We're Not Wizards - Tabletop Board Game Reviews

Well. Looks like Adventure to Mount Doom is trying the old roll and move mechanic. That's a bold strategy, lets see if it pays off. You heard that right. Rolling dice and climbing a track. No kidding. No Jokes. Lord of the Rings, dice style.  Overview Stop me if you've heard this before. You see, there's this really powerful jewellery hobby magic chap who decided to make ring for all of his pals because he was generous like that. So he gave them away like they were candy at Hallowe'en and then everything was going fine until as normal giving people presents and expecting something in return all got a bit weird and then there was a fight and the ring that the hobby boy had made got lost in a big fight and some one else found it and then he got jealous, and started eating his raw fish, and then hide in a cave until it looked like he was wearing really big glasses. Then cut to this old guy who obviously didn't separate his whites from his dark clothes who then rocked u

  The danger with basing any product off a popular film, book or character is that you need to strike the fine balancing act between honouring that which you are borrowing while at the same time making your own product worthwhile. It needs to treat the source with the due respect and care it deserves while making sure the entertainment product doesn't compromise itself it what it was set out to do. Funko Games in the past couple of years have been walking this tightrope with various degrees of success. But for their latest feat, they've removed the safety net and put a blindfold on in trying to create a game for the iconic classic Rear Window.  Overview For those not familiar with the story, photojournalist L.B. Jefferies is confined to his apartment after a near death experience when working at a Grand Prix event. With a fertile imagination and continuing heatwave, he starts to have suspicions about his neighbours activities which leads to him encouraging his friends to help h

In terms of the videogame, I jumped into the Resident Evil Series from number three onwards. Even though it was some time ago now, I remember tension of playing, moving from room to room while trying to manage your ammo, and even control where you wanted your character to walk to. For some reason at the time even the control scheme did its best to make things as tricky as possible to navigate around something as easy as a corner. Only now looking back do I realise how much of a genius move that was, as the Nemesis came lumbering towards you and all you could do was scream, rotate wildly and run into a doorway. It did that thing that so many horror films want to achieve, which is a slow painful death that is creeping towards you slowly, and you are merely delaying the inevitable.  With that in mind, while I always approach these adaptations with a hint of trepidation as past history has shown that board games don't always translate well onto cardboard. Especially when you are trying

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

There's always that slight silence across the table as the die slowly clatter to their rest. You may not like dice games for their randomness, but you certainly can't fault them for the amount sheer suspense and excitement that they bring to the table. For everyone I know who hates the addition of rolling cubes, there's someone else cheering them on and joyously adding another game the their collection. They are the embodiment of anticipation and for most of us our first foray into board games was based around some kind of dice rolling mechanic and so like most nostalgia, we either look back fondly or cringe that we ever enjoyed something so crass in the first place.  Cubitos not only wants you to roll dice, it wants you to roll lot of dice. It would honestly like you to be swimming about in dice like Scrooge McDuck if it had its way with you, spitting out dice in a cascade while you did the backstroke. And while you are doing this, it would like you very much to race aroun

  This review is based on the final retail version of Aroma - A Game of Essence, provided to us from Organic Aromas. We were not paid for this review. We were provided a copy of the game for evaluation purposes. Ritual smelling. Or things that you would normally take in deep breaths of at the first given opportunity. The smell of fresh sheets when you climb into bed, the blast of escaping coffee gas when you first break the seal on a new jar. The smell of their hair when you are snuggling. The printed centre of a new rulebook. Scents are something that can take us places to the point where they can elicit an emotional reaction. Whether that be pleasant or unpleasant, smells have a way of coding themselves into our very memories to leave a lasting impression.  Interestingly enough, apart from the chemical joy of a freshly printed rulebook, I've never really played a game based around the sense of smell, and so when it came to being offered a chance to look at Aroma - A Game of Essen