I’ve been a big fan of TCGs and CCGs (and adjacent) since the early days in the 90s. I’m always willing to give any game in the genre a look, no matter what the theme or IP (I had an extensive Mortal Kombat Kard Game collection and some decks for Sim City: The Card Game, […]
Exploring uncharted lands is not a new concept in the realm of board games. It’s an excellent way to create initial buy-in as players discover a world evolving over time. A Wayfarer’s Tale is designed by James Emmerson and illustrated by collaborator Tristam Rossin. They have visited this thematic space before. Earlier releases from the […]
Meeple Mountain’s founder, Andy Matthews, spent some time last fall with Harris Hill Products, Inc., the team behind the new gaming device Board. After Andy finished the demo, he reached out to me because I do a lot of gaming-as-a-family nights at the Bell household with my wife and two kids, ages 12 and 9.
I looked at the brief Board commercial on the company’s home page, and while the video was certainly splashy, I initially did not want to wade into the waters here. “My only question,” I started in a note to Andy, “revolves around the games…the games don’t necessarily look like board games so much as video games.” Don’t get me wrong—I play video games every week, sometimes every day. But the Board looked like an oversized iPad that used physical components to manipulate the screen, in a similar fashion to Beasts of Balance.
I’m a tabletop games reviewer, not a video game reviewer, so I wanted to make sure everyone knew who they were asking about doing a review here. Still, I knew the kids would get a kick out of trying Board, so I volunteered to give this a go. About a month later, the Board showed up in a box so loud that the company’s logo was splashed across the front: “BOARD”,…
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I have been loving the Knizia Renaissance we’re currently living through. With publishers like Bitewing Games, 25th Century Games, and Allplay revitalizing and reprinting Knizia classics, has me giddy. Knowing hidden gems are coming back into print and being given much-needed facelifts is exactly what we need in this hobby of continued excess and over-production. […]
This is a story of a time long ago—a time of myth and legend. When the ancient gods were petty and cruel, and plagued mankind with suffering—oh sorry, wrong script. Walking around GenCon last year, I saw advertising from Rush of Ikorr everywhere. Seemed like most people had a Rush of Ikorr lanyard, even. Given […]
Stone Age is a classic gateway Eurogame. Everdell sits in the top 50 games on BoardGameGeek.com. So surely a game called Everstone has to have some merit, right? Ugh, intros are hard. What really drew me to try Everstone: Discovering Ignis, was first-time designer Sam McDavitt’s description of multi-use cards, use of a Scythe-like action-selection […]
We picked up Churchill back in 2014 when it first was printed. From what I could tell at the time was that it wasn’t getting a lot of buzz amongst board gamers on BGG and there were only 2 YouTube videos about the game where we could learn a little more (one from Mark Herman and his wife, the other from Stuka Joe). I realize now that I was wrong to a large extent about the presumptive popularity of the game. First, we had bought it while it was brand new so the buzz was just getting started in a major way. Secondly, Churchill is viewed by many as a wargame and as such many euro gamers are hesitant to give it the try it so rightly deserves. But the game system and what it is trying to do is just fantastic with its debating over issues, seeing those issues translate to action on the board in the further prosecution of the war and then the way that people work to coordinate their actions. Just a really solid system.
A few years ago, after playing all of the games in the Great Statesmen Series, we heard of a new game in the series from a designer not named Mark Herman and I was immediately interested and intrigued as we have had so much fun with Churchill, Pericles and Versailles 1919. Congress of Vienna from GMT Games is a diplomatic card driven wargame based on Churchill and is the 4th game in the Great Statesmen Series. The game is set during the years of 1813-1814 and sees players take on the role of the main characters of the struggle between the Napoleonic Empire and the coalition of Russia, Austria, and Great Britain with their Prussian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Swedish allies. We played the game recently while attending Buckeye Game Fest and then played a full campaign again while attending the World Boardgaming Championships and absolutely were amazed at the changes and innovations to the system introduced by the designer Frank Esparrago.
I posted a fairly in-depth overview of the game in my First Impression post and you can read that at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2025/08/06/first-impressions-congress-of-vienna-from-gmt-games/
-Grant
Welcome to the Dungeon — A cute little push-your-luck filler, kind of like “Name that tune.” “Well, I can beat that dungeon that has five monsters!” “Six monsters” “Six monsters but I’ll leave my vorpal sword behind!” etc. Does not overstay its welcome, at least with three players. Not earth shattering, but I got it for $5, so sure. Indifferent.
Magical Athlete — I was sure I had played this before when it was announced, but it turns out that I was thinking of Monster Derby. This one reminds me of Mrs. Tao’s name for Strat-o-matic Baseball: “Bunco for Boys.” It’s an amusing way to spend rolling dice for 30 minutes. This one comes closer to overstaying its welcome. (But we played with six players). Great production values with “Kids Educational Cartoon” style coloring, drawing and meeples. I’m sure if you brought this out with chits it would lose ~3 BGG rating points, deservedly so. Indifferent.
Welcome to the Dungeon — A cute little push-your-luck filler, kind of like “Name that tune.” “Well, I can beat that dungeon that has five monsters!” “Six monsters” “Six monsters but I’ll leave my vorpal sword behind!” etc. Does not overstay its welcome, at least with three players. Not earth shattering, but I got it for $5, so sure. Indifferent.
Magical Athlete — I was sure I had played this before when it was announced, but it turns out that I was thinking of Monster Derby. This one reminds me of Mrs. Tao’s name for Strat-o-matic Baseball: “Bunco for Boys.” It’s an amusing way to spend rolling dice for 30 minutes. This one comes closer to overstaying its welcome. (But we played with six players). Great production values with “Kids Educational Cartoon” style coloring, drawing and meeples. I’m sure if you brought this out with chits it would lose ~3 BGG rating points, deservedly so. Indifferent.
In a gaming world where there are a few prominent themes, it’s nice when something new comes along. I remember seeing bottles of colored sand at beach towns when I was younger, so the theme of Sand Art brought back some positive memories. Sand Art is a game by Kory Jordan and published by 25th […]
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