Board games, more than any other entertainment medium I can think of, rely heavily on medieval times as a backdrop. I guess ever since the invention of Chess – when it was actually contemporary at the time of its creation – the two have been inseparable. While I’m all for playing a great board game of any sort, medieval and fantasy themes generally don’t do it for me. In this post, I shine the spotlight on some of my favourite themes that don’t harken back to the middle ages!
Niagara Falls Comic Con, here we come! For the first time, Steff and I will be heading out of town for a convention. Not expecting the scale of Fan Expo Canada, but I’m definitely looking forward to a Saturday of quality nerd time.
Some of the headlining guests include David Hasselhoff, Alfonso Ribeiro and Scott Wilson, best known as Hershel from The Walking Dead. Personally, I’m most pumped for the Howard Scott Warshaw panel, as he’s the guy that made E.T. on the Atari 2600. It would be an honour to have him autograph my copy!
My shopping list for the day is looking pretty thin, but maybe that’s a good thing. My gut says though I’ll have no problem breaking the bank once I get there. If you’re heading out to the show, hope you have a great time!
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During times when Robin Hood isn’t running amok, the Sheriff of Nottingham is manning border patrol for Nottinghamshire. Each day, merchants will bring their bags of goods that they intend on selling at their shops, and it’s the Sheriff’s duty to keep contraband out. However, with the right offer, he might let a few slide, open a rival merchant’s bag, or even split contraband with another merchant. As a merchant of Nottinghamshire, can you successfully make it across the border with the most valuable goods?
Dungeons & Dragons is one of the most influential games of all-time. It’s also one of the most intimidating. The game features a ton of rules and requires a group of players to have at least one that’s designated as Dungeon Master, which is a very difficult role to fill. To this day, I’ve never played actual D&D before and I’m not sure if I ever will.
With that said, that doesn’t mean I’ve been deprived of the dungeon crawling experience. D&D might be the original, though its core concepts have been streamlined, simplified, or just straight-up copied a countless number of times. This Board Game Night Playlist features dungeon raiding games that are fine-tuned for casual players to get their fix. Now let’s gear up and head into this introductory dungeon crawl playlist!
Space Cadets aims to be the Star Trek game of your dreams. Sure, there are no shortage of Star Trek games or games inspired by Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi classic, but this one puts you and your friends in charge of operating individual stations on a larger ship. Of course, there’s a captain, but others are required to run engineering, the helm, shields, weapons and sensors among other things. Does its novel approach to simulating a ship like the USS Enterprise work as a quality board game?
Just Desserts puts you in the shoes of a waiter at a specialty dessert restaurant. Customers are looking to satisfy their sweet tooth and it’s up to you to serve them with the delicious treats from the kitchen. Competing against other waiters, you want to be the first person to serve five people of different suits or three people of the same suit to win. I bought the game off the strength of its core concept, but does it have what it takes to satisfy my taste for a small card game?
One of the key selling points about board games is that they are a great catalyst for face-to-face social interaction. Besides just having something to do while hanging out, these games can steer the conversation in directions that it normally wouldn’t go if you were just talking on the couch watching television. Some of my favourite games that spark a unique social interaction include Lords of Vegas, Cash ‘N Guns, and Space Cadets. Other games, while great to play, don’t necessarily add to that social dynamic. Certain games actually take that away in a weird way. Case in point, Splendor and The Resistance.
Whether it be on the silver screen, Saturday morning cartoons, or lunchboxes, superheroes have existed outside of the comic book pages for almost as long as they’ve existed. I, for one, knew of Spider-Man and the X-Men first from their cartoon exploits, while my first real exposure to Batman was from the Michael Keaton movie back in 1989. Superheroes have also had a presence in the board game space for decades, though the vast majority of these efforts were shoddy cash grabs.
Some of the modern superhero games still are poor titles that are excuses to make a quick buck, though both DC and Marvel have made honest efforts to improve their board game portfolios to the point where they both have games that are great by any measure. If you’re in the mood to live the superhero experience in tabletop gaming form, try these ones out!
In Third Person 