We're Not Wizards - Tabletop Board Game Reviews

The ripples of the pandemic were felt far and wide across the board game event community, from clubs having to go on hiatus, to retail stores putting game nights back on the shelf and trying to continue selling online instead. It was probably felt the most in the cons, where all of a sudden thousands of expectant players found they had no where to gather as signs of cancellations went out and those who had dates in their diaries marked as something to look forward to, had to make more mundane plans.  Time is a healer as some would say, and while COVID has been more downgraded than eliminated from society, society needed to get back together. We need that human interaction and exhibitions like Tabletop Scotland are a chance for lots of us to get under one roof with a shared passion with like minded people and push pieces of cardboard around on bigger bits of cardboard.  Due to the podcast and the number of people I have spoken to over the years, cons for me are like meeting people at th

In the videogame world there are games that are seen as system sellers. Games which have such a huge fanbase that the mere fact of them appearing on that gaming platform creates one of the reasons for owning that system. Fans will play that game religiously and very rarely touch another game in the lifetime of that gaming machine. One of the biggest system sellers is the FIFA series of games. With yearly iterations and small changes made to how the game plays, it sells copies in the millions due to the huge football fanbase in the UK and Europe. It has always come as a surprise to me that football (or soccer if your an American who thinks a foot based sport comes with padding and helmets and ridiculous scoring), has never really appeared much as a genre with the tabletop space. I'm aware of the Blood, Guild and Dreadballs of this world, but they seem to be all riffing from the US running and tackling model. You would think that the hectic game of ninety minutes would be an easy sho

Recollect And so we scratch our heads once again, in vain. As we try to recall or remember what that item was. Neurons fire and flicker and our eyes dart back and forth  as though we are watching a tennis match.  Over those shapes of card that look like brains. Those five challenges that mock our gaze. As we scratch our heads once again in vain,  while the objects that we thought we had grasped  in our minds eye escape us once again. I gasp  in frustration. Was it a bath? A watch? An Aubergine?  Some pills maybe? A car? A Key? I can't recall.  And all the while the hiss goes on as torturous time  forces us to make speedy guess which in turn morph  into speedy messes. It was cake. I'm sure it was cake. The sand falls as it does like a small impending storm. As we scratch our heads once again in vain while the vein in our heads throb and pulse, that vein.  Was it rain? And the brain like card is turned over and  we laugh and moo because it turns out it was a coo.  There is a sigh

There are games that require maximum concentration, so much to the point that the friendly chit chat falls away into the silent contemplation of a state of almost analysis paralysis as it is known. Other games demand less attention and less brain power, but will still have those moments where serenity is called for so that someone can sit back and truly decide on their next move. Those are the games were you sit and have a cup of coffee and share stories and catch up, hoping to will your opponent into casual abandonment that hopefully wins you the game.  Kahuna from the mind of Gunter Cornett balances on that fine line like a tightrope walker, where you can safely state that this isn't going to require huge amounts of rule checking in order to play. It runs as an area control game where you play as one of two sorcerers from the Pacific who have decided compare the size of their egos by trying to control as many of the twelve islands the see in front of them. Decisions on influence

Fir aw the times yi hope yi end up gieing the chance tae look at summin braw and special and summit that the high heid yins are aw spraffing aboot, thurs aways the chaunce yi sit there thinkin, am a gieing it laldy here coz I am gettin tae ploy it? Sometimes yir better waitin until aw cont hiz calmed doon, and yi dinnae feel like some wydo is sitting aun yir shouldoor, checkin yir watch fir ya, and tutting like a radge.  Tiny Toon fae Alderac wiz such a game. In the past yi couldnae move fir sumwan chattin aboot it, stickin it oan lists and Twitching all oer tha innernet. Like, it wiz so gid tha it even wun tha top prize at Origins. Tha probbly ment tha heid bummer, Mr McPherson wiz toap man fir five minits in his hoose, so he goat the remote fir the telly, and was given the extra crunchy bit off the fish supper oan friday.  Tiny Toons is aboot wid an bricks an glass and stoan, and yir aw like the heid man makin the calls, tellin fowk wit tae build wi an they aw need tae follow yir lea