copy of the game, no other compensation). Their kickstarter will go live on July 1st. Follow this link to their Kickstarter preview page and you can get notified as soon as they launch. One Sentence Review […]