Tabletop Games Blog - board game reviews and discussions with a personal touch

I always used to be very much a competitive player. Pitting my wit against other people was my thing. I would usually lose games and still do, but it was always a lot of fun. Cooperative games really only came into my life when our daughter was young enough to play games with us that weren't just roll-and-move. I remember our first game of Forbidden Island , which we all really enjoyed and pla...

The sea was calm and the sun was shining. The sandy beach stretched for miles, strewn with shells, some occupied by hermit crabs. In the distance, I could see a few small boats. Underneath the long abandoned lighthouse, there was a small colony of penguins. As I closed my eyes and dozed off, I dreamt of fish and merpeople. My mind was thinking about Sea Salt & Paper by Bruno Cathala and Théo R...

If you're a very competitive player, then winning is all that counts. Depending on how ruthless you are, you will push for victory at all cost, as long as it is within the rules. Even if you're less cruel, you will do what you can to win. Either way, ending a game in first place feels good. It not only proves that you played well, but that you're a better player than the other people a...

Tucked away near Gleisdreieck in Berlin's Kreuzberg district is STATION-Berlin , home to the German capital's main board game convention Berlin Brettspiel Con . For three days in July, hordes of tabletop hobby enthusiasts converge to play games, speak to the dozens of exhibitors and generally have a great time. For the first time, I'll be among them and I can't wait. I'll be at...

We take language so much for granted, whether it's written down, spoken out loud or conveyed via signs. Yet, when we communicate with others, we sometimes notice how words can be misinterpreted. We can see how a message can come across differently from how it was intended. That is when we realize how important words actually are. Choosing one word over another can make a huge difference. It&#3...

The bitumen road had given way to a well-maintained dirt track. My monster road train was stubbornly ploughing on, throwing up red dust behind it in giant plumes. From time to time I could see kangaroos, wombats, spiny anteaters, platypuses and dingos. I even caught a rare glimpse of a Tasmanian devil. It was very busy in this arid landscape. In fact, it was so busy that it felt like there was an...

I recently had the honour to be tasked with donating most of the 2023 Spiel des Jahres , Kinderspiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres nominations and longlist titles to good causes on behalf of Spiel des Jahres . Being curious about the association and their selections, I decided to play some of the games myself. As a result, I wanted to share with you more about the Spiel des Jahres associat...

London's ageing underground network is creaking and groaning. It can no longer keep up with the exponentially increasing demand of daily commuters and rising tourist numbers to the UK's capital. It's time to scrap it all and start anew and Transport for London has hired you to redesign everything. It won't be easy to optimize the interchanges for a better flow, provide stops to as...

Fresh off the back of demoing games for Asmodee at UK Games Expo 2023 , I wanted to share my experiences with introducing people to a new game. I think demoing and teaching games are two similar, but also different approaches. In this article, I want to look at them more closely. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2023/06/13/demo-vs-teach-different-types-of-presenting-games-...

I visited the show last year as a member of the press. I spoke to a lot of exhibitors and spent time in the evenings catching up with friends and playing a few games. However, this year was different. For the first time, I came up to demo games on behalf of Asmodee . That meant my travel, food and accommodation were all paid for and I even got a bit of an hourly wage. At the same time, it also mea...

Most of the earliest card games were trick-taking games played in the 800s in China. These will have felt quite different to our modern eyes. They didn't have the concept of trump cards or trump suits. There was also no bidding. Trumps were added to European card games in the 1400s, followed by bidding in the 1600s. It took another 100-200 years for familiar trick-taking games like Whist and S...

Gosh! The tiles were almost like dominoes, but square instead of rectangular. They came in a combination of six shapes and six colours. Every time you laid out tiles with the same colour, but different shapes or the same shape, but different colours, you had to connect them to what was already there, but without doubling up on colours or shapes. It quickly became confusing. It was a right Qwirkle...

Pretty much every hobby game contains some sort of score which measures who is in the lead and decides who wins the game. That's undoubtedly true for competitive games, but sometimes also for cooperative ones. The score can be in the form of victory points, glory points, reputation, money or something else or even a mix of different things. Some games keep track of players' scores througho...

We were a band of feared Viking warriors of Borg on the Lofoten islands. Our chieftain had tasked us with assembling a cunning and mighty crew, collecting provisions and journeying north to plunder gold, iron and livestock from foreign lands. We would find glory in battle and the Valkyrie would lead the fallen to Odin's Valhalla. We were the Raiders of the North Sea by Shem Phillips from Reneg...

Card games date back to the 1400s with Karniffel , or Thuringian Karnöffel , often listed as the oldest one, at least the oldest in Europe that we know of. As a popular trick-taking game in Germany for centuries, it clearly started a trend. Many trick-taking games are still popular in Germany today and I certainly grew up with a fair few. However, card games have come a long way since then. In thi...

Before the dawn of time, Gaia, our Mother Earth, gave birth to the first trees. With their strong trunks and majestic crowns, they quickly converted the fallow land into fertile soil. They cherished the everlasting rituals of Gaia that sent a ferocious force through their veins, bringing life to the highest branches and deepest roots. It did not take long for them to cover the whole continent and...

When you publish a review every week, there is a certain amount of pressure to frequently play games that are new to you. Even if you bear in mind that I sometimes re-review a game and that once a year I list my top 5 games as well as look back at the past 12 months, that still leaves around 50 games that I need to get to the table and play a few times. That's a fair amount and risks taking th...

The tigers were stealthily making their way onto the meadow, where the goats were grazing. Watching their calm and coordinated approach made you believe there was going to be only one outcome - and it wasn't going to be in favour of the goats. However, the sheer number of grazing animals didn't make it easy for the hunters. It didn't take long for one animal to sense the danger. Sudden...

If you are a veteran board game hobbyist, you will have learned a lot of terminology and mechanisms. You will instinctively know what a draw deck is and that you usually shuffle a discard pile into a new draw deck, if it runs out. The concepts of action points and turn order are going to be obvious to you. It will be second-nature to you that resources can be converted not only into each other, bu...

"Troll!" came the shout from the battlements. "Where?!" we shouted back. "Southeast!" was the reply. Darn it. We didn't have any archers defending our fortress in that direction. It was fortunate that we still had time before we had to deal with the next wave of attackers. We were already in over our heads fending off orcs and goblins at the northern end of the ba...

Apart from being a great way to meet new people and make new friends, just like any other hobby, for many of us in the hobby, playing board games is a social activity. We enjoy spending time with friends or family and catching up over a game or two. We have snacks and drinks and chat away in between turns. However, not everyone shares that view and there are good reasons for this. So in this artic...

The two of us were strolling along the beach. We could feel the damp sand underneath our feet. We stopped for a moment to dig our toes in and take a look around. There were plenty of beautiful objects just waiting to be found: driftwood for sculptures, sea glass for earrings and many other things. So we followed the Tides by Mike Berg from Button Shy . Read the full review here: https://tabletopga...

Yes, my dear friends, Tabletop Games Blog is 5 years today. When I posted my first article , I didn't know where I was going with this and had no idea about the journey the site would take me on. Since then, I published 550 articles, releasing them also in audio format since December 2018, which means there are over 430 podcast episodes available as well. I played hundreds of games, attended m...

It was dark in damp. Of course, that was not unusual for the Tacora Cave , a giant underground system which was strewn with precious jewels and priceless artefacts. Those were the reason why we were here in the first place. Armed with our torches, we explored one tunnel after another, always mindful of traps. Sooner or later, one of us would get scared and make their way back to the entrance with...

The other day I noticed how similar books and board games are. The thought was triggered when I held a board game box in my hand and then plonked it on the table. The sound it made was very much like that of a tome being placed down. It also felt as heavy as a thick hardback book. I soon realized that there were many more commonalities. So let me investigate the spiritual twins that are books and...