Railroad Tiles is from the same designer duo who also brought us Railroad Ink and Dragon Castle. A quick way to describe the game is advanced Carcassonne. This is a tile laying game, and you get to place meeples. But this is not a fair way to introduce the game at all. Say this to people who already like Carcassonne to hook them. This game has its own place and in many ways is

National Economy is a game from Japan. It is a worker placement card game. It is pretty compact. There are many elements which at first made me think - isn't this just like Agricola? As I played, I soon discovered it is more than that, and less than that at the same time. All in all, a different beast, despite several familiar concepts.  The game is played over 9 rounds. You start

This is a 2-player game about city building, where you compete for the same pool of resources to build your individual cities.  You each have your own player board, which is a 3x3 grid. On your turn, you place one of your four pawns on the common board, which is also a 3x3 grid. The common board has stacks of tiles. When you place a pawn, you claim the topmost tile, and you

This game is set in World War II and depicts the battle between Germany and the USSR. This is a two player game and the story starts with Germany initiating the invasion of the Soviet Union. Every few rounds both players will score points based on controlling key locations. If you outscore your opponent by 10 points, you win immediately. Otherwise, you win by having more points at the end of

Dewan in Malay means "hall", and the boardgame Dewan has nothing to do with any hall. It's just the name of the game world. But I'm stuck with thinking "what the hall" whenever I say the name of the game. Dewan is a clean civ game. I am tempted to call it 4X, but it doesn't have all four X's, just eXpand and a bit of eXploit. No eXplore or eXterminate. You start with a little settlement, and

Katana Spirits is a light strategy game from Singaporean designer Geoffrey Chia. This game uses several characters also found in other titles from Good Spirit Games. Many of Geoffrey's games have a Japanese theme. Katana Spirits is a game about training yourself as a fighter and then going out kick some gangster butt. This is a game which uses polyomino tiles.  On your turn

It's 1951. The Indian government has just decided to build a new capital city for the Punjab region. You are one of the urban planners working on this project. This city will be called Chandigarh. As you build the city, there are opportunities to score points. When the city is completed, the highest scorer wins.  The play area is a 4x4 grid of tiles. On each tile there are empty

Talon is a game of tactical spaceship battles. It is a game for two players. One plays Earth and the other plays an invading alien civilisation. You each control a fleet of spaceships. Your goal is to destroy all of your opponent’s spaceships.  The battlefield is abstracted to a 2D hexagonal map. You fly your spaceships around and shoot at your opponent’s spaceships. There

Lightning Train was described as Ticket To Ride with deck-building, but I think that will paint an inaccurate picture. It is indeed played on a map of USA, and you do compete to build tracks between cities. The core mechanism is indeed bag-building (a form of deck-building). However I find this a much more complex game. It's a mid- to heavy-weight game.  This is the game map. In

Pantheon is an expansion for 7 Wonders Duel. Allen came across this at Cash Converters in Singapore, and it was a fantastic deal, SGD3.00! That's less than MYR10.00. As a game buyer I’m thrilled about these great deals. At the same time as an indie publisher it’s a little sad to see slightly older games get the stock clearance treatment. I guess to view it positively it is a good

I can sense the future. I sense that Soothsayers is going to be one of my favourite new-to-me games in 2026. I had not heard of the game prior to playing it. The theme and the art are a little quirky. The backstory is mumbo jumbo to me. However the gameplay completely took me by surprise. I would say there is nothing particularly ground breaking, yet the whole package just works amazingly

Watergate is a two player game about the Watergate scandal involving President Nixon. One player is the newspaper editor trying to gather evidence, link them to Nixon and expose the scandal. The other player is the Nixon administration, trying to prevent this and attempting to win by lasting till the end of the presidential term.  The game board is a network of links with

Skara Brae brings us to the Orkney Islands in prehistoric Scotland. You manage a growing settlement. As more and more people flock to your settlement, you need to make sure you gather enough resources, build shelter, and cook enough food to feed everyone. At the same time you need to manage the waste generated by the settlement. There is a message about sustainability here

Wizards of the Grimoire is a two-player head-to-head battle game. You are wizards and you deal damage to each other by casting spells. To win the game, you need to reduce your opponent's health points to zero. This structure is pretty common. However the way you pick spells to use and manage mana needed to cast them is interesting. The game certainly offers something new.  There is

Bebop is a tile placement game about a jazz music fair. You are ticket sellers trying to book the right seats for customers who enjoy specific performances - piano, brass (trumpets) or percussion (drums). I find the link between theme and mechanism a little weak, but still, it’s nice to see a music fair setting, which is not something you see often. This being a tile

Libertalia is a game from 2012. I have heard of it before several times, but never had the chance to give it a go until recently. I had high hopes for the game, because I had heard only good stuff. Unfortunately for me, I am meeting a good game at a bad time. I would have enjoyed the game more had I played it earlier. This is a simultaneous action selection game. You and your opponents have