Trial by Trolley is pretty much as good as any other party game, but it has an odd premise that makes it an uncomfortable fit for a lot of scenarios. It offers a more literate take on social gaming, but those that would appreciate it most are also the ones…
Author: Michael Heron
Promobilia and the Accessibility Stack for Board Games
Anyone who’s getting our regular Patron series ‘Gaming in Gothenburg’ has been treated, if I may use that word, to regular updates on what work I’ve been doing at Chalmers. It’s a breakdown of the grants for which I have submitted applications, and the projects I really want to do…
Trial by Trolley (2020)
I have more party games on my shelves than I have been invited to actual parties in my life.
Two. I have two party games on my shelves….
Spell Smashers (2018) – Accessibility Teardown
For me, Spell Smashers is an instructive case study in the idea that ‘When the Gods wish to punish us, they first grant our prayers’. It’s almost exactly a game I asked for someone to make, and yet all I feel when playing it is frustration. There’s just too much…
Spell Smashers (2018)
Some time ago now I wrote a special feature on the games I’d most love to see cross-bred in terrifying and unethical experiments. I just wanted some evil scientist to take DNA from one, inject it into the other, and see what grotesque hell-baby emerged as a result. One of…
Sanctum (2019) – Accessibility Teardown
We liked Sanctum a lot. While noting it has a couple of significant problems in its combat systems and its upgrade path feasibility we also gave it a four star review because it’s very satisfying to play. It’s Diablo in a box. It’s a board game with the soul of…
Ten Great Books for People Serious About Games
As site regulars will know, in my real life I work at Chalmers University of Technology as a senior lecturer in the Interaction Design department. Specifically, my focus is on game design and game development. I’m relatively new in post at Chalmers but I’ve been teaching games stuff for a…
Sanctum (2019)
It’s pretty clear what Sanctum is aiming for from the moment you pick up the box. The cover doesn’t so much remind you of Blizzard’s Diablo as it does conspicuously emulate it like a con artist trying to steal your identity. That’s not a bad thing, of course. Good artists…
Legacy of Dragonholt (2017) – Accessibility Teardown
While Legacy of Dragonholt may be more book than game, it’s certainly a well produced piece of entertainment and one that I enjoyed frittering about with for a while. We gave it three and a half stars in our review, noting that while it certainly won’t appeal to everyone it…
Legacy of Dragonholt (2017)
Back in the 80s, a kind of cybertextual novel was all the rage amongst a certain grouping of literate nerds. For someone like me, with no friends, they opened up a world of story-driven campaign roleplaying that would otherwise have remained entirely inaccessible. Ian Livingstone, Steve Jackson, Joe Dever –…
Targi (2012) – Accessibility Teardown
Targi is a genuinely excellent game that, if we’re honest with ourselves, would have been a much better and more positive choice with which to break our hiatus. What’s done is done though and there’s no use crying about it now. We gave Targi four and a half stars in…
Targi (2012)
Targi plays a bit like an economic striptease where part of the eroticism is that all involved dancers are packing guns. It’s great….
The Five Best Video Games Ever (That I Played During the Coronavirus Lockdowns)
Imagine someone spent their Corona lockdown period playing lots of games so you didn’t have to, and then reported back on the absolute best that they found? That’s this article….
Corinth (2019) – Accessibility Teardown
Urgh, you’d think after a four month break I wouldn’t be so grumpy coming back to this site. Despite giving Corinth three stars in our review I also managed to wrap that up in some of the most fiercely negative commentary this site has given in quite some time. Having…