board games

Growing Frustrations with the T.I.M.E Stories Franchise

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The base game of T.I.M.E Stories is one of my all-time favourite board games. It took us on an incredible adventure that was wildly creative and unlike anything we’d ever played. We were so excited that the game already had more story expansions to play through.

Over time, our excitement in the franchise cooled. I spoke to this phenomenon in a video where I talked about the expansions. Ever since that original game, each expansion that followed has generally trended downward in terms of quality. The latest one we played, Estrella Drive, is the worst one yet.
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Bob Ross: The Art of Chill Review

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Long after his passing, the legacy of Bob Ross continues to shine. Episodes of his show The Joy of Painting are still popular online decades after its television run ended in the 90s. Though I don’t think anyone imagined that his work would have an impact on the board game world, there are two in his name as of writing.

Bob Ross: The Art of Chill does not involve any actual drawing or painting. You’ll want to play Bob Ross: Happy Little Accidents for that type of experience. Instead, it is a strategy game that loosely simulates the experience of painting alongside the legend himself. Can you keep up with Bob Ross and achieve maximum chill? Or at the very least, make the most of your happy little accidents?

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The Networks Review

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The Networks by Gil Hova and Formal Ferret Games is a worker placement board game built around the novel concept of running your own television network. Over the course of five seasons, you’ll battle competing cable networks for the most viewers by adding new shows, hiring stars, and landing ad deals. On top of all that, there’s no room for complacency, as audiences grow tired of shows over time, forcing you to constantly keep your lineup fresh.

Its elevator pitch is one of the most compelling I’ve seen for a board game in quite some time, even as someone who doesn’t like watching television. But how well does its theme translate to the tabletop?
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Some of My Favourite DropMix Cards in the Base Set

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DropMix comes with 60 cards to get your adventure into card-based DJ-ing started. Part of the game’s magic is that everything seemingly mixes together perfect. That said, I definitely have a few go-to cards that I use heavily in my mixes.

This list only covers cards in the base game. I own a few expansions as well, so maybe I’ll spotlight those at some point as well!

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Ticket to Ride: New York Review

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The original Ticket to Ride is my all-time favourite board game. I really enjoy that game’s balance of accessibility and strategic depth. Over the course of play, there’s a lot of interesting decisions to make, from determining which colour cards to draw, to knowing when to place your trains on the board, to finding alternate paths to your destination when a jerk has blocked your path. In spite of my love for that first game, I haven’t really ventured much beyond it. I have the 1910 Expansion, and I’ve played Ticket to Ride: Europe a few times, but that’s it. Based on what I’ve seen of the other standalone games and expansions, there wasn’t enough new or unique there for me to venture beyond my comfort zone.

Enter Ticket to Ride: New York. The latest entry in the series is also the smallest. With a playing field that only covers the south side of Manhattan, this iteration of the game is meant to deliver the thrills of the original in a package that can be played in about 15 minutes. I love the idea of having a quick version of Ticket to Ride to play, but does anything get lost in the distillation process?

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Board Games I Want to Play During Future Board Game Night Live Streams

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Once we got past a few technical difficulties that plagued the start of the broadcast, our first board game night live stream was a smashing success! The technical solution that I put in place to play Codenames worked smoothly for the most part, and playing with some of my favourite people around melted away whatever distance there was between our webcams. Thank you to Mat, Jon, Kris, Rachel, & Steff for making this way more special than just a streaming experiment. And thank you to everyone that tuned in to watch our shenanigans and chat with us!

We will do this again. We had too much fun to let this concept slide. Even if we didn’t publicly broadcast it, just being able to play board games remotely with a group of friends separated by hundreds of miles and still feel connected was magical. Now that we’ve proved that it works, here are some other games I would love to make work in this format!

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Hip-Hop Week | Hip-Hop vs. Game Design: How Game Designers Incorporate the Freestyle Elements of Hip-Hop into Hip-Hop Themed Video Games

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Hip-Hop Week concludes with this post on In Third Person! For the grand finale, I look at the point where the elements of hip-hop freestyle collide with game structure. Has any game ever found the right balance? Thank you for joining me on this adventure!

The element of improvisation is a foundational block of hip-hop music and culture. In the beginning, the scene started with DJs, rappers, and breakdancers making things up as they went. Though hip-hop music and culture has been mainstream for quite some time, the ethos of what freestyle means still permeates.

Translating that freeform nature of hip-hop has been a challenge in the world of video games. By virtue of being a game, the “game” part needs some sort of quantifiable benchmark to define success. This flies in the face of the freeform nature of the culture.

Let’s look at a few ways in which developers have tried to provide structure for the purposes of making a fun game, while trying to maintain the freestyle nature of the activity its emulating.

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Board Game Night! Codenames Highlights featuring Kris and Rachel from Double Jump, Mat from Biff Bam Pop, Jon @hotfiya and Steff @copperkeycosplay

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If you are looking for serious Codenames matches, this may not be the video for you! But if you want a plethora of shocking reactions, weird stories, and non-stop laughs in only 15 minutes, you’ve come to the right place! Thank you Kris & Rachel from Double Jump, Mat from Biff Bam Pop, Jon @hotfiya, and my wife Steff @copperkeycosplay for a fantastic board game night!

If you just can’t get enough, there’s plenty more laughs and good times to be shared by watching the full episode!


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Obstacles That Arise When Making Board Game Related Video Content

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There was a time in early 2017 where I started a video show about board games. “Cleverly” titled Board Game Talk, it was an opportunity to try a new style of content creation while being able to share my thoughts on a medium I love. I’m glad to have given it a shot, and some of the videos would actually go on to perform pretty well by my standards.

By the end of season one though, I knew I wasn’t ready to go further. Though I do have a desire to someday come back to this concept, I’ll need to overcome these hurdles in order to make the content I want at a level I’m happy with.

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Disney Villainous Board Game Review

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The villain never wins in a Disney film, but one of them will finally get to achieve their dastardly goal in the Villainous board game. With each player taking control of a Disney villain within their respective realms, the race is on to see who can complete their vile objective first. Are you a bad enough evildoer to defeat the heroes that stand in your way while also overcoming the interference from other villains trying to finish their schemes?

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