People who play board games are familiar with Dominion. It is considered the “gateway drug” to deckbuilding card games (and was indeed the first example of one), being both light and accessible and very good at showcasing the basic mechanics of this particular genre. It has sold millions and millions…
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Sugoroku is, as far as the mechanics go, not the most exciting board game. In fact, it’s not far removed from Snakes & Ladders, and no one really plays it for the tactics or challenge. But it is a piece of Japanese culture that anyone with an interest in the…
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Lego Party is a Mario Party clone. Let’s not beat around the bush about that. It is what it is, and the development team at SMG isn’t for a second trying to claim otherwise. The problem is that Mario Party is a pretty challenging formula to get right, and… well,…
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Talisman is one of those iconic, classic board games that has been doing the rounds for many years now. The original Talisman is 41 years old now, having been released way back in 1983! That makes it somewhat more contemporary than Monopoly, Risk, and Cluedo, but puts it in the…
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Ticket To Ride is, along with Catan, on the way to be our generation’s Monopoly and Risk. First released back in 2004, is has sold 18 million copies, been translated into most major languages, and has had innumerable expansions added to it. There have also been multiple video game adaptations,…
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The Japanese are a growing force in global tabletop game design. While the association with Japan and video games is long and deep, traditionally we haven’t embraced too many of their tabletop games (classic or modern). This is partly because many of the best were never localised, and partly because…
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Of all the ways to use the mighty Demon Slayer license I honestly did not expect a Mario Party clone to be one of the first. And yet, that’s what has happened. Following hot on the heels of the perfectly reasonable slash-em-up from from a few years ago comes Sweep…
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I had no idea that there was a Shin Megami Tensei tabletop RPG, but there is indeed one, and a press release just landed in my inbox today to say that it was being localised into English for the first time. The tabletop game is called Tokyo Conception, and is…
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Kashido is one of the more interesting, downright fascinating board games I’ve played in recent years. It comes to us from Japan, and is an abstraction of a significant and cultural part of Japanese food culture. It is a physical board game in Japan, but as far as I can…
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I’ve run out of patience with the Richman series. I want to love them, but the feeling is clearly not reciprocal. This is the third game that developer/publisher, Softstar, has released on the Nintendo Switch, and not only does it demonstrate that there is little interest in improving the series,…
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