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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 […]

Forbidden Island rates a Scorpion Bowl

Forbidden Island, designed by Matt Leacock of Pandemic fame, is the first purely cooperative game we have tried out. The first pass went very easily, even though we started on one of the more difficult levels, and we wondered if maybe it was targeted more at kids than adults. Afterwards, I realized we were doing […]

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 […]

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 […]

Tabletop Game Preview: Yardmaster

We were recently given the opportunity to preview Yardmaster, a card-based strategy game by Steven Aramini and published by Crash Games. coming soon to a Kickstarter near you It’s currently live on Kickstarter, and here’s what we think.

Throwback Thursdays: Pathways into Darkness

The year was 1993. I was 14. I was sad, for my parents didn’t allow video game consoles in the house, and although I felt smugly superior for owning a Mac rather than a PC, I couldn’t really play any games on it. But then there was Bungie, and it was good.

Throwback Thursdays: Betrayal at the House on the Hill

Betrayal at the House on the Hill (a.k.a The Haunt in our gaming circle after the game’s second phase) was originally published by Avalon Hill and WotC released a second edition in 2010 . Since this is a Throwback Thursday post, and since we see no reason to buy a new edition of a game when the copy […]