Patron exclusive content…
Medium (2019) – Accessibility Teardown
Medium is a fine game – at least, in its wild form as the energetic folk-game that has been a staple of improv groups and school camps since the early 90s. This actual boxed product though feels exploitative in a way that makes me unwilling to recommend it your way. …
Medium (2019)
I like Medium well enough. I also liked it well enough when it was the car game ‘Mind Meld’. It’s a perfectly good game that’s worth your time, but you can’t get away from the fact that boxing it up and selling it for actual cash money is the up-market…
Prisma Arena (2020) – Accessibility Teardown
We liked Prisma Arena, but move set considerations and an overly smooth team topography mean that we don’t love it. Oodles of potential though – we gave it three and a half stars in our review. But I have saved some of my most positive comments for this teardown, because…
Prisma Arena (2020)
One thing I especially enjoy about looking at a new entry from Hub Games is that there’s going to be something genuinely interesting in it. Blank is a design toolkit masquerading as a card game. Holding On did fascinating things with theme and with representing hazy memory as a gameplay…
Architects of the West Kingdom (2018) – Accessibility Teardown
We gave Architects of the West Kingdom four stars in our review. It’s not awash in new ideas, but the central one it does have is wonderful – it truly reinvigorates a formula that I absolutely would not have enjoyed otherwise. It’s a really nice game and it’s well worth…
Architects of the West Kingdom (2018)
Architects of the West Kingdom is a very good game but I confess my heart sank when I first opened the box. It so violently reminded me of Raiders of the North Sea that I thought I’d fallen for the board game equivalent of a Unity asset flip. The aesthetic,…
Trial by Trolley (2020) – Accessibility Teardown
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…
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…