Dinner is served! Hope you like beets! No? Well too bad, you’re not leaving the table until you finish them all.
This is the start of Bad Beets, a card game in which players must get rid of all the beets from their plate before they can leave the dinner table. While you can just sit there and eat them, you can also get rid of your beets in faster, less honourable ways. Will you be the first to clear off your plate?
Machi Koro by IDW Games puts 2-4 players in the shoes of the city’s new mayor. To prove your worth to the citizens of your city, you’ll build a plethora of new shops, businesses and parks as a means of raising money to ultimately fund the creation of four major landmarks. The first player to successfully build all four landmarks is declared the winner.
We’ve had this game in our collection for quite some time, though I’ve failed to put words to it until now. It’s one of Steff’s favourite games, but it’s also one I managed to ruin. What the heck happened?
I’ll be the first to admit that seafood isn’t my cup of tea. Aside from certain kinds of white fish, I’m either not a fan of the taste or allergic. In Sushi Go! from Phil Walker-Harding and Gamewright, 
The thing that separates great DJs from the pack is their ability to play the music that people want to hear, when they want to hear it. Those DJs can keep a party rocking all night long, while most others will struggle to keep a crowd engaged for an extended period of time. I never chased my DJ dreams with any real vigor, though they ultimately died on the vine when I realized that making a living as one would basically mean that I would have to put the musical tastes of others before my own. Sorry, but your music sucks and I’d rather play Taylor Swift and Wu-Tang all the time. 😛
Ever since I got serious about collecting board games, I’ve unintentionally become the go-to guy that my family and friends look to in order to bring out games that they’d find fun to play. Much like a DJ, it’s become very important for me to gauge the group and pick out the right titles that will work for that group.
There was a time in the late 2000s when the game that eventually became Yomi was actually the Street Fighter card game. Created by David Sirlin while he was a developer at Capcom, the Japanese publisher unfortunately denied him the rights to the license and the game was released without Ryu and company. While Yomi is fantastic on its own, I can only imagine how much better and successful it could have been had it been able to use the Street Fighter license to add further credibility to the final product.
Years later, we finally get an official Street Fighter card game, courtesy of Cryptozoic Entertainment. Unlike Sirlin’s effort, which was crafted to simulate the Street Fighter experience as closely as possible, the Street Fighter Deck-Building Game is designed around an existing gameplay engine that currently powers deck-builders for DC Comics and The Lord of the Rings. Going in this direction doesn’t necessarily make for a bad game, but it’s lip service towards the source material will surely irritate fans of the franchise.
Yomi was originally conceived as a means of translating Street Fighter-style combat into a card game. Not long after the game’s successful run as a tabletop battleground, the game came full circle when the online version was made available for players at Fantasy Strike. Now there’s a new way to play the video game version of the card game, as Yomi is available for purchase on the iPad.
Playing to one’s nostalgia can go a long way. Case in point: Boss Monster. Driven by a Kickstarter campaign, the cross-section between video game and board game players donated a remarkable $215,056 when the game only had a $12,000 goal. While I didn’t even know about the game until I saw someone’s copy of it at Snakes and Lattes, it immediately piqued my interest with its evocative box art. Clearly there’s excitement around this game that I – or many others for that matter – couldn’t resist. Does this physical game based on digital themes make for a product worthy of a high score?
First announced over a year ago, Yomi, is finally headed to the iPad on April 17th. This card game that aims to simulate the one-on-one fighting game experience is one of my favourites, though finding the opportunity to play my physical copy has proven difficult to say the least. While the game is set to come out at the cost of $9.99, which may be high for some, this is a steal compared to spending $100 for the physical set. Also, for an additional $9.99, you’ll get access to the 10 new characters that have yet to receive a boxed release.
Marvel’s deck-building game is one of my favourites. Together with Upper Deck, they’ve done a great job of supporting Legendary with a steady flow of quality expansions. Most recently, they revealed the latest addition to the family, which is Legendary: Marvel Villains Deck Building Game. This time, you and your friends assume the role of the villains as they try and defeat the superheroes. At a base level, this is simply a role reversal, but it actually opens up the game in interesting thematic ways.
Micro games have become a hot trend in the board game scene, but Iota takes it to the next level. Standing at about two inches tall, two inches wide and an inch thick, it’s hard to imagine putting much of anything in there. Once you crack that tin open, you’ll get 66 cards that are part of an interesting abstract strategy game.
In Third Person 