Captain Tsubasa is a 2 player game based on the manga and anime of the same name. This Japanese manga and anime from the 1980’s is hugely popular not only in Japan but also around the world. It is about football (soccer). In the game you play a football match between two key teams in the story, Nankatsu and Toho. This is a card game, and you will see many characters from the series. If

Up or Down? is a simple card game from from the master duo Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling which is not as simple as it looks. You collect up to three sets of cards, and within each set the cards must be played in ascending or descending order. Cards come in 6 different colours and every card has a different number. The cards in the game go from 1 to 126, but the range you

I am almost tempted to just write that Terra Nova is a simplified version of Terra Mystica. End of story. It's technically true, but that's a bit lazy. I have played Terra Mystica before. It's a hugely popular game. I can't say I'm a fan, but I do enjoy myself when I play it.  Just like the predecessor, you play a tribe starting with small settlements, and you grow your settlements

Leaders is a 2 player abstract game played on a hexagonal board made of hexagonal spaces. You each start the game with just one game piece - your leader. In the first few rounds of the game you will get to recruit minions from a market of three options. Every minion in the game has a unique ability. You will eventually have four minions, after which you do not recruit any more. Your goal is to

Recently Hilko informed me about a game of Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs being played in a BoardGameGeek.com forum. It is hosted by Dave Peters, and the players are from different countries, including from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and even Australia. I certainly have never imagined my game being played in this format, so I am watching this game with curiosity (link to thread, item 3).

I was back in my hometown Kota Kinabalu during the Christmas period, and met up with an old friend to play some boardgames. We did a four-player game of Brazil Imperial. I have played this once before, but quite some time ago. This is a very pretty game.  These were the three objectives I chose. Originally the plan was to play Clans of Caledonia. Then the plan changed because it

Draft & Write Records is a paper and pencil game. Your put together a rock band, bringing together not only the musicians, but also producers and stage hands. You release albums and singles, you do shows starting with local pubs and hopefully eventually progressing to prestigious stadiums. Every player does this on his own player sheet. You check boxes off to mark your progress in the

Karakorum is a title from Reiner Knizia about mountain climbing. It is a game about evaluating and taking risks, and knowing when to rest and claim progress. At the same it is also a race on several levels. The mountain climbing theme is pretty much pasted on. Story-wise you have three climbers each working on a different peak. You help them climb as far as possible, and you will score

I must say this game is gimmicky, but it does work and it's certainly eye-catching. Talk about creative use of dice!  Dice in the game represent different cooking ingredients. They come in five colours, representing five different ingredients. At the start of the game, you roll them all and randomly organise them into a slab like this. Players then take turns using that cardboard

I didn't know this was an Uwe Rosenberg game until halfway through the game. It being a polyomino game should have tipped me off. The polyominoes in this game are animal enclosures in a zoo. Everyone starts the game with an empty zoo. You collect enclosure tiles to place in your zoo. You also collect animals to place in these enclosures. Animals will breed. Whenever an enclosure is fully occupied

Just One is a game from 2018. It was nominated for many awards, and it won many too, the most prestigious one being the Spiel des Jahres (2019). This is a party game and a cooperative game. The idea is simple. Every round one person plays the active player and needs to guess a word. That word is known to everyone else, and everyone must give a one word clue to help the active player guess

I continue my ongoing online games of Innovation with younger daughter Chen Rui, who is now away from home. We have moved on to playing with the expansion Cities of Destiny. I'm sure later we will cycle back to the others. Although the latest rules for Innovation have been implemented on both Yucata.de and BoardGameArena.com (available if you participate in early testing), we are still

Shackleton Base is a heavy eurogame about developing and operating a moon base. This is a worker placement game in which you build domes, attract employees, mine resources and make money. Every game there will be three corporations out of seven in play, and they determine the human enterprises happening on the moon. Working on projects for these corporations is how you

Blood on the Clocktower is a social deduction game with the same concept and structure as Werewolf. It is an improved, more complex and more strategic version of Werewolf. In Werewolf you don't really have much basis for discussion or deduction. You rely on observing the facial expressions and reactions of your friends. In Blood on the Clocktower every town resident has a unique

Steam Power is Martin Wallace’s magnum opus Age of Steam simplified to become a family game. Well, not exactly. Indeed much is simplified, but some elements in Steam Power are just different. Some are a little like Brass.  In Steam Power, you build your own rail network. You also build factories. Every city allows one specific factory type.

The biggest change at my boardgame blog in 2025 was the quantity. Since starting this blog in 2007, I have never written this many blog posts. The number of posts is more than double of the next highest year. This is mainly because of the many new-to-me games I played on BoardGameArena.com. Together with my long-time gaming buddies Han and Allen, we started playing asynchronous games

Catan: New Energies is a variant and a standalone game in the Catan universe. 95% of the original The Settlers of Catan is still here. Some elements have been added. The additions are a social commentary. This game explores the concept of sustainable development. In order to do well, you must develop your cities and towns in an environmentally-friendly way. Otherwise you will be

Fishing is a deck-building trick-taking game from mad scientist designer Friedemann Friese. The game is played over eight rounds. Every round you score points based on the cards you win. These cards are shuffled, and they go to the bottom of your personal draw deck. In the next round, you draw cards from your personal draw deck. Your draw deck starts empty. In the first round, if you don’t