We're Not Wizards - Tabletop Board Game Reviews

"A Solid Title" is a phrase that I am guilty of using alongside some of my peers. To me, it is where something is very dependable in what it is offering. There are no welcome or unwelcome surprises. You get exactly what you expect and therefore don't walk away disappointed. You are maybe less likely to feel wowed. As I play more games and look at those that introduce mechanics to be 'different' or 'an escape' from the normal 'expected', it is sometimes marvellous just to have something that lands on your table as a solid title. Solid doesn't necessarily mean dull, but it means to me that don't feel cheated or oversold. When it comes to game funded through crowdfunding where the hyperbole is an effing sickness that seems to have no cure, it's a relief to play something that is akin to a decent bowl of chicken soup.  I have a confession to make about Castle Up from new creator Wolley Games, in that due to a communication oversight, I

Demigods eh? You think every thing is going well and life is nice and quiet, then all of a sudden you're reminded that you've actually got to go and prove yourself and show how powerful you are in order to ascend to some kind of Pantheon type thing. Well, in Divinus you need to. Now, I don't want you to cringe when I mention this game, but Divinus from Lucky Duck Games seems to have crawled from the same evolutionary pool as Charterstone. Now that might be enough to have some of you wince slightly but hang fire. I'm very aware that not everyone had the best time from that game and time has seen it as more an experiment in gameplay than a direction to forge ahead with. What if I said that Divinus also seems to have inherited its mother's love of Carcassonne. Does that make you feel any better? I hope so. I really do.  Divinus is another entry in the application based games that Lucky Duck Games are quietly and regularly producing from their studios. They seem to have

Imperium Horizons is almost like a director's cut of a popular film. You are pleased that you are getting more of what you like, but are sometimes left wondering why certain bits that could have been tidied up were left as they were. For those not familiar, the Imperium games are a deck builder based around the development and evolution of your own civilisation as you move it from being a barbaric nation to being one who merely scream and shout at the television. The original Classics version was daunting in terms of its ambition and offered an experience that far extended over a normal expected deck-builder. Its small failings were mostly down to a rulebook that was as much of a puzzle as playing the game, and unfortunately left it having a short shelf life in many collections. For me, who has both Classics and Legends, it falls into that genre standard of being a set of games that I like enough to keep in my collection, but never play it enough to fully appreciate what it has to