We're Not Wizards - Tabletop Board Game Reviews

  2 players Age 14+ Designed by Nikita Sullivan Published by Atikin Games This is the pre/review for Mini Memory Mischief which should be launching on Kickstarter in the very near future. I haven’t been paid for my preview but did receive a free prototype copy of the game. Atikin Games is a UK based independent games designer/publisher, who successfully Kickstarted Tri To Win in January 2020. Mini Memory Mischief is a mint tin game where you attempt to put letters in alphabetical order on a computer chip board. You have one action which is determined by the roll of a die which you can either bank in the “Buffer” section or play, and one action of your own choosing. However, you can’t place the same action twice in a row, or elect the action that’s on the dice as your chosen action, or pass on your chosen action. The actions are to Push, putting a letter on your board, Pop, remove the top letter on your board from the game, Peek, look at your opponent’s letters which are hidde

This is the pre-production version of Merchants of Infinity, so the art, rules and mechanics may be subject to change over the next couple of months. Therefore please treat this as a first thoughts piece, based on version of the game that we were provided with. We have not been paid for the preview. We also do not provide a full play by play explanation of the game, so not all mechanics may be mentioned in the preview. Of all the genres of games that are available, worker placement remains one of my favourites. Whether it be growing the vine in Viticulture, creating Jurassic chaos in Dinogenics or even completing quests in Waterdeep, placing meeples for actions has always scratched that tactical itch for me. I like the pace it creates, I also like that you can plan ahead and have those blessed moments where three turns of planning comes together like a dream and you're knocking points and opponents out of the park and into victory. Andrew Prowse is attempting to draw you into the d

This is the pre-production version of Die of the Dead, so the art, rules and mechanics may be subject to change over the next couple of months. Therefore please treat this as a first thoughts piece, based on version of the game that we were provided with. We have not been paid for the preview. We also do not provide a full play by play explanation of the game, so not all mechanics may be mentioned in the preview. The argument and potential fear(?) of style over substance rears its precious little head as soon as you open the box for Die of the Dead. Now if the box art wasn't enough to make you wonder if this was going to be an exercise on how to eat a box of crayons and then projectile the contents over some pressed trees, then doubters will have their last shreds torn away as they gaze in awe at the technicolor rainbow in front of them as they delve deeper. I defy anyone not to just spend five minutes staring in abject wonder at strength of presentation here. However, (and it'

This is the pre-production version of Dark Imp Cracker Games, so the art, rules and mechanics may be subject to change over the next couple of months. Therefore please treat this as a first thoughts piece, based on version of the game that we were provided with. We have not been paid for the preview. We also do not provide a full play by play explanation of the game, so not all mechanics may be mentioned in the preview. Tradition is a funny thing. Nothing highlights this more than one of the biggest festivals in the Christian calendar, Christmas time. Most of us realise as we get older, that it was probably placed around about the time of the Winter Solstice in order to take the wind out of the sails of that Pagan tradition. In order to drive people away from the natural and towards the 'spiritual'. Yet as time goes on, and we recognise the growing multiculturalism within our own societies, it becomes clearer that claiming the beginning of winter isn't very welcoming to an

This review was based on the retail version of the game. We were provided a copy of this game for the review. We were not paid for this review. Dan Ackerman has appeared on the Podcast previously. How do you make something relevant and how do you keep something relevant? The issue with using something 'in the now', with using the current zeitgeist, is that you can wake up tomorrow and the excitement coffee has already grown cold, and 'the now' things taste old and ever so sightly out of place and potentially bitter. Its the reason that so many games are set in the dystopian future, or in a historical context. Ideas and concepts don't look out of place when they are already detached from the daily reality staring you in the face. You can't age something that was 'of an age' when it comes down to it. On the other side, if all you know is the now, if all you know is the slight taste of the future, and if your day to day is writing about shiny technology bel

(SPOILER ALERT - this article will contain spoilers of Legacy games). When Legacy games burst onto the scene in 2011-12 with Risk: Legacy, the gaming world felt a seismic shift. For anyone unfamiliar with the concept, legacy games are designed to be permanently changed through a series of sessions by the game play itself. Often this involves the removal or tearing up of cards, the ability to name character cards and make permanent positive or negative changes to them. Sometimes you'll go as far as changing the playing board, often through the use of stickers and writing on it, but it always involves changes to the rules which are revealed through each playing session. Risk and Pandemic (Season 1 and 2) have all of these elements. Like many others, my family played Risk from the earliest age (pretty sure I was 8 when I first played), and it’s the stated reason why a lot of those families and a lot of people in my family say that they don’t like boardgames. Who doesn’t remember the

We played this version using Tabletop Simulator on Steam, so the art, rules and mechanics may be subject to change over the next couple of months. Therefore please treat this as a first thoughts piece, based on version of the game that we play with. We played the session with the designers of the game. We have not been paid for the preview. We also do not provide a full play by play explanation of the game, so not all mechanics may be mentioned in the preview. There's a certain awkward silence for the third time in a row, as I manage place the table in such an awkward position that all I can see it the close up of one of the Familiar cards right in front of me, like right up in it's face, so I can only see the lines of of the illustration, staring at me. Robyn asks if I'm stuck, or not sure what to do, and so I finally confess that I've forgotten about moving the board around using the WASD keys. It's one of those moments where I hate technology and would have given

This review is based on the final retail version of The Taverns of Tiefenthal. We were provided a copy of the game by Coiledspring Games for the purpose of this review. We have not been paid for the review. One of the extraordinary things about being involved in the lockdown, is discovering the amount of extra that goes into things that are the ordinary and mundane, in order to make them palatable. The absence of chopped tomatoes on shelves in the local supermarket suggests that there are people who have attempted that stalwart UK dish of spaghetti bolognese. They have decided to master the art of a decent tomato sauce, and probably had visions of taking that step into the territory of never needing to open a twist jar again. Fast forward to the horror and shock at the dinner table upon the realisation that the humble tomato is actually a rather sour experience without the careful disguise of garlic and onions and a dentist wincing amount of sugar. We've been conditioned, and I was

This is the pre-production version of the Swatch, so the art, rules and mechanics may be subject to change over the next couple of months. Therefore please treat this as a first thoughts piece, based on version of the game that we were provided with. We have not been paid for the preview. We also do not provide a full play by play explanation of the game, so not all mechanics may be mentioned in the preview. The competitive nature of a creative design agency, where designers aim to complete their brief while  staring sideways at others in the office. Where resources are sparse and so every time some gets up for coffee, there's a ripple of potential movement across the rest of the team, hoping they are not about to snag that all important last colour in order to create the ultimate colour scheme. Everyone is aware that there are no prizes for second place here, there's no runner up version of the bosses' handshake, there's no mug that says 'I almost made it'. Thi

Pandemic: State of Emergency 2-4 players Age 13+ Designed by Matt Leacock and Thomas Lehmann Published by Z-man Games My partner and I are huge fans of Pandemic, so much so that we took Pandemic Legacy Season 1 on honeymoon with us. We used to play it a couple of times a month and got pretty good. However, for whatever reason we haven’t played for a while. But with all this time on our hands we, maybe foolishly, decided to try State of Emergency. Pandemic is a co-op, action management game, where players use character cards with special abilities to try to cure 4 different diseases which are rapidly spreading across the world. The State of Emergency expansion increases the difficulty of the game by adding Emergency Event cards into the event deck, giving a nasty double whammy with the Epidemic cards. The Hinterlands extends the playing board and can be infected through the rolling of a dice and outbreak to connected cities, and the Superbug Challenge which we didn’t attempt. To mitigat