Author: Anthony
Anthony
Anthony cofounded Board Gamers Anonymous in 2013 and has been on (almost) every episode. Today, he lives in Philadelphia with his family and teaches first year writing at Thomas Jefferson University.
Disclosure: The designer provided a copy of Mangaka for this review. Mangaka is a drawing game, and therefore, I shouldn’t rightly have any interest in it. I am, after all, objectively a horrible artist. I cannot draw, and have never pretended I could. Any game that asks me to do so in a competitive way tends to be infuriating to play, and I frequently lose. With that out of the way, I can say honestly that I rather enjoyed Mangaka, because the drawing, while the primary mechanic, serves a deeper purpose and rewards quick thinking and problem solving in a…
Disclosure: A review copy of the Lightseekers Starter Kit was provided by PlayFusion for the purposes of this review. One of the most colorful booths at Gen Con this year (a usually very contentious category) was for Lightseekers: Awakenings. At first glance, a trading card game with the aesthetic of Hearthstone, Lightseekers is much more than just another collectible card game. One spoke of a three-pronged multi-media experience, the Lightseekers card game integrates with a digital app that includes an RPG, augmented reality interaction, and a separate set of toys that also interact with the game. This review is going…
This week we feature part two of our conversation about the BGG.com Top 100 games of all time and our quick take reviews on each of them. Find out which of these are plays and buys, and what one game made it to the dodge list (for one of us). Before that, dive into our question of the week. Anthony asks the listeners how they handle next play selection in their game groups. Some interesting answers about friendly dictatorships. For our acquisition disorders this week, Anthony discusses the newest game from Vladimir Suchy (Shipyard, Last Will) – Pulsar 2849 -…
Sponsored by Geeks 1st Earlier this month, we ran a contest to highlight the pains gamers go through to keep their stuff organized. We asked you to send us your messiest, least organized, or most complicated games to pull out and play with the winners being awarded with gift certificates to Geeks 1st, a custom game organizer company that specializes in modular designed organizers. Geeks 1st was kind enough to sponsor the contest to help those who just couldn’t get their games into the box right, with their Modulas system. We received dozens of entries from gamers, including photos of…
Jason and Anthony dig into five new apps that came out between May and September and let you know if you should track them down. Join the guys as they review Jaipur, Friday, Bottom of the Ninth, Burgle Bros., and Through the Ages – all in digital form.
Chris and Anthony are back this week to discuss the BGG.com top 100 board games. We get asked a lot which of these we’ve played and which we haven’t, and whether we’d recommend one particular hot game or another. So, we figured, why not do them all! To kick things off, we ask everyone our question of the week, “What game has been sitting on your shelf unplayed the longest?” We got dozens of responses – apparently a lot of games are going unplayed out there! Next up, we dove into our acquisition disorders for the week. Anthony looked at…
We spend a lot of time in the dealer hall at Gen Con – like almost all of the time we are there. It’s the epicenter of new game presentations, demos, and interviews with publishers. The reason we’re there to be honest. So, we run across a lot of games that we’ve neither heard of or seen before. These are games that flew under (our) radar on Kickstarter, haven’t released yet, or wouldn’t normally fit the types of games we cover. That’s the beauty of a convention – you can see everything. Such was the case with Gruff, and its…
Anthony and Jason sit down with AJ Porfirior, owner of Van Ryder Games and designer of Hostage Negotiator to discuss the game and its background. With the newest iteration of Hostage Negotiator, Crime Wave, hitting backer hands last month, we wanted to sit down and discuss the game, where it started, how it is developed, and future plans for the series. Learn more about how Hostage Negotiator is structured, what the future of the series looks like, and what AJ thinks about luck and the application of game mechanics to mitigate that luck in the game. If you haven’t yet,…
Jason sits down with Evan Derrick, designer of Detective: City of Angels, and the game’s publisher, owner of Van Ryder Games, AJ Porfirio, to discuss the new game, now on Kickstarter. Learn more about this deduction and crime solving game, it’s multiple modes of gameplay, and whether it’s one worth backing for solo gamers.
A year ago I wouldn’t have believed you if you had said Dream On! was published by CMON. With a company name like “Cool Mini or Not”, there was little room for ambiguity. Which is of course why they changed it – so game reviewers like me couldn’t point out the cognitive dissonance. It’s okay, guys, I’ll get over it soon. Because I’ll be the first to admit that some of my favorite CMON games (developed or just distributed) from the last year have had no minis whatsoever. Ethnos. Lorenzo il Magnifico. Potion Explosion. So I enter Dream On! with…