Games

After playing the board game Arcs recently, I realized that no matter how well a game’s theme is developed, that theme can be weakened if the action selection mechanism feels unthematic. In board games, “action selection” refers to the process of choosing what to do on a turn….

I was playing Evacuation a few days ago with three other people. One of those people had played the game with me one-on-one about six months ago. I skimmed the rule book and tried to explain just enough so we could start taking turns. I did that because…

Pax Pamir is a ruthless game. During yesterday’s game, my friend often commented on his bad situation and how losing his cards was terrible. I coached him to a win by reminding him of unfamiliar options. One such option was to switch loyalties to the same faction to…

Evacuation is a board game where players evacuate a planet that its ever-increasing solar energy will burn up. The Evacuation will take four years, each year being a single round in the game. This game has some unique mechanisms I haven’t seen in other games. The rules in…

I played a game last night of Distilled by Dave Beck and Paverson Games. Distilled is a game where players run distilleries making spirits (alcohol, not ghosts). This first play of the game was entertaining, even with two of us making some big mistakes. Making mistakes on the first play of a game…

Disclaimer: I wrote this review and then submitted it to ChatGPT to see how it would write the review. This is the ChatGPT text; It’s a little flowery, in my opinion. Pipeline, a captivating creation by Capstone Games, stands proudly on the gaming shelf alongside CO2: Second Chance…

I just finished my first game of Union Stockyards. This is a game themed around the Union Stockyards of Chicago in the late 1800’s. More info can be found here. I played a two-player game with me being both players. The game board is two-sided and one of…