GMS Magazine Podcast

Pixel Tactics was released by one of my favourite companies, Level 99 a while ago to great success, but not enough because Level 99 deserve a lot of success. They have consistently released good quality games of a variety of styles and genres, including Roleplaying Games, card games and iPad games. Pixel Tactics is a game for two players that plays in about 30 to 45 minutes and offers a heavy gami...

Smash Up, published by Alderac Entertainment Group in 2012, has seen quite a success for a card game that, by just reading its description, shouldn’t work. It sounds totally bonkers. Mix two decks of totally themes that you wouldn’t think of mixing, like Zombies and Fairies, give each Zombie and each Fairy an ability to do something and then send them forth to conquer bases that will give you poin...

GenCon is for many of us Europeans a Mecca of gaming we’ll never get to see. Though I hope to someday. The biggest four days in gaming, as the slogan aptly announces, has been going more than 45 years. From humble beginnings it’s turned out to be a true giant. And deservedly so. This year it also comes with a very interesting twist that’s made it very exciting for even more people: The re-launch o...

Iello released Titanium Wars at Spiel 2013 and the theme and looks were enough to get me very interested. Then I found out it was also a resource management game and also a card game. I like all of that. The subject? You must expand your galactic empire to win the game. You do that by developing technologies, building armies and blasting the other players out of the sky. In a nutshell, a winner fo...

Online conventions are a logical step in the socialising scene for a lot of hobbies. Probably any hobby, to be honest. The possibility of getting “together” with other people who share a passion and talk, play and share ideas together. That is exactly what Tre’ Grisby thought when he decided to create L.U.G. Con, an online RPG convention that’s been going on for the last three years and gathers a...

Core Worlds was published by Stronghold Games in 2011 and was designed by the – rather talented – Andrew Parks. If you just follow its description, Core Worlds probably won’t interest you very much since there are *a lot* of games that sound like it: Deck builder, Science Fiction, Space Exploration. I know, yawn. But this game is special. I didn’t believe it when Michael Chamberlain told me, but t...

Recently we had the enormous pleasure of interviewing Martin Vaux, one of the co-designers of Lords of War and at the same time we played the game so we could tell him, to his face, what we thought of it. Lords of War is a strategic card game for two players (a four player mode is also available) in which armies battle each other on a grid that must be used to maximise the power and abilities of e...

Sertorius is the latest offering from Bedrock Games and has been launched, much to everyone’s surprise, without any Kickstarter influence whatsoever. And it looks pretty amazing. No, really. It does. After the publication of Arrows of Indra, the company devoted all their efforts into creating a game with an unique approach to magic and offer the players the possibility of playing immensely powerfu...

Lords of War was released to much acclaim at Dragonmeet in December 2012. And I mean to much acclaim because that very next year got the UK Games Expo award for Best Strategic Card Game, along with Lords of War: Dwarves vs. Lizardmen. Expansions have been released and the game is gathering momentum and strength in numbers of fans with some promising future ahead of it and its designers. Partly bec...

TRIX is a words guessing games from Porcupine Press, an UK-based company with some interesting and friendly titles in their portfolio. Interesting travelling games are always a good thing to have around. Something light enough to be taught in just a few minutes, accessible enough to cater to a wide audience and fun enough to be fun to play several times. That’s what TRIX attempts to do. The three...

Athlas-  Duel for Divinity is the offering that Golden Egg Games has currently going in Kickstarter. A game in which the players take on the roles of god-like creatures who must uncover the secrets of creation and must learn to manipulate time and space in order to gain the abilities needed to create armies and survive the challenges laid ahead by the Athilian Council. Golden Egg Games has produce...

Once again we got together to discuss things roleplaying. I was joined by Jim Pinto and later on by Vickey Beaver and we decided to discuss the merits of good writing vs. game design. When is about roleplaying games, both indeed matter, but which one matters most? Clear, well written rules or atmospheric settings? As you can imagine, we all had something to say about that… But what do you say? Hop...

Hive, has been out for quite a long time now and it is a very popular game. Well balanced, deep, tons of replayability and fun. Very good fun. One only has to look at the list of reputable publishers that have put their weight behind this game to realise that, despite its unassuming looks, this game is as solid as the pieces that form it. And let me tell you they are *very* solid. So did this game...

Luchador: Mexican Wrestling Dice is the  design of Mark Rivera and brings to the table the feeling of a wrestling match on the table. And it does pretty well at that! Released at Spiel 2013, the game was a sold-out in days and it’s been well received. Simple to play, silly fun and lots of dice rolling make a compelling experience that’s just fun. Not a lot of thinking, not a lot of arguing… just f...

Academy Games and its charismatic leader are well known for producing historical games that are, as it happen, easy and fun to play without compromising on historic accuracy. In this case 1775 deals with the the start for the American Revolution after Britain imposes unwelcome new taxes. Yeah… that was me being understating. Anyway, there was a lot of fighting and a lot of people died and the Fren...

Dr. Hrubec is a party game from The Czech Board Company that was released at Spiel 2014. One of the cool things about this organisation is that they get together with designer in the Czech Republic and when they find a game they think it’s worthy, then they gather the funds and publish it. In 2013 they released Infarkt, a game that tests your healthy lifestyle and, if you’re unlucky, you get a hea...

Splendor is described as a fast and addictive game of chip-collecting and card development. An with good reason, it is very, very addictive, though not sure about the fast bit… people with paralysis analysis might find this one slowing them down a bit. However the game is totally awesome and fantastic even on a first play, which is pretty impressive! However, don’t take the last five lines of text...

Steampunk has become very, very fashionable in the last few decades. Although the concept has been with us for along time and novels with technology that had the flavour of what we currently know as Steampunk have been numerous by favour authors, it was only in the 80’s that the term Steampunk was coined by K.W. Jeter when he was looking for a term to works of novelists James Blaylock and Tim Powe...

Hobby World is he biggest boardgame publishing company in Russia. Last year they went to Kickstarter with Septikon and succeeded (disgracefully I didn’t back it. Shame on me!) a game for two players that looks very much like a retro Space Invaders sort of game. Now they are back in Kickstarter with a different game. Hollywood; a game in which you win by creating the most successful Hollywood block...

This is no secret: Michael Chamberlain takes this game to bed just like you take a teddy bear. Seriously. He *loves* this game more than I can tell. Funnily enough, this is a game that plenty of people dismissed before it even funded in Kickstarter because of the theme: you have to create your fishing fleet and make money with it. And that sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. I mean,...

Recently we reviewed 12 Realms in the Boardgame Review room and somehow we managed to dislike it. A combination of expectations not being met, mechanics we didn’t like, length of time we didn’t expect… It didn’t sit down well with us. And yet a lot of people love it, so we thought we might have got it wrong somehow. That and we really like Mage Company. We like Wrong Chemistry and we like the owne...

The UK Games Expo has become the flagship of gaming conventions in the UK. From its unassuming beginnings less than a decade ago, it is quickly turning into the perfect mix of GenCon and Spiel at a smaller scale but just as fun and well organised. Since I’m the one organising the panels, you’d be forgiven for thinking I am biased, I am; so I thought it’d be a good idea to interview the two main me...

This podcast episode is a good one. Mainly because the game is a very, very good one. Seriously good. Lewis & Clark is the product of French designer Cedrick Chaboussit, who presented the game to Ludonaute and they didn’t waste a second in getting the game out there. With lovely artwork, terrific components and a gameplay to die for, this game was a hit in every single front. But you’ll have to li...

This card game was funded in Kickstarter with a pretty terrific amount of success in 2013 and it quickly became obvious that expansions were indeed a good idea. So quickly in fact, that Saar Shai, the designer behind the game decided to design expansions and create another Kickstarter that is also currently funding and it’s also being *very* successful. But why? What does this game have that is ge...

Mage Company released 12 Realms in Kickstarter and the game was sold at Spiel 2013 with all the extras that were obtained during the crowd-funding campaign. We also did the unboxing video of this game to give our viewers a precise idea of the components of the game and miniatures and can be seen here. Now we’ve sat down around the table and played the game for the first time. And without going int...