50 Games in 50 Weeks: Once Upon a Time
This is a weird game. It’s a storytelling card game. Each player has a hand full of fairy tale story elements (swords, siblings, dark places, etc.) and a single ending (“And she was happy the rest of her days,” “And he never saw her again,” etc.). One player begins telling a story, laying down story elements as they appear in the story. However, if another player’s story element appears in the story, […]
My Board Game: Zeppelins vs. Pterodactyls
Months ago, I watched a bizarre short film called Zeppelins vs. Pterodactyls which threw together clips from various cartoons and space opera serials of the 1930’s. The film didn’t do much for me, but the name stuck. I mentioned that name to Michael R, and we fantasized a competitive board game in which zeppelins fly over a lost world, descending for treasure as their crews fight off pterodactyls. Today, after much play-testing, that […]
50 Games in 50 Weeks, Complete
In July of last year, I took stock of myself as a gamer. I wanted to understand games better, and eventually design games. I realized that I suffered from a deficiency: I could play a few games well, but I knew only a few of them. I decided to fix this by setting myself an impossible-sounding challenge: 50 Games in 50 Weeks. I would play 50 games that I had never played before, all within the next 50 weeks. Last […]
50 Games in 50 Weeks: The Play’s The Thing
If you can imagine a Shakespearean role-playing game that’s riotously fun even for those not steeped in Shakespeare, you’d be imagining The Play’s The Thing. The players take on the roles of small-time Shakespearean actors in a play that changes underneath their feet. That, indeed, is the fun: not only can the director interrupt and tell you to do the rest of the scene in Japanese accents, but all the other players can bid to have […]
50 Games in 50 Weeks: Munchkin
The Munchkin card game models dungeon crawlers who are only interested in killing things and taking their stuff. The game has two decks; the Door Deck contains monsters to fight, while the Treasure Deck contains stuff: a race (elf, dwarf, etc.), a class (cleric, fighter, wizard, etc.), a weapon, or an event. You start the game with a few Treasure cards. On your turn, you draw a Door card. If you […]
50 Games in 50 Weeks: A Game of Thrones: The Card Game
This is a tough review, because I simply didn’t like the Game of Thrones card game. It’s not my kind of game. However, I’d like to play it again at least once, because it has interesting strategy implications. And that is both the positive and negative of the Game of Thrones card game. Imagine Magic: The Gathering with 50% more rules. It’s deep and complex. This can be good or bad, depending […]
50 Games in 50 Weeks: Ticket to Ride
Ticket to Ride is one of the classic Eurogames. This intimidated me; Eurogames are known for their relative complexity. I’ve only played Ticket to Ride once, and I learned it quickly and had fun. The game is played on a board showing major American cities (there are other versions for other countries, naturally), and colored potential train lines running between them. At any given time, four colored train cards […]
50 Games in 50 Weeks: Dominion
Dominion came out of nowhere a few years ago to become a hugely popular game. Folks just adore this game. I decided to just straight out buy it, based on all the praise I’d heard for it. When I opened the game box, I was taken aback. The base game includes hundreds of cards, and they all seem different. In play, the game makes sense. There are only a few main card types: […]
50 Games in 50 Weeks: Marvel Heroic Roleplaying
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is a new tabletop role-playing game that’s garnered a lot of interest lately, partly due to its impressive roster of designers and developers: Cam Banks (Smallville and Leverage RPGs), Rob Donoghue (Spirit of the Century, Dresden Files RPG), Matt Forbeck (Lord of the Rings RPG, Deadlands RPG), Will Hindmarch, and Philippe-Antoine Menard (The Chatty DM). MHR takes an interesting mechanical approach: to perform an action, build a set of dice (a “dice pool”) from elements […]