We're Not Wizards - Tabletop Board Game Reviews

First of all a huge apology. I've had Merv sit on my shelf for far too long, and while it's bright colours and enticing presentation was shouting at me to get it to the table, the number of times I've sat there with the board set out in front of me trying to make things click or even put things together, only to give in and put it all back in the box again. It wasn't even a Merv thing,  it's a brain thing I think, and whether it is an age thing or just an intelligence thing, it still leaves me in the situation where Merv was sitting there undeservedly not played looking unhappy and brightly coloured. So sorry. I should have written this a long time ago, and so I'll try to make it up to you.  Secondly, regarding how Merv looks, Ian O'Toole has created something that looks wonderful on the table. Bright colours and subtle colour palettes merge together on the table to make something that the boardgame Instagram crowd will buy just to be able to take pretty pic

I like to play, play, play, play. Play board games with apples and bananas. I like to pley, pley, pley, pley. Pley boerd gemes with epples and benenes I like to pliy, pliy, pliy, pliy. Pliy boird gimes with ipples and bininis I like to ploy, ploy, ploy, ploy. Ploy boord gomes with opples and bononos I like to pluy, pluy, pluy, pluy. Pluy bourd gumes with upples and bununus So in the first instance you're wondering what's going on because it seems like things are fairly complicated. It's only when you start to look for the patterns that you realise you're just following some simple rules that you're building up on as you go. You can easily continue with rules if you want or you can maybe change a few things to make it even more interesting. At least you won't feel the fear of a huge learning curve towering over you. After all, this is just simple with added sprinkles.  Christian Stohr wants you to learn to play a Euro without really getting you to play a Euro unt

As a big fan of Deep Sea Adventure I was excited to see Oink games latest Kickstarter and happily backed and received Dokojong, In a Grove and Moon Adventure. Its fair to say that Oink Games have cornered the market in sleek, smart, tiny pocket games. Dokojong Dokojong is a 2-5 player game in which you are trying to hide your beloved dog from the other players while trying to find your opponent’s dog. At its heart this is a bluffing game. Five doors are laid out in the centre of the table which correspond to five tiles held by each player, four of which have crosses and one of which is your dog. Players take it in turns to suggest a door to open, refuse an offer and suggest different doors (having to increase the number offered by one), open a door directly that they think an opponent’s dog is hidden behind, or accept a search of the suggested doors. If your dog is found you take a penalty (three penalties loses you the game); if you successfully hide your dog by revealing three cros

A hundred yard stare. That's what you notice. It's only for the briefest period of time, but if you could look behind the eyes then you would see what looks like things clicking into place, like a sideways cutaway diagram of a key sliding into a lock with all the clues aligning to give the final answer. The solution to the case. You feel like while their eyes are staying still, the eyes are taking everything in, missing nothing. So help you if you've said something out of place, or sat the wrong way, or tried to swallow down those guilty thoughts. A hundred yard stare, into the very depths of what will make you declare your guilt. So breathe in gently and wait for them to finish their thoughts. You know you're not guilty, you're not even capable of such a deed unless it was something that really needed doing. So stare back and let them take the measure of you. Let them look. Someone has bombed the Houses of Parliament. So let them take all the time in the world.  No

I've always insisted that the most difficult thing about starting anything is actually just getting on and doing it and then accepting that your first attempt at anything is going to be pretty terrible. Take the beginning of this review. I've done everything tonight from watch crap telly to take the dog out in the garden for an emergency pee. I've boiled the kettle some umpteen times and threatened to make myself a coffee countless times which I abandoned when it became far too late. I've written and rewritten some kind of clever arsed intro in the hope that you get dragged into reading to the end and consider finding out more about Wizard Miners. However, now we're here and I think we're almost at the end of the first paragraph and you're still wondering how the hell we can even begin to link this in to talk about the game.  It's not a good start and I'm hoping you accept it. I'm hoping you can see past the shaky paragraph structure and word cou

I'm a bit of a doer when it comes to learning games. As I get older, I find my ability to read through a swathe of information, retain it and then put it into practice becomes more difficult. I find myself second guessing more and more. And more often, I end up learning 'on the job' with the pieces laid out in front of me. It means that most of my first games can be labelled as messy endeavours, and I'm not actually switching the fun switch on sometimes until the second game, but as I get more involved in the critiquing of games, I become very aware I'm assessing learning the game as part of the overall process. Fun with bucket loads of additional work can be as tiring as a day job, and sometimes I want the simple immediacy of entertainment now. So there are many things that are attractive to me when it comes to looking at a game as the likes of Blitzkrieg from PSC Games. The box itself is emblazoned with a bold claim of being able to experience World War Tw