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CHOOSE YOUR OWN CARDVENTURE
Feb 19
Posted by Dan Thurot
I spend a weird amount of time thinking about narrative in board games. So maybe
it isn’t a surprise that I was drawn to Hildegard, the second entry in Greg
Favro’s Spire’s End series, in which the obvious touchstone is
choose-your-own-adventure books. You know, those things everybody cheated
through as a kid.
Read the rest of this entry →
Posted in Board Game
Leave a comment
Tags: Board Games, Favro Ventures, Spire's End, Spire's End: Hildegard
THE PLUM ISLAND PARK STROLL
Feb 15
Posted by Dan Thurot
One of the finest solitaire games of all time is Dawn of the Zeds, Hermann
Luttmann’s masterful riff on the States of Siege model. Not that it should be
taken lightly. It presents a vicious struggle for survival that might end in
calamity faster than the game can actually be set up. It doesn’t help that
further editions and expansions cluttered the table with so many optional
modules that even veterans of the zed wars might pause before breaking it out.
At least this veteran has.
So it was with no small measure of excitement that I approached The Plum Island
Horror, a spiritual successor to Dawn of the Zeds, and a perfectly schlocky
reimagining of the small town under siege by reanimated horrors.
Read the rest of this entry →
Posted in Board Game
1 Comment
Tags: Alone Time, Board Games, GMT Games, The Plum Island Horror
TALKING ABOUT GAMES: AGAINST REPEATABILITY
Feb 14
Posted by Dan Thurot
There’s a recurring series I write on Space-Biff! called New Year, Old Year,
which looks back on the games highlighted in Best Weeks past and evaluates them
from a more updated vantage. When I began writing it back in 2017, there were
two purposes behind the series. The immediate function was prophylactic. I’m
often asked whether this or that game has held up since its release. New Year,
Old Year could function as a repository for keeping my readers updated. Also,
sure, so I had something to link to instead of answering those questions over
and over again.
On a more personal level, New Year, Old Year also functioned as a form of
accountability. A gut-check on my own tastes and attitudes. It was valuable to
look back on the lists I’d written years before. With the benefit of hindsight,
it was easier to see where I’d steered wrong, the gaps in my recommendations, or
where my initial enthusiasm had been misplaced. The series was a corrective. It
helped me not only reevaluate previous titles, but approach the games I was
playing and reviewing right now with some additional perspective.
But something happened last year. When the appointed time came around to write
about Best Week 2021, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Something I’d left
sitting on the windowsill for far too long had finally curdled.
Read the rest of this entry →
Posted in Board Game
37 Comments
Tags: Board Games, Endurance, Talking About Games, The Gods Will Have Blood
I SACRIFICED MY BLOOD TO NAWALLI
Feb 13
Posted by Dan Thurot
The first time I opened NAWALLI, the Aztec-themed card game from Gonzalo Alvarez
and Will Rogers, I cut my finger. An occupational hazard, one might suppose, but
this was no paper cut. No, the ruby scratch that marked my index finger had come
from reaching too eagerly into the game’s baggie of tracker gems and obsidian
stones. I soon found the offending piece, a miniature knife with jagged teeth
and an unexpected bite.
I can’t think of a better stand-in for NAWALLI as a whole. Like that shard of
volcanic glass, this game is jagged around the edges. It’s small and might nip
at your fingertips. But it’s also so dang cool that I wouldn’t have it any other
way.
Read the rest of this entry →
Posted in Board Game
Leave a comment
Tags: Board Games, NAWALLI, Studio Tecuanis
MORE LIKE HADRIAN’S PATHETIC DITCH
Feb 12
Posted by Dan Thurot
It isn’t that I dislike the entire roll-and-write/flip-and-write genre. It’s
that the genre never grew past its infancy. There are exceptions. To give one
example, I recently enjoyed Steven Aramini’s Fliptown enough to name it one of
my favorite titles of 2023. For the most part, though, these games feel more
like proofs of concept than something I’d elect to drag off the shelf.
That is, until I played Bobby Hill’s Hadrian’s Wall, a tangle of possessives if
ever there was one. I’ll do one better: This is Dan Thurot’s Bobby Hill’s
Hadrian’s Wall review.
Read the rest of this entry →
Posted in Board Game
8 Comments
Tags: Board Games, Garphill Games, Hadrian's Wall
ANNIE CHRISTMAS VS. MOTTHEW
Feb 8
Posted by Dan Thurot
I have such a soft spot for Rob Daviau and Justin Jacobson’s Unmatched series.
That goes double when they’re producing sets like Cobble & Fog, adaptations that
faithfully translate works of literature to the gaming table and let the
Invisible Man slug Sherlock Holmes in his upturned snoot.
Unmatched Adventures: Tales to Amaze takes the series in a new direction.
Designed by Jason Hager and Darren Reckner, this set is transformative in the
literal sense, reworking those staple clashes into cooperative boss battles. In
comic book terms, it’s the crossover event that sees all those ruffians and
louts teaming up to topple an even nastier baddie. It’s such a shift of
perspective that it would be a minor wonder if it worked at all. Instead, it
comes off so perfectly that I’m tempted to drag my older sets out of storage.
Read the rest of this entry →
Posted in Board Game
8 Comments
Tags: Board Games, Restoration Games, Unmatched, Unmatched Adventures: Tales to
Amaze
NAME YOUR ZOMBIES
Feb 6
Posted by Dan Thurot
I’ve never been satisfied with the concept of the tone poem. If anything, it
feels like a descriptor we resort to when there isn’t anything better at hand.
When it comes to But Then She Came Back, the horror board game by Amabel
Holland, well, there isn’t anything better at hand. Unlike most of Holland’s
oeuvre, it’s an impressionistic lament to the toxic relationships we left
behind, probably well after we should have. Very much like some of her work,
it’s also a game that gives back what you bring to it.
Read the rest of this entry →
Posted in Board Game
8 Comments
Tags: Amabel Holland, Board Games, But Then She Came Back, Hollandspiele
GNOBODY GKNOWS
Feb 5
Posted by Dan Thurot
All I play anymore is trick-taking games. Except I’m not so sure Gnaughty Gnomes
really qualifies as one. Like Matthias Cramer’s Pies, the card-play is closer to
an auction than anything resembling a trick.
But never mind that. I’m having such a good time getting these gnomes high as a
kite that I couldn’t care less about where it hangs within some ill-defined
genre’s orbit.
Read the rest of this entry →
Posted in Board Game
Leave a comment
Tags: Board Games, Gnaughty Gnomes, New Mill Industries
WOULDST THOU LIKE THE TASTE OF MARGARINE?
Feb 1
Posted by Dan Thurot
What happens when multiple covens of witches come together to determine which
among them is most powerful? Why, chase victory points, of course! Stefano Di
Silvio’s Evenfall won’t be winning any points for originality. Its best bits are
mined wholesale from other tableau- and combo-builders. But it’s a slick package
all the same, even if it seems to cast an enchantment of forgetfulness after
each appearance on the table.
Read the rest of this entry →
Posted in Board Game
5 Comments
Tags: Board Games, Evenfall, Matagot
SDHISTCON 2023
Jan 31
Posted by Dan Thurot
Apart from one local con, I haven’t attended a convention in years. They’re
uniquely wearying, like swimming freestyle in a petri dish. So when a friend
mentioned they would be attending SDHistCon, an annual historical gaming
convention in San Diego, and wouldn’t mind splitting a room, I declined. Then
Harold Buchanan, the con runner and designer of Liberty or Death, mentioned that
he would like me to participate in a pair of panels, and would reimburse me some
small amount. I declined again. It took pressure from two further acquaintances
before I booked the flight.
I’m glad I did. SDHistCon was the most enjoyable convention I’ve attended by a
mile. What follows are the eight highlights of the show.
Read the rest of this entry →
Posted in Board Game, Convention
11 Comments
Tags: Board Games, SDHistCon
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