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

The irrigation system was ready, but there was still work to be done on the trellises. The windmill, cottage and tasting room were still just ruins and only the first third of the wine cellar was accessible. The crush pads were all clean and ready to receive the first harvest of grapes, yet the fields were still bare. Orders for some red and white wine had already come in and two types of grapes w...

Complexity is a fairly vague term. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as "the state of having many parts and being difficult to understand or find an answer to." Yet, it's not clear when parts are considered "many" or at what point something is difficult to understand. Here are my thoughts on complexity in board games and what I think it all means. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgame...

The task in hand wasn't going to be simple, but the rewards were huge. You could become ruler of Naqala if you were able to influence the people of the land to help you reach your goal. You were hoping to get the help of the djinns, but they would only listen to you if the people were on your side. It seemed impossible, but you knew that you could talk to each group individually and over time you...

Marco Bucci is a freelance artist and his experience includes books, film, animation, and advertising. He has worked for Walt Disney Publishing Worldwide, LEGO, LucasArts, Mattel Toys, Fisher-Price, Hasbro, among many others.​ He is also a passionate teacher and currently teaches "The Art Of Color & Light" at CGMA. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2020/08/05/marco-buc...

I have previously written about small box games in my article "Compressed collections" which can create a lot of gameplay with only a few components. However, even larger box, or big box, games are sometimes very inventive when it comes to using components in a clever way to create more gameplay and possibilities than would otherwise be possible. After all, board games have it much harder when you...

"Hm. Deep Purple looks good. Life's A Peach is also very warm and rich. Oh, and of course, we want the Cactus Jack. That would be the perfect triad of colours." You step back and look at the colour samples you just painted onto the wall in the kitchen. "Yes, that's it." You're so pleased to have come up with this perfect colour scheme. It had been harder than you had expected. Mixing the 13 cyan,...

As many of you probably already know, I'm a very visual person. So it's no surprise that I am drawn in by great board game art, sculpts, luxurious components and overall visual appeal. Don't get me wrong, visual appeal alone doesn't make me want to buy a game, but when good gameplay and great art come together, a game really zings for me. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2...

Sparkling jewels, shiny gems and precious stones lay in front of you - but only a handful and not necessarily the best example. Your hope was to sell some them for enough profit to be able to buy shares in a diamond mine and attract highly skilled craftspeople who would transform the slightly lacklustre gems into magnificent jewels and allow you to bask in Splendor by Space Cowboys. Read the full...

Andrew Bosley has been a professional concept artist in the video game industry since 2006 and in 2013 became a freelance concept artist and illustrator. He has worked on games including Everdell, Tapestry, Mission: Red Planet, and Citadels. He is also a game designer and writer. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2020/07/22/andrew-bosley-let-me-illustrate/ If you want to su...

As many of you probably know, I only have limited space for games. That's why I very much like small box games that have a lot of gameplay crammed into a small volume. It's also the reason why I have been reboxing games that come in bigger boxes, compressing them down and getting rid of all the extra air that came with the original packaging. I have written about this in my article "Box clever?" a...

You were constantly tired from working endless hours day in and day out. You had very little time to think about the world and when you did, you didn't have the words to describe what you saw and felt. However, you had used every spare moment to puzzle together scraps of clues into a bigger picture and had created new words with meanings that your heart dictated, but that were otherwise unknown. Y...

The cost of tabletop games is a topic that keeps popping up. There is the question of whether games have now become "overproduced", in the sense that the game components have become more expensive, due to an increase in quantity, an increase in quality or both. There is also the question of whether games have always been sold too cheaply, leaving everyone with tiny margins. There are many reasons...

"Bubble, bubble," the herb witch cackles. "Stir the pot - nice and slow," the miracle doctor says. "Slowly, add another ingredient... what will it be?" the quack surgeon asks, looking at you intently. You reach into the bag, with anticipation, not quite sure what ingredient your hand will retrieve. "Come now, come now," the witch emplores. "Put it in the pot, don't hesitate," the miracle doctor te...

As we all know, plastics are the scourge of our planet and can now be found virtually everywhere - from the obvious places like landfill sites to the most unexpected such as in the Arctic. They have invaded the food chain and it is estimated that less than 10% of plastics is recycled each year globally. Some countries have introduced legislation banning certain types of plastics and we each can do...

"So, let me illustrate. Imagine a line that represents time and at one point is 1985, to the left of it the past and to the right of it the future. If we travel back in time and make some small changes, the timeline skews off at an angle, creating an alternate 1985 - or rather, it's an alternate to you, Einstein and me, but a complete reality for everyone else. It turns out that Biff took the Spor...

Different people buy games for different reasons, and many of us will have amassed a little, or not so little, collection that we have at home that we are proud of. Yet, sometimes we're not sure how we got there or how we should continue going forward. So it's often good to re-evaluate the games we've got and think about why we have bought them. Then we can decide how we want to continue in the fu...

A small queue of customers was waiting outside. It was our opening day. We had our tea ready and some bits in our pantry, but still had to buy the flavours, which we wanted to get fresh from the market during the day, so that every tea would taste fresh and our customers would be happy. Everyone was nervous, but there was nothing for it - we had top open up and start serving Chai by Steeped Games....

I often feel that we accept the written word as something that's a given and don't pay much attention to it. We feel that writing isn't hugely important and that it's fine to just jot anything down, without much care or attention. That's often fine and it's great that people give writing a go. In fact, I encourage people to try and express themselves in written form. Keep tweeting, posting, textin...

It was time to build a better future and turn this city around. We knew we had to reduce our carbon output quickly. Our aim was to be carbon neutral. Yet, the road there would be difficult and tough decisions had to be made. Modernizing our housing stock, building wind farms, offering grants for solar panels and everything else would cost a lot of money. If we wanted to move quickly, we might have...

If you like competitive games, then you're probably familiar with trying to gauge where in the ranking you currently are during the game. Some games offer score tracks, so it's immediately clear how far ahead or behind you are - or if you're somewhere in the middle. Many games, however, keep the score hidden and it only becomes clear at the end who won. Yet, it can be very important to know if you...

"I think everyone agrees. We want to build the best metropolis in the world and we have a great opportunity to do so from scratch. We have a large plot of land that is ready to be built on. We can really create something special here that will make everyone happy. It will be magnificent." The mayor looks around the room at all the happy and excited faces, until he spots the urbanist. "What's wrong...

There are many reasons why some games are played a couple of times and then put to one side. Often the game just doesn't suit you or your games group or it doesn't meet the expectations you had. However, there are also games that are put to one side, but then get brought back to the table again after some time - and I want to look at what these games are for me and why I put them away for a while...

"Carefully now," you mumble as your hand reaches into the bag of ingredients. "That's it," you mutter as you pull out another pumpkin piece and add it to your bubbling pot. "One more, just one more," you say to yourself as you pray that the next ingredient won't be another cherry bomb. It would be disastrous. You have plenty of toadstools, pumpkins, crow skulls and emerald spiders in your bag, so...

In the next article in my series about how board games go from an idea to a product, I want to talk about the creative people who are responsible for the graphics and other visual bits that we see when we play games. Very often their work is what we see first and remember vividly afterwards, but very rarely do we remember their names. If done well, the visual elements of a game blend seamlessly an...

"Silence!" you shout at the two imps sitting opposite you in the surveillance van. "It's time you two pilferers sneak into the factory and steal some tasty doughnuts. It'll be absolutely pitch black in there, so I'll be watching you from here and tell you which direction to go. Remember: north, east, south or west. Just make sure you keep going until you grab a doughnut or hit a wall. Oh, and if y...