Let’s get the obvious out of the way. The Game is a horrible title for this game, or any game for that matter. Beyond the obvious vague of its title, it’s a pain to search for online. As terrible as its title may be, the game was nominated for the 2015 Speil Des Jahres, one of the highest honours in tabletop gaming. There has to be something to this beyond its terrible name, right?
A raging fire is consuming a house, putting many of its inhabitants at risk. Can you and your fellow firefighters save them before its too late? This is the premise behind Flash Point: Fire Rescue. Its premise is scorching hot, but does it have the gameplay to match?
Played on a square grid with five pawns per side, Onitama by Arcane Wonders is an alternative take on Chess. As much as I respect the all-time great, I’m terrible at it. With so many options to think through, I usually result to reckless play or crippling analysis paralysis. Onitama has a unique way of mixing things up that I think work really well.
Throw on your lab coat and get ready to science it up with Dr. Eureka. In this two-to-four player dexterity game, players will race against each other to create specific formulas with their three test tubes and three different chemicals. You don’t need your PhD in chemistry to excel, but this deceptively simple tabletop game is entertaining while making you feel like a scientist at work.
A Prophecy of Dragons is the 2nd expansion to T.I.M.E Stories. After jaunts through an asylum and a zombie-infested city, your team is warped out into an alternate universe during their medieval time to stop a rift in time from destroying the space-time continuum.
The Marcy Case is the first expansion for the co-operative adventure board game T.I.M.E Stories. As with the base game, you travel through time with the job of protecting the space-time continuum, which is no easy feat. This time, you’re sent off to 1992, where a mysterious disease is turning people in a particular city into zombie-like creatures.
A group of wizards have convened at the foot of a tower holding a mythical artifact. Fueled by greed and anger, these wizards engage in a battle for sole possession. However, that same greed and anger clouds their judgment, causing them to cast the wrong spells while hurting themselves in the process. Which mage will out-duel their adversaries and make it to the top of the tower?
Within the realm of board gaming enthusiasts, Animal Upon Animal is highly regarded as one of the best children’s games on the market. This game still eludes me, though I did get a chance to play its mini version. Animal Upon Animal: Small and Yet Great! features tiny wooden animals in a tiny box. Besides its small footprint, this one shrinks the player count, as only two players can enjoy this game instead of three or four like the original. I can’t really provide an opinion on how the two compare, but I can tell you about how much I enjoyed this animal stacking game.
Council of Verona is a card game set in the Romeo and Juliet universe. Featuring the legendary star-crossed lovers as well as their supporting cast, this is a card game revolving around your actions as citizens in Verona trying to influence the events between the Montague and Capulet families. This may not be the most obvious focus for a Romeo and Juliet game, but does that make for a game that could catch you by surprise? Continue reading
2016 has been a quiet year for board game shopping in our household, at least relative to years past. Part of that I feel is from a sense that we’ve largely caught up on past games that we’ve missed and now it’s mostly a matter of looking forward to upcoming new releases. Then there’s also the matter of our wedding, which did push the board games aside for a bit while we planned our nuptials.
So with life finally starting to settle down again, we took a trip to our friendly local game store. Two of the games we got were proven hits that we’ve played in the past. One is a hot new release that’s also a sequel to one of our faves.
In Third Person 