Mary had a little lamb from her flock and it tagged along with her to school, but did it really want to be seen as just a cute little lamb? Probably not. In fact, it probably harbored the secret desire that many sheep have: to be human. To be… Sheeple. That’s the rough premise of the terrifically fun family game Sheeple from Aaron Smith. A family game for 3+ people, your goal is to actually…Read More

Imagine waking up and simians are running the world, with us humans left as mute, downtrodden workers, slaves who are rounded up from their wilderness areas to become property owned by apes, chimpanzees and orangutans. The world’s upside down, and if you’re the kind of human who fights for your rights, well, there ain’t nothing more worth fighting for than the rights of sapiens, right? That’s the premise of the cult classic 1968 sci-fi hit…Read More

I’ve been playing cribbage for so many years that I can’t remember when I first learned the game. I know I played it with my folks when I was a teenager and I have taught all three of my children – who all enjoy a game or two – and I even ran a cribbage league in Silicon Valley years ago when I lived out there. It’s a fun, fast paced game where there are…Read More

You’re tending the fields and living the live of a medieval peasant, but somewhere in the back of your head there’s a voice, a voice compelling you to head for the hills and solve the labyrinth of The Abandons. Once you enter the maze, however, can you make it out the other end and survive collapses and seeming dead ends, or are you going to just be another skeleton covered in cobwebs for the next…Read More

You’ve watched Shakespeare’s plays as movies, hopefully seen at least one performed live, and maybe even read some of his many engaging and amusing tales, but how about his sonnets? Do your homework and you’ll learn that a number of Shakespeare’s sonnets were about a mysterious “Dark Lady” and four centuries later, scholars still can’t agree on the identity of the woman. Which makes it a fun and unusual theme for the fun and quite…Read More

There’s something that my family and I find really fun about push-your-luck games. You know the kind, where you can stop and get points or take yet another step and either win bigger or go bust and end up with nothing. Card games like blackjack are push your luck games: if I have cards worth 16 points in my hand, should I gamble and take another card hoping to get closer to 21 without going…Read More

Working on the orbital research station seemed like a great career move, but when a deadly virus wipes out just about everyone on board just as a micrometeorite storm hits, you’re thrown into a life or death situation that’s way beyond your pay grade. There’s a half-built spaceship that you can hopefully finish building and use to escape before you run out of time, but you weren’t trained for this and it’s going to be…Read More

The general theme of most dungeon crawler games inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, Lord of the Rings, or similar, is to fight your way through monsters and evil denizens, attain a prize of some sort, and then scurry back out before you’re killed, run out of food, or have something else dire transpire. Heck, the text-only computer game “rogue” had that theme when I was back in college back in 19[mumble], so it’s been around…Read More

So you want to be a politician, wade into the swamp and clean things up. After all, unlike every politician before you, you’re the one who is going to actually Get Things Done and remain true to your ideals and values. You’ll represent your constituency and be a shining example of why our nation is great. You just need to get elected first. And that’s where things get difficult, and is the theme behind the…Read More

There are a lot of games in the board game world that are designed to be multiplayer and have a solo mode retrofit. Often it’s a highly simplistic simulation of another human player with randomness added through dice rolls, card decks, or similar. A few games are designed specifically to be just for solo gaming, however, and one of the best and most popular is Friday, from game designer Friedemann Friese. His big hit is…Read More

My buddy Chris turned me on to Fire of Eidolon, a simple dungeon crawler game that’s easy to explain and great fun to play. It supports 1-6 players and is budget priced, even with a ton of expansion options and alternative challenges, tokens, squares, and more. At its most basic you’re wandering through a dungeon, exploring as you go, trying to collect Tokens of Power so you can destroy the three Relics of Power. Once…Read More

There’s a continuum of game designs ranging from total strategy with zero randomness to completely random where strategy and tactics are pointless. For the former, chess and go are good examples, and for the latter a game like craps or Killer Bunnies demonstrate that fun can be had even when things aren’t predictable. Landing somewhere in the middle is a lovely new game from Osprey Games called Sakura. Sakura means “cherry blossom” and that defines…Read More

My gamer friends and I have been discussing the release of the massive new board game Rising Sun. Developed by a group of successful game designers, it’s described by the publisher thusly: “Rising Sun is a game about honor, negotiation, and warfare in a feudal Japan where the ancient gods (kami) have returned to rebuild the empire… Rising Sun claims Diplomacy as its distant ancestor. Tackle negotiations, alliances, and war. Capture hostages and commit seppuku….Read More

James Mathe really hit on an interesting worker placement theme when he created the original Manhattan Project. Players are competing to build atomic bombs, which means you have to manage workers to mine and produce yellow cake, then refine the yellow cake into uranium. Scientists + Engineers + uranium lets you build bombs and earn points. Someone else getting too far ahead? You can bomb their facility or even steal resources from them. My friends…Read More

You and your mates are Gods, but being a God in contemporary society isn’t what it was back in the heady days of yore and your powers are a bit less than they used to be. Turns out if people don’t believe, you don’t have quite the amazing abilities you remember from when you first came on the scene. Worse, Death is afoot and he’s ready to do some serious malevolent things to the world…Read More

Harry Potter continues to be a global phenomenon and even though you might have thought we’d left Hogwarts and the gang behind after the resolution of the Deathly Hallows, the franchise continues to entrance the public with new movies, new books, a stage play and even board games. It’s the latter that I’m writing about today, a deck building co-op board game that the team at USAopoly sent for review called Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle. Deck…Read More

I read lots of discussion groups and Facebook groups about board gaming. It’s a hobby and social activity both, so knowing good games and having friends ready and able to play is always a win. Some groups I’m in lean more towards the Cards Against Humanity sort of party games while others are into role playing or strategy games, even those that take 3+ hours per game. And some of my friends – and children –…Read More

There’s a magical intersection of complexity and fun that board game designers all seek to attain, a game where it’s enjoyable to play and also challenging enough to require your brain to be engaged too. Long term strategy, short term tactics, and the occasional laugh or moan as you realize you took a wrong turn somewhere along the way, that’s all manna to us gamers. Other games are so complex that there’s no space for…Read More

Traveling to that remote research facility deep in the Siberian tundra sounded like a great idea back in July, but now it’s the beginning of the winter and you’re stuck without hope of rescue. There’s a monster storm heading your way, and like the scientists in the classic horror film The Thing, you have no idea what beasts might show up and try to kill you. Your goal: survive the storm during the long, long…Read More

Ever wonder what it’d be like to be a dog out and about in town? Left to fend for yourself, subsisting off the generosity of restaurant owners and food you find in trash cans, even as you do your best to avoid being grabbed by the dog catcher? That’s the premise behind the amusing and very family-friendly board game A Dog’s Life from designer Christophe Boelinger. It’s an update and reprint of a game of the…Read More

Hasbro knows games. In fact, the company has been around since 1940’s (starting with doctor and nurse toy kits during WWII) and is the third largest toy maker in the world, with revenues of over $4 billion. The company’s best known products include Monopoly, G.I. Joe, Furby, and My Little Pony. Want more? How about The Game of Life, Twister, Clue, Battleship, Trouble, Hungry Hippos, Operation and Scrabble. All told, it’s unlikely that you haven’t…Read More