You’d think running a city would be a straightforward matter. How hard can it be? Tell the people what to do and they’d go off and do it without question. Sometime later the fruits of their labour would be there for you…er…everyone to enjoy.

It seems that somewhere along the way, somebody introduced knowledge and free will into the mix which has thrown a nasty spanner into the works. And don’t get me started on happiness – you’re here to work, not have fun. What do you think this is? Disneyland? Get back to your jobs, plebeians.

Continue reading

I’m not a wine connoisseur. I used to serve the stuff when I worked as a waiter and I know the difference between red, white, rosé and sparkling, but that’s about as far as my expertise goes. Give me a single malt and I can probably tell you not only where it’s from and how old it is, but also which still it was made in and the name of the local village dog.

Wine on the other hand is another matter. Whenever I’m involved in a discussion about wine, I always remember the BBC programme “Food and Drink”, specifically Jilly Goolden. Every week she’d be spouting all kinds of nonsense like an unsecured fire hydrant, spraying everyone nearby with fragrant descriptions of whatever the “plonk-de-jour” was. Talk of noses, depth, length, chocolate notes and vanilla on the cusp. Almost like you were visiting a plastic surgeon who side-lined as a chocolatier about a proboscis adjustment.

Continue reading

Update 2: According to a tweet from Esdevium, Mansions of Madness Second Edition will be available in the UK on 4th August!

Update 1: As soon as I post my article Fantasy Flight Games post the official announcement with lots more details and images 

Original Article: As I’m writing this there is no news on the Fantasy Flight Games website, but via YouTube the gaming company have announced a second edition of Mansion of Madness, and it’s rather different from the first.

Continue reading

The hordes of the undead and creatures of the night definitely go in and out of popularity faster than global hyper colour t-shirts. It's seems like only yesterday that Vampires where the undead du jour, there was a brief spate of werewolf popularity, then non-threatening vampires and now zombies are bloody everywhere, shambling about the place trying to catch Pokémon.

Well it's seems about time that the modern day vampire hunter makes its resurgence. It seems so long ago that I was watching Buffy, Dracula 2000 and John Carpenter's Vampires, most of which have not stood the test of time and so it's about time that the concept of trained tooled up humans killing bloodthirsty creatures of the night came back and that's just what Vampire Hunters is doing.

Continue reading

Now, I like cake. I don’t think I know anyone who doesn’t. Cake is one of life’s fantastic luxuries. It’s never a bad time for cake and it goes with pretty much any meal, snack or beverage. It’s like the friend everyone has who is always up for a beer no matter what day of the week it is. And like that friend, you’ll always end up consuming far too much, feel sick and regret it the next day as your gut grows steadily larger. But you’d do it all again in a heartbeat. Assuming it still beats after troughing a mountain of chocolate fudge.

Continue reading

Update: We've now played the full version of the game so check out our Adrenaline boardgame review

Original Article: There's been a lot of video games that have made their way to our cardboard domain over recent years, from direct ports like Civilisation to those, like XCOM, that take the theme and spirit of the game and blend something new.

One thing these games have in common is that they tend to be based on the strategy end of the video game market, and whereas miniatures games like Infinity have mastered the art of tactical squad combat, no-one has really mastered the arena shooter.  Until Adrenaline.

Continue reading

Steve is our only hope as his misfit rebellion defeat Andy’s evil empire in Star Wars Rebellion, Andy takes his revenge as a blood hungry vampire in Fury of Dracula and Jon talks about Imps Devilish Duels, a game of dice and cards from Triple Ace Games.

The boys also take another look at the economic worker placement games of Crisis and Scythe.

Discussion is then prompted by questions from listeners where all three weigh in with their thoughts on Battleships, Legacy games and the Spiel des Jahres nominees.

Continue reading

Anyone who has been paying attention is already aware that tabletop gaming, from board games to roleplaying games and everything in-between, is quickly becoming one of the largest segments on Kickstarter, and to tell you just how big the tabletop world is, Casual Game Insider have produced a cool infographic.

Continue reading

Triple Ace Games are a role playing game company, let's put that out there right at the start, their major output is rule and source books for their Leagues of Adventure and Hellfrost games, but over the last few years Triple Ace have been getting into board game development.

Two years ago they released Rocket Race, which I was a big fan of, and last year they released Halfling Feast, which I wasn't as enamoured with.  Both games however, are light quick games, taking around 10 to 20 minutes and ideal to fit in between role playing game sessions or while waiting for Andy to finish wolfing down his cheesy chips with kebab meat. Imps Devilish Duels is another game to fit snugly into this niche, it plays quick, it plays light and it fits into your pocket.

Continue reading

I’m not sure I’d do very well after an apocalypse. I can’t whittle spoons like Bear Grylls, I can’t mine and wouldn’t know the first thing about where to start looking for ore and I’m not exactly a Bronzed Adonis hunter-gatherer type. I’m just an average sized chap with a plethora of Physics degrees and a penchant for board games. The former seem to have proven about as useful to me as a one legged man in an arse-kicking contest, but the latter certainly did put me in good stead for what I’m doing right now: babbling unwaveringly at a curious reader who came here to learn about a recent board game and is instead being told a series of useless facts about the author.

Continue reading

I must admit to you that I prefer the lighter side of theme, a game about dragons, laser rifles or Cthulhu will allows grab my attention.

Yes, I know, I'm part of the problem.

Which is why I want you to have a look at Crisis, because Crisis may be the heaviest and most economic game I have played.  This may not sound like much of an endorsement from a man which took one look at Kanban, realised it looked far too much like actual work and ran a mile, but Crisis does something very interesting in both its theme and its implementation.

Continue reading

Sometimes things get lost in translation. There's only so much a rulebook can tell you and there are occasions when a rulebook can teach you the mechanics of a game but fail to teach you the spirit of the game.  I feel that's where I am with Blood and Fortune.  Although I know how to play the game I feel as if I'm missing something, that I have lost some fundamental core of what the game is.

Playing three to six players, Blood & Fortune is a game of bluffing and negotiation, apparently.  The aim is to have the best set of scoring cards in front of you and as many of your cards in front of other players as you can.  Each card scores only one or two points and at the end of each round you can only score the right most 2-point card in the row.

Continue reading

There’s a filthy rumour going around Polyhedron Collider that I might have a bit of a soft spot for Stonemaier Games. That whenever there’s even so much as a faint whiff of a new Stonemaier release, I’m left foaming at the mouth like some kind of rabid animal, trying to find out as much as I can about it and wanting to know when it gets released. I’m sure my colleagues here would never sully their good professional reputations by suggesting such unfounded things, but in this case, they’d be entirely correct. I’ve always found Stonemaier Games to be elegant, fluid and well designed – and it seems I also quite enjoy worker placement games too so we’re off to a good start.

Continue reading