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

Teaching a game isn't easy and the same is true for learning. The teacher will do their best to explain everything and get everything right, but the first play of a game should always be chalked down to experience. Players should do what they can to help and expect mistakes to creep in. However, there are also things the game itself can do to make learning a new game easier, some of which will als...

The squad had been practising many hours a week for months to get to this point. They were up against a tough team, but they had the belief, conviction and the appetite to win. The determination was written on every single swimmer's face. As the routine started, it was clear that these women were headed for glory. The tension grew as the music played and eventually reached its climax. When the las...

Hobbies are known to be a way to reduce stress and can improve feelings of anxiety and depression. Board games are, of course, no different. In this article, I want to look at how playing board games can help your mental health. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/05/03/board-game-relief-topic-discussion/ Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot ( https://www.youtube.com/audi...

The woodcutter and I were travelling the lands when we reached a kingdom far to the south. Its people were most distraught, because the fairies of the woods had kidnapped the most famous musician whose music made everything better. Of course, we agreed to help the people without hesitation. We ventured into the forest and peeked under every leaf and fern and beneath the shelf of every mushroom unt...

It's so very easy to dismiss the old adage that we learn through play. Many of us take our shared hobby very seriously. We're highly competitive and want to win. We need to play by the rules. It's an unwritten law - but it's a law nevertheless. It's "the law". Yet, when we see how young children interact with games, it's often very different to what we do as adults. In this article, I want to expl...

Get your friends together, grab some bits from the local junkyard and assemble everything into the best stronghold you can, to be crowned champion of the Junk Forts by Matthew Dunstan and Brett J. Gilbert from Inside the Box Board Games . Read the full review here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/04/23/junk-forts-saturday-review/ Useful Links Junk Forts : https://www.insidethebox.games/product/...

The following article was written by Laurie Trueblood of Adventures of Authenticity . As a kid, family game night was a staple and we had that one closet that always seemed to overflow with board games. As I got older, I added tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons and video games. And while gaming has always been a part of my lifestyle, I never really saw it as beneficial beyond just something...

It is the 11th century AD and the Vikings regularly invade our lands, while my domestic rivals try to forcefully take territory from me, without much luck. My military prowess is well known and I prove myself again and again, while also forging political alliances by strategically arranging marriages between my family members and other important houses. I even have time to rebuild the many monaste...

When you have a long-standing, regular games group, you will probably have already established certain "house rules" that define what's considered good behaviour at the table. Chances are many of them are actually unwritten rules that have just come out over time and are based on the types of people you play with. In this article, I want to try and talk about a few of these rules that are probably...

After graduating from Oxford, specializing in criminal law, it was time for me to travel and see the world. Little did I know that every journey I took would present me with a mystery I had to solve using my formidable spirit of deduction and unfailing determination. Tiny clues would lead me along a trail of discovering more and more proof which would lead me to the perpetrator. However, until the...

Staunch competitive players may feel that co-operative games are a bit pointless. After all, it makes more sense if there is only one winner, rather than several, or so their reasoning might go. However, even if you love co-operative games and even if you prefer them to competitive games, there are some games where you don't feel like you're achieving anything - and that might feel pointless to yo...

There is something hiding in the city. I'm sure of it. I keep finding clues and my detectors are picking up very strange signals - but I need proof! Hard facts that I can present to the science community to make them believe that I have found a Cryptid: Urban Legends by Hal Duncan and Ruth Veevers from Osprey Games . Read the full review here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/04/02/cryptid-urban...

Rob Ingle works for Stop, Drop and Roll Games Studio and has been an artist for a long time. As he says himself, he is straightforward, honest and punctual. He is skilled in illustration, design and all manner of creative work. Read the audio transcript here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/03/30/rob-ingle-let-me-illustrate/ If you want to support this podcast financially, please check out the...

We all know how some games can take a while to set up. Sometimes it's because there are just a lot of components and different pieces to take out of the box and place on the table. Other times, it's because you have to sort components a certain way, after they were all mixed together in a previous play of the game. The opposite can also be true, where you have to shuffle tiles or cards, after they...

My last board game convention was Airecon 2020 and it was the last event of its kind in the UK - and as it turned out, there wasn't going to be another in-person UK board game convention until 2021. It was a wonderful event, even though everything felt weird. Nobody was sure whether to shake hands or not. The special guests who had flown in from the USA weren't even sure if they would be able to g...

Co-operative games come in all shapes in sizes, just like any game. So there should be something there for anyone, irrespective of what you're looking for, as long as you want an experience where everyone works together to win the game as a team. In this article, I look at a handful of different types of co-operative games, giving examples of games that fit into the category, so that, hopefully, y...

Shuffle your deck of creature and vegetable cards, put the pile facedown on the table and spread the cards out, so everyone can reach them and after explaining a handful of rules, you're ready to play A game about quickly grabbing creatures that are totally different & counting your beetroots by Andrew Beardsley and Behrooz Shahriari from Stuff By Bez . Read the full review here: https://table...

I don't know if you've ever come across it, but the final round, or sometimes the final few rounds, of a game often feel different to the rest of the game. There is the common term "end game" and the concept of an "end game trigger" in modern board games, so there is a relatively clear distinction between how a game finishes and the rest of the game. In this article, I want to discuss how games fe...

The city-states of Venice, Florence and Genoa and their economy were doing extremely well. However, their military strength was extremely lacking not only in size, but also in experience and conviction. It was clear that strong soldiers with real battle experience were needed. So when the English soldiers returned from the Crusades, they were welcomed with open arms. Finally, the city-states would...

Hey there. It's Joe Slack from the Board Game Design Course . Oliver was kind enough to let me write a guest post on his blog about victory conditions other than victory points to spark some new ideas and get you thinking about other new games to play. I hope you enjoy this article! Victory points (VP) are so common in modern board games, along with the condition that the player at the end of the...

Sending someone a letter seems to have become a thing of the past and sending people postcards is mostly restricted to when you've gone away on holiday - but it's been ages since many of us have done that. However, many of us love sharing games with others, so it would be amazing if you could send someone a card that's also a game and even add a little message. Well, that's exactly what Six Greeti...

Amelie Le-Roche is a veteran video game animator, creating games in her free time. She loves to explore different art styles and unique themes while creating family-friendly board games. She started Zerua Games in 2018 (which means "sky" in Basque) as a creative outlet. Read the audio transcript here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2022/03/02/amelie-le-roche-let-me-illustrate/ If you want to suppor...

A large number of board games are about winning and losing. Sure, for many of us, it doesn't really matter whether we win or lose, as long as we have a good time, either with friends, family or alone. In co-operative games, you play against the game itself and either you win or the game does. The same goes for solo games, of course, which are basically co-operative games, but with a single player....

It is the evening and everyone has gone home, but you. The library is dark and everything is quiet, when suddenly, out of the corner of your eyes, you think you can see a book opening all by itself in the horror aisle. As you turn to get a better look, you see Dracula standing there, with Bram Stoker 's book by his feet. You know exactly what to do, because this isn't the first time this has happe...

Hi! My name is Lewis Shaw and I run Braincrack Games , a UK-based tabletop games publisher that's been bouncing around the scene since 2016. After my recent interview with Heavy Cardboard and a post on our own blog where I listed some of the reasons I don't think people should rush to start their own board game publishers, Oliver was kind enough to invite me to guest post on Tabletop Games Blog an...