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Overview of Great Western Trail, 2nd Edition

Great Western Trail web story poster
Megan Ferrell | September 2, 2022
Great Western Trail web story poster
Overview of Great Western Trail, 2nd Edition

Overview of Moonrakers

Moonrakers tabletop board game box
Megan Ferrell | September 2, 2022
Moonrakers tabletop board game box
Overview of Moonrakers

Overview of Mariposas Tabletop Game

Mariposas board game - poster for webstory
Megan Ferrell | July 31, 2022
Mariposas board game - poster for webstory
Overview of Mariposas Tabletop Game

Kōhaku Tabletop Game in 60 Seconds Overview

Kohaku board game story cover
Megan Ferrell | June 26, 2022
Kohaku board game story cover
Kōhaku Tabletop Game in 60 Seconds Overview

Tabletop Board Games to Celebrate International UFO Day

World UFO Day Poster
Megan Ferrell | June 11, 2022
World UFO Day Poster
Tabletop Board Games to Celebrate International UFO Day

Conspiracy: Abyss Universe Card Game in 60 Seconds Overview

Conspiracy: The Abyss Universe board game webstory poster
Megan Ferrell | June 9, 2022
Conspiracy: The Abyss Universe board game webstory poster
Conspiracy: Abyss Universe Card Game in 60 Seconds Overview

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    Board Game Matrix is a board game discovery web app created by tabletop game enthusiasts, Megan Ferrell and Nicole Aue, for tabletop game enthusiasts.
    My partner and I think of ourselves as a formidabl My partner and I think of ourselves as a formidable team when we play a co-op game. But Spirit Island, a board game we rented from @portlandgamelibrary, outsmarted us on our first couple of attempts. In Spirit Island, players represent spirits of nature who, in conjunction with the Dahan (island inhabitants), work to ward off colonizers from an island. Each round, colonizing explorers drop onto a certain territory type on the island map. The next round, any explorers who have not been eliminated will build towns or cities. The round after that, remaining explorers, towns, and cities will ravage the island. In so doing, they may destroy the Dahan in that region, deploy blight, or eliminate players’ spirit presence from that region. Because spirit actions can be delayed until after the colonizers ravage, it’s key to aim actions at upcoming rounds in addition to the current one. For us, the eventual winning spirit team consisted of Spread of Rampant Green, paired with Lightning’s Swift Strike. The latter spirit’s ability to occasionally bestow speed upon the powerful abilities that can be acquired by the former allowed us to eliminate the colonizers handily. (Along with some experience under our belts, of course.) If we could go back in time and play for the first time again, we would choose to not use the recommended starter decks or limit ourselves to the “low complexity” spirits. We were much more effective when we were able to draft cards that we felt suited our spirit’s abilities as well as the conditions on the island board. While our first play was bewildering and our second unlucky, our third play felt like I think the game is supposed to feel: challenging but not impossible. Eliminating the colonizers was a satisfying experience. Have you played Spirit Island? If so, what are your favorite spirits to play as? Also, shout out to @greaterthangames for replacing three cards that were casualties of cat mischief, free of charge! What amazing customer service. Thank you! #firstimpressionsfriday🎲 by @kay_plays_games #spiritisland #spiritislandboardgame #boardgamereview #cooperativegames #strategygames
    We rented the deckbuilding game Clank! In! Space! We rented the deckbuilding game Clank! In! Space! from @portlandgamelibrary because we heard it was a rollicking good time. (Who can resist flavor text like that on the raygun-wielding humanoid-alien-cat Space Pirate card: “Everyone relax. I’m only here for your ice.”?) In Clank! In! Space!, players move stealthily through the spaceship of the evil Eradikus Prime in order to hack the ship’s computers, steal an artifact and auxiliary loot, and haul ass back to an escape pod before all their “clanking” noise alerts the bad guys to their presence. Our game got off to a slow start, partly because early on we kept drawing enemy cards to replace cards we had purchased from the trade row. The only way out was to clutter our already weak starter decks with FAZR cards (i.e., fighting cards) until eventually we drew two or more at once to defeat the enemies and turn up new trade row cards. Once the game got going, I enjoyed the racing feature. Mazing potential paths in and out of the Command Module and to the Cargo Bay was a delightful puzzle. I was last off the ship, but had enough healing ability and loot to squeak through with a surprise win, one turn away from sure obliteration by Eradikus Prime. Incidentally, the board layout, premise, and goal reminds me of a fantastic but obscure, vaguely sci-fi themed Atari 7800 video game I used to love as a kid: Impossible Mission (IYKYK). So I was particularly attracted to the game for that reason, but I also thought many aspects were really well done, especially the humorous card art and flavor text. Faction ability was relatively unuseful, since few faction cards actually had faction-related abilities on them. Some cards had questionable utility in general. We came across very few cards that allowed for deck-culling, which kept our decks less than stellar for much of the game. Glad we got to try this one, though I prefer a deckbuilder that ramps up a little faster, and in which I can hone a leaner-and-meaner deck. Are you a fan of the Clank! Games? #firstimpressionsfriday🎲 by @kay_plays_games #clankinspace #pauldennen #spacegames #boardgames #boardgamereviews #deckbuildinggame #racinggame #dungeoncrawler
    Everdell is my favorite board game. Its beauty, st Everdell is my favorite board game. Its beauty, strategic depth, and end-game crescendo stole my heart in 2018 and I have been wedded to it ever since. But, we hardly ever play it. It takes hours to play and requires a good night’s sleep to partake in its strategy properly. Enter Everdell: Duo to save the day. It’s a 2-player game in the Everdell universe that feels somewhat like its parent game squished into a shorter experience. Our first game took about an hour (not bad for us!). In Everdell: Duo, players represent either the tortoise or the hare, dueling to build the best little city in Everdell. Each turn, players will draft cards from the Meadow or draw from the deck; play a card into their City tableau; or place a Tortoise/Hare worker at a resource gathering location. Just like Everdell, the Duo version is loaded with strategic choices and variability. The tortoise/hare theme is ingenious; players alternate going up a time track that affects not only which actions the other player can take on their next turn, but also how many actions of a certain type will be available each round and who will get more of those types of actions. It’s really quite juicy. Many of the same cards from Everdell are found in Duo, often with different abilities. For example, some cards that were once punishing (like The Fool or the Pirate Ship) have been repurposed. Other changes include eliminating the hand limit, and liberalizing construction/critter pairings. The cards and board in Everdell Duo have been minified and the entire game fits on ⅔ of a standard card table. No giant Everdell tree here! I miss the larger card art and the table presence of Everdell, but Duo is still a good looking game. We have only tried the competitive version so far, but we are very excited to try the co-op campaign and the challenge mode. While it’s not quite as immersive and satisfying as the original Everdell (it’s not meant to be), we will turn to Everdell Duo when we want Everdell flavor with fewer calories. #firstimpressionsfriday🎲 by @kay_plays_games #everdellduo #everdellboardgame #boardgamereview #strategygames #boardgames #everdell @starlinggames
    Cosmoctopus was an impulse purchase. While in a bo Cosmoctopus was an impulse purchase. While in a board game store last year, my partner picked up Cosmoctopus, read the box cover, and decided we were leaving the shop with it. We later learned Cosmoctopus is a parody of the Cthulhu mythos, a universe with which we are neither particularly enamored nor familiar. While some of the game’s inside jokes may have escaped us, the concept of a cult based around a cosmically powerful octopus is inherently funny and we appreciated the humor throughout. At the time, we didn’t even notice that Cosmoctopus was designed by Henry Audubon, designer of Parks, which is one of my partner’s all-time favorite games. I see the design resemblance to Parks in the punishing worker placement, the breadth of action abilities, and the resource limits. But Cosmoctopus has its own strong identity. The addition of a racing mechanism, card drafting mechanism, and emphasis on engine building makes Cosmoctopus feel less constraining than Parks. The goal of Cosmoctopus is to be the first to collect 8 tentacles to summon the Great Inky One. Typically this is done by sacrificing various resources in a particular sequence as indicated by a Constellation card. Other methods include paying resources to purchase a Hallucination card that bestows a tentacle, or buying Forbidden Knowledge with a big chunk of a single resource. I found Cosmoctopus to be both frustrating and compelling, as many good games are. Some cards are more valuable than others for their relative price. If you score enough of those cards at the right times, you’ll be set. But with a trade row of only 3 cards, you might miss out on those to other players. The worker placement tile grid is similarly tight, with 12 possible locations and a potentially expensive movement cost. And then there is the cheeky aesthetic: The plastic tentacles contain unique organic shapes to represent an octopus in motion. The cards and tiles contain “vintage” artwork, ostensibly referencing the pulp fiction that inspired the theme. #firstimpressionsfriday🎲 by @kay_plays_games #cosmoctopus #boardgamereview #henryaudubon #cthulhu #enginebuildinggames #racinggames #paperfortgames #luckyduckgames
    Stratego was one of my favorite board games when I Stratego was one of my favorite board games when I was growing up. In fact, I still have my brother’s copy from childhood that he didn’t want anymore. So when given the opportunity to play and review the modernized version, Stratego Classic by @jumbo_games, I was giddy with nostalgia. Stratego is a 2-player game of tactics, grid movement, hidden information, and memory. The objective is to capture the opponent’s flag pawn, which will require first discovering its location through inevitable sacrifice of your pawns. What’s new in Stratego Classic? -Improved box and insert -Reversed numbers on pawns (the most powerful character, the Marshal, is now a 10 instead of a 1) -Updated cylindrical pawns -Inclusion of some female soldiers on pawns -Differentiated art on pawns (unique art for opposing factions and also within a certain rank) -Cards that create more randomness and hidden information Stratego Classic feels comfortably familiar, yet the addition of cards really does change it up. Say you used a Scout (rank 2) to force your opponent to reveal the rank of one of their pawns. It’s a 6. You move in to attack your opponent’s 6 with your 7, knowing you will be victorious. …But wait! From their current hand of cards, your opponent plays a defense card that raises the rank of their pawn by 2! Their 6 is now an 8 and has defeated your attacking 7! I am used to having “perfect” information in Stratego, once I have performed sufficient recon to reveal the ranks of my opponents’ pawns. Having imperfect information, whether about where my opponent’s pawns will be or what their rank might be requires a change in strategy and keeps me on my toes. My opponent beat me in our first game by playing her cards shrewdly and aggressively. I will take cues from her for our next game! Stratego Classic delivers on creating a fresh take on a classic game with interesting new decision spaces. We would recommend checking this version out, especially for Stratego fans. It’s available from @target. Game provided by publisher for review purposes. Our opinions are our own. #firstimpressionsfriday🎲 by @kay_plays_games #jumboplay #strategoclassic #stratego #boardgamereview
    The most succinct review I can provide for the boa The most succinct review I can provide for the board game Glow is an echo of my partner’s pithy summation: “This game is just so… French.” Ostensibly, Glow is about bringing light back to a world that has gone dark. However, the aesthetic maintains its gloom throughout the game: the black and white ink illustration by Vincent Dutrait is fantastic, but the sad eyes of the miserable creatures that players recruit as their companions are a bit of a downer. Additionally, the game overall feels more like mitigating negative conditions than maximizing growth and positive outcomes. In Glow, players draft Companion cards that confer various abilities. Often, drafting a companion will also result in drafting a variable number of dice to be rolled that round, which will trigger card abilities and board movement abilities. Card abilities are sometimes positive and sometimes negative. Sometimes they are worth points, a die re-roll, a movement token, or fireflies that can earn points at the end of the game; sometimes they subtract from your point value at the end of the game. Or, they may place a hex on another player. Other times, a Companion will be sent to the graveyard, which may provide a benefit—or a punishment. Before we rented Glow from @portlandgamelibrary, I warned my partner that my recon had indicated it was a dice chucker. She wanted to rent it anyway, largely compelled by the box cover art. Can’t argue with that. And what a dice chucker it was! We experienced very little player agency, being the passive subjects of random dice rolls throughout the game. We also felt unmotivated to move around the board to set up camp, because the costs seemed greater than the benefits. The game ends with a whimper after 8 rounds. There is no race to make camp on the board first, synergy among companions doesn’t coalesce, and the end of the game feels as random as the dice rolls. We were unprepared to make our own meaning out of the strife and gloom presented in this game. I guess we needed to summon our inner French existentialists to resonate with this one. #boardgamereview #glowboardgame #lueurboardgame #vincentdutrait #boardgames #dicegame #carddrafting
    We rented The Quest for El Dorado board game from We rented The Quest for El Dorado board game from @portlandgamelibrary because we like deck-building games, and to an extent, we also enjoy racing games. It doesn’t hurt that my partner is a huge fan of the Indiana Jones franchise. In The Quest for El Dorado, players use cards from their hand to advance along a track composed of contiguous hexes representing territory types including water, jungle, caves, and others. When players reach a cave, they can obtain a treasure from it that can be used for later benefit (such as an additional move, an additional card draw, deck culling, etc.). The movement mechanism in the two-player version of this game reminded me a bit of the classic game Chinese Checkers. For example, players will sometimes end up taking a circuitous route toward El Dorado to avoid certain pitfalls like spaces that require more movement ability than the player has in their current hand, and to avoid spaces that are already occupied by their opponent. Just like in Chinese Checkers, players must get all of their explorers to El Dorado to win, so it’s important to not let the second meeple get left too far behind. The level of replayability should be fairly high, given map and card variability. During our first game, we played with the recommended map setup. We changed up the map for our second session, which resulted in different card purchases and strategies. And as with any deck builder, luck is another factor. The Quest for El Dorado has won several awards, and been nominated for many others. I can see the reasoning for the nominations. Obviously the game garnered attention because of its designer, Reiner Knizia, but the genius of this game is its simplicity. It’s easy to learn and intuitive to play. Yet, every turn feels consequential—because it is. We had a great time with this one and are glad we got to check it out. Have you played The Quest for El Dorado? #thequestforeldorado #racingboardgame #deckbuildinggame #reinerknizia #boardgamereview #boardgameaddict #boardgames
    “Take that!” “Oh yeah? Well then take THIS!” If adversarial banter over an ever-changing game of tactics appeals to you, you might like The Grimm Forest. The goal of the game is to be the best little piggy developer of the Grimm Forest, building structures of straw, wood, and brick faster than your cousins (your opponents). Each round, players blindly bid on a building material. The number of each available material type waxes and wanes depending on what was leftover from the previous round and on special effects being applied by players’ “fable” cards and “friend” cards. For example, playing a “wolf” fable card will destroy all resources in a bid location of the player’s choice, after everyone has already placed their bids. Ouch. The minis in this game are either fun to play with or instill dread, depending on who’s getting to place them. When they are invoked by a fable card, they are placed on a building resource location and do something destructive. The dragon will lay flame to all the resources on the selected player’s board. Bummer if you’re the selected player and you had gathered a bunch of stuff for maximum flexibility… guess you shouldn’t have been so effective at resource collection if you didn’t want to watch your plans roasted in flames! So at this point you’re probably gathering that this is a ridiculously mean game. Well, it is. Not every card is mean, but the most effective ones are. But the game is also silly and you learn quickly that strategic planning isn’t rewarded nearly as well as tactical response. It’s a bit like Fluxx with the constantly changing conditions and reverse-super-action-cancellation-boomerang effects of the cards. The official player age on the box is 14+, but this is hogwash (pun intended). The best audience for this game is probably 8-12 year old kids. It’s not a bad game. It has great toy factor, and building the houses, when you actually get to do it, is satisfying. But it’s not really a game for (most) adults. Have you played The Grimm Forest? #firstimpressionsfriday🎲 by @kay_plays_games #boardgamereview #thegrimmforest #timeisner #boardgames #boardgamephotography #biddinggames
    I am chilling on a beautiful October day, playing I am chilling on a beautiful October day, playing Six Second Scribbles by @gamelygames outside with my partner and mom. What a great opportunity to post for #boardtober2024 by @getintogames, with the theme of “chill” by @boardgameangel! Six Second Scribbles is an incredibly simple and fun drawing game. We learned it and were playing in just a few minutes. In one minute, players draw as many items as they can from a card listing ten items that fit a specific theme (such as “Things that begin with the letter M” or “Halloween Costumes”). Then, when time is up, players give their drawings to the player at their left or right for guessing the item being represented in the drawing. The artist and guesser each score one point per correct guess. The drawing and guessing are both entertaining. My mom was laughing so hard at some of our dumb drawings she had tears running down her face! Also, the game uses non-American English, so none of us had a fighting chance at guessing a word like “ice lolly,” which is apparently the same thing as a popsicle? Or “auberguine,” which is apparently the same thing as an eggplant?? Every such instance resulted in more laughter. Did we cheat and give ourselves 3 minutes? Yeah, totally. And still, none of us got all 10 of our items drawn in that time. I wonder if a truly 6-second scribble would be dicipherable to the guesser? We were too timid to try it on our first play, but would love to give it a go after some practice. We also have only played the “easy” cards, which tend to list tangible items (think “object” category in Pictionary) rather than concepts. This game will definitely get a lot of play with friends and family over the upcoming holidays, and we’ll have opportunities to test out the harder cards. My mom was already looking ahead to getting the expansion pack. Hey, Christmas is coming! Six Second Scribbles was provided by the publisher for review. All opinions are our own. Do you like drawing games? #sixsecondscribbles #drawinggames #familygames #partygames #boardgamereview #gamelygames
    We rented Trailblazers from @portlandgamelibrary b We rented Trailblazers from @portlandgamelibrary because we love hiking and thought the theme and gameplay sounded appealing. Our predictions were rewarded! Trailblazers is a lightweight puzzly path-building game in which players create trails that loop from and back to their kayak rental site, bike rental site, and campsite. Across 4 rounds, each turn players will play 2 path cards from their hand of 8 cards. Then they will pass their hand to another player. The last 2 cards each round will be discarded. Each of the first 3 rounds, players will place a new site out of which matching trails can be initiated (blue rivers for kayak sites, pink rock trails for bike sites, and brown dirt trails for campsites). There are a few tricks to this game, including careful hand management each round, relative placement of sites, choosing which bonus goals to reach for, and the one that sometimes tripped me up: making sure each card placed actually can result in a loop and won’t box you in. If you’re used to playing Tsuro, you’ll have to fight the tendency to avoid loops. We played with the expansion that scores for critter meeples placed on path cards of completed loops. Different animals placed on a completed loop score at a greater rate the more unique animals occur on the loop. We did not get a chance to play with the Adventurers expansion, which features meeples of bicyclists, kayakers, and hikers. Guess we’ll have to rent it again! Connecting the paths is pleasing, and I love playing with the animeeples. I would call it cozy, except that it can be just a bit too punishing to put in that category… let’s call it “cozy-adjacent.” We liked this game. It’s easy to table and easy to teach. Our friend liked it enough after playing with us that she wanted to buy it. I wonder which one of us will break down and buy it first? Have you played Trailblazers? #firstimpressionsfriday🎲 by @kay_plays_games #boardgamereview #trailblazersboardgame #bitewinggames #abstractgame #boardgames #naturegames #animeeples
    Because we like cats and card games, we were pleas Because we like cats and card games, we were pleased to have the opportunity to preview the game Catopomp by @dchowswag, which is coming to Kickstarter mid-Q1 2025. In Catopomp, players are cat psychopomps guiding souls to heaven or… the other place! Catopomp feels like a traditional card game, with some fun additions. The primary mechanism will feel familiar: shedding cards with sets and runs. During a turn, players will play a card or set of cards onto the table from their hand (heaven) or their personal discard tableau (hell domain), then discard a card into their hell domain (if playing from their hand). The next player will need to better the previous player’s cards. Cards are numbered 1-8 (or 1-10 with 4 players). A single 10 is beaten by a pair of any number, a pair is beaten by 3 of a kind, and 3 is beaten by 4. Sets of the same number beat out sequential runs of the same number of cards, and higher number of cards (up to 4) will always trump smaller number of cards. So, a single 1 is the least powerful, while 4 tens is the most powerful hand. There are some twists and strategies to consider. You’re trying to get rid of all of your cards—both heaven and hell cards. Cobbling together a strong hand as the number of cards available to you diminishes becomes challenging. Choosing what to discard to help yourself later is one strategy, but other players can stick one of their hell cards into your hell domain if you pass on your turn. This considerably gums up the works! Additionally, each player gets 2 dice, whose face values can be used to augment the number of one of their cards. The game ends when a player has lost both of their soul gems (meaning, they have lost 2 rounds). 💎 We enjoy this game. The art is charming, and the theme, while abstracted, is amusing. If you like traditional card games with a twist, there is a good chance this game will appeal to you. Catopomp was provided by the publisher for review purposes. All opinions are our own. The Kickstarter page is up if you want to follow the campaign and read the rules! Find the link at @dchowswag’s profile. #boardgamepreview #boardgamereview #catopomp #catopompboardgame #cardgame
    We are beginning to see a pattern in Elizabeth Har We are beginning to see a pattern in Elizabeth Hargraves’ board games. We already expect them to be heavily thematic, educational, and scientifically accurate. And now, we are also seeing that they are consistently original and distinct from one another. Those calling Undergrove “another cozy nature game” have clearly not played. Undergrove is a brutal game of area control and capture of common resources. Over the course of the game, players play mushroom tiles featuring various abilities into the common forest. They can place their seedlings at the corner of a mushroom tile to use its abilities–regardless of who played the mushroom tile. Players can also seize carbon played by other players into the common forest to feed their own seedlings. (Try as you may to set yourself up to feed your seedlings by playing carbon into the forest, someone will inevitably take that carbon. Your carbon. Or, so you thought.) It’s a game about symbiosis, yes; but the main lesson is that trees in a forest are in fierce competition for resources, even as the forest is constantly producing them. Maybe the area control board in Wingspan: Asia was foreshadowing for Undergrove, but I didn’t see this one coming. It’s a brilliant game: engaging, competitive, tense, strategic, and impressively thematic even as the gameplay feels somewhat abstract. I have never played anything quite like it. I adore Wingspan, but for those who wished Wingspan was a little more interactive, a little fiercer, Undergrove delivers. The “Mycologist” edition (deluxe Kickstarter edition) comes with all-wood components and tiles. From a tactile and aesthetic standpoint, it rocks. I would pay to swim in a ball pit full of those wood tokens. I also love the mushroom field guide featuring Beth Sobel’s art. Being printed on thick linen paper, it’s conceivably sturdy enough to use as an actual field guide in the forest (saw a bunch of these mushrooms hiking at Mt Hood this week too). Have you played Undergrove? #firstimpressionsfriday🎲 by @kay_plays_games #boardgamereview #undergroveboardgame #boardgames #areacontrolgames #mushroomgame #elizabethhargrave #environmentalgame #mushrooming @alderaceg
    I wasn’t sure what to expect when we rented the I wasn’t sure what to expect when we rented the sci-fi board game Sol: Last Days of a Star from @portlandgamelibrary. I had heard it was unique, maybe even strange, and that intrigued me. But, was it fun? In Sol: Last Days of a Star, players are competing to escape a supernova. The player who has the most “momentum” at game’s end escapes the explosion, while the other players are “engulfed in a fiery demise.” (Dang! Guess a silver medal doesn’t count for much here.) To escape their planets, players send “sundivers” into the sun’s orbit to build various structures that will harness enough energy for them to power their space arks to escape. Structures are built by arranging sundivers on the board in careful formation. Players may use their own and each other’s structures to move, prepare sundivers, produce energy, and transmit energy. Building a structure will cause Instability cards to be drawn, which provide a benefit to the building player, but may also propel players further on the instability track, leading to the star’s explosion. Once you start really looking, you’ll notice some placement and movement options that are clever and fun, like taking shortcuts through the sun’s core to get to the nearest transmitter rather than waiting for your mothership to get to the other side of the board. My partner and I were split on this one. We had to invest extra effort in learning the game because of the incomplete rulebook (although it’s one of the better looking rulebooks I’ve seen) and that seemed to set the tone of the game for her. Plus, it features abstract movement, also not her fave. Me? I thought it was hella rad. It’s highly original, engaging, and clearly a labor of love. The graphic design is some of the best I’ve seen in a game. I adored the illustrated sci-fi mini-novella that was included with the game, in which the culture and lore of the inhabitants of the planets surrounding the dying star are explored through stories and poetry. The coolness factor is off the charts. Have you played Sol: Last Days of a Star? #sollastdaysofastar #spacegames #boardgames #boardgamereview #abstractgames #elephantlaboratories
    I always appreciate a good design, especially one I always appreciate a good design, especially one that improves my board gaming experience. I was cautiously optimistic when backing the Board Game Butler on Kickstarter that it would solve my problem with large game boards buckling in places and refusing to lay flat (I’m talking to you, Root). The Board Game Butler is essentially 6 pieces of clear plastic that clip onto the edges of the game board where the folding seams meet. After trying out the Board Game Butler on the rather large board for Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory, I can evaluate the product as successfully doing what it purports to do (at least for this particular board, which represents a common board design). The board stayed flat for the whole game. The accessories neither stuck excessively to the tablecloth nor slid on top of it. I was concerned their hard plastic might dent the board, but no trace of their use on the board was apparent upon removal. I will definitely be using these little chunks of plastic on misbehaving game boards going forward. Not all of my Kickstarter investments have been successes, but I’ll put this one in the win bucket. #boardgamebutler #boardgameaccessories #boardgames #tabletopgames
    As an American history nerd, my partner is particu As an American history nerd, my partner is particularly interested in the Corps of Discovery journey of Lewis and Clark. For this reason, we decided to rent Lewis and Clark, published in 2013, from @portlandgamelibrary. Lewis and Clark is a racing game with elements of deckbuilding, hand management, and worker placement, layered on a resource conversion puzzle. Players begin with a hand of 6 cards, 3 resources, and one Native American trader that allow them to begin trading for the resources and cards they’ll need to get from St Louis to Ft Clatsop. Cards are double sided. Each side can either be used as an action or to provide strength to a companion card’s action. Some card actions can also use opponents’ played actions as a multiplier. Players utilize the help of Native Americans to take worker placement actions on the common board, like trading resources for a horse or a canoe. Native Americans can also boost the strength of card actions. Certain cards seem to provide a huge advantage, such that if one player has acquired two really good cards, they will run away with the game. But, the card variety also makes each game feel different and increases replayability. Many strategies to explore here. My partner beat me in our last game with a lean crew and lean ships, by constantly “camping” which prevented me from using her cards as multipliers for my own. She also had some sweet resource conversion cards! I really enjoyed this game. Many different mechanisms are assembled together seamlessly. The art, by Vincent Dutrait, is quite lovely. Each card has a unique illustration. The brief historical note in the rulebook sanitizes the actual history somewhat, presumably to keep it light and family friendly, though it does mention (almost as a perverse “fun fact”) that the esteemed Sacagawea was sold as property by a rival tribe to the winner of a dice game. Meanwhile, the Corps of Discovery team brought York on the expedition as a slave. Pretty unfun stuff, but history is history. Have you played Lewis and Clark? #firstimpressionsfriday🎲 by @kay_plays_games #boardgamereview #lewisandclarkboardgame #eurogames #boardgames #lewisandclarkexpedition
    Have you found Planet X? We rented The Search for Have you found Planet X? We rented The Search for Planet X from @portlandgamelibrary because we enjoy deduction games. The Search for Planet X board game emulates the real-life quest by scientists to find Planet X, a planet whose existence would help explain the orbit of dwarf planets around the sun. Players take turns researching or surveying sectors of space for gas clouds, comets, a dwarf planet, or empty sectors, one of which may be Planet X. Turns are governed by an app, which works well and feels natural to use. Each player can use their own phone to connect to the same game session. Players travel through space along an “orbit” which serves as a time track. Players jump further ahead on the time track when obtaining more specific information. When players reach a Research spot on the time track, they can Submit a Theory as to the contents of a sector of their choosing. When the time comes to test the theory, all players will receive points for their correct theories, but also, other players will now have public access to that information! Time track position also becomes relevant when making the final guess as to the whereabouts of Planet X, as deductions from point total for guessing correctly may occur partly according to how far ahead of opponents players are when they make a guess. The Search for Planet X does—unlike Turing Machine for example—feel interactive due to theory submissions and tests, and relative time track positioning when guessing Planet X’s location. We both really enjoyed the game—so much so that we are thinking of purchasing it, despite having several other deduction games in the collection. Incidentally, the “real” Planet X remains unlocated. The breadth of its whereabouts, if it does indeed exist, has been narrowed by 80% since the search began. I will keep following this topic. Has a board game ever gotten you interested in researching a topic? #boardgames #thesearchforplanetx #boardgamereview #spacegames #logicpuzzle #deductiongames
    Well my birthday isn’t until December, but I got Well my birthday isn’t until December, but I got to take a peek at my board gaming birthday present a little early. My wonderful partner backed the crowdfunding campaign for Peacemakers: The Horrors of War by @snowdale_design, with add-ons including the Dale of Merchants series and Lands of Galzyr. The whole batch of games arrived last week in a rather conspicuous box, so my partner took the path of least resistance and just let me peek at the contents. I may have to wait a few months to open them all, but I’m already pumped just from previewing the box exteriors. We are going to be set! We have played Dale of Merchants previously but not Lands of Galzyr, and this version of Peacemakers, a followup to the game Dawn of the Peacemakers, is brand new. Any fans of these games out there? #peacemakershorrorsofwar #daleofmerchants #landsofgalzyr #boardgames #snowdale_design #snowdaledesign
    We finally played Paleo, a game that has been on o We finally played Paleo, a game that has been on our Shelf of Shame for years. My partner liked the cover art, and, if we’re being honest, we often judge board games by their covers. So, we bought it. In Paleo, players work together to survive while enhancing their culture by contributing to a woolly mammoth cave mural. If players complete the mammoth before they reach a collective five skulls (representing deaths and starvation), they win. Each round, players choose 1 of 3 cards from the top of their deck. The card backs give a clue as to what abilities may lie within, but most of the time you won’t know for sure. Some cards allow players to acquire food for their cave people, some allow them to acquire shelter, some provide equipment upgrades, and others confer sections of the mammoth mural. The key to success in Paleo is knowing which cards to play, and which to pass on until later turns. Coordinating this with other players is essential. I didn’t realize until we sat down to play that Paleo is a campaign game of sorts. We began with the recommended first scenario, and lost. We played again, and lost again. Not to be deterred, we played a third time and, with some lessons under our belt and a dose of good luck, finally got that darn mammoth painted. Success! We found this to be an original and intriguing game. Though I’m not particularly interested in the theme, it’s well implemented and manages to draw me in. My mind has been returning to it, imploring me to play the next scenario with my partner. I know a game is good when my brain yearns for it! Have you played Paleo? What did you think? #firstimpressionsfriday🎲 by @kay_plays_games #paleoboardgame #campaigngames #boardgames #boardgamereview #cooperativegames
    Well the Kickstarter games I backed last year are Well the Kickstarter games I backed last year are flooding in all at once… the latest arrival being Defenders of the Wild, with Undergrove scheduled to deliver next week. Defenders of the Wild is a co-op game about animals banding together to rewild forests that have been polluted by machines. I admit that I am a sucker for anthropomorphic animals, and I really dig the art in this game. The theme is vaguely appealing, though it appears to have potential to feel a little pro-anarchy. But, I will reserve judgment until I play. Anyone out there had a chance to play Defenders of the Wild yet? What are your thoughts? #defendersofthewild #boardgames #kickstartergames #environmentalgame #boardgameaddict
    If you have played Cat in the Box and thought to y If you have played Cat in the Box and thought to yourself, “This game would be great, if only it were BIGGER and had MORE CATS,” then Colossal Cat in the Box is the game for you! Cat in the Box by @beziergames is a rather strange trick-taking game in which players choose the suit of the card they are playing, and mark the suit and number on a “research” board. If players are unable to play on the board because their card number and suit have already been taken by another player, they create a “paradox” and must take negative points for all tricks they’ve won. We first played a rental copy of Cat in the Box last summer and my partner fell in love with it. Almost immediately after we played it, the Colossal Cat in the Box campaign went live on Kickstarter, and I knew what I had to do: I backed it, cat plushie and all. Dissuading my partner from buying the smaller edition while keeping the Colossal Edition a secret was a challenge, but somehow it was still a surprise when it arrived over the weekend. So. The Colossal Edition is… freaking amazing. I don’t have enough superlatives to describe the production quality of this game. Here’s an overview: To start, this game came with the best first player marker I have seen: a heavy black cat that is extremely pleasing both to look at, and to pick up and hold in the hand. Player mats and research board are super-chunky with recessed slots to hold the tokens. Acrylic tokens are colorful, bright, large, and catch the light perfectly. Token trays and lids are molded in the shape of a cat face, and colored to match the tokens they hold. Card sleeves are silver on the back of their interior, creating a cheeky sci-fi feel. Card artwork is supremely charming. The cat on the cards makes faces at you, which is perfect for a game that feels like it’s taunting you at every turn. And everything fits just perfectly in the custom box insert, for easy setup and takedown. A masterclass in board game production design! Oh, and the cat plushie? Its tail can be bent to manifest your current mood. It’s better than our own cat. Almost. #colossalcatinthebox #boardgames #beziergames #tricktakinggame #catboardgame
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