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.
Almost exactly a year ago, I cracked open a fresh new copy of Xenoshyft: Onslaught I brought home with me from Gen Con. I enjoyed it quite a bit actually, but after those initial half dozen plays before the review on Episode 87, it fell to the bottom of the rotation and didn’t get a lot of play. So I was hesitant when Xenoshyft: Dreadmire hit the table this year, at just about the same time, with just about the same mechanics. Would I like this game any better than its predecessor? Was it still brutally (read: nigh-impossibly) hard at…
You cannot judge a board game by its cover (I own a fair few that are less than attractive on the outside but house some spectacular gameplay), but every now and then that cover can be glossy and pretty enough to attract attention regardless. Such was the case with Kumo Hogosha when I first spotted it at Gen Con this year. Packaged in a sleek tan box with a magnetic flip top and a beautifully illustrated slip cover, Kumo Hogoshoa seems like it should be a miniature-driven game out of one of the big high production quality studios. Instead it…
We ran a short solo segment in the BGA podcast for a while and got some good feedback, so guess what? It’s back! But this time as a standalone podcast, Table for One. This is episode 1 and thank you in advance for listening. In this first episode I’m talking about my favorite game of the year thus far, Terraforming Mars, and how it plays solo. I also dig into a handful of other games I’ve been playing recently with solo variants including Scythe, The Castles of Burgundy: Card Game, and Eight Epics. Join me for a run through of…
Remember a few months ago when Cool Mini or Not announced they would be publishing Potion Explosion in the United States? I do. I was skeptical (may have even guffawed) that the company known for miniatures and big, expansive Kickstarter campaigns would shift gears so intensively to a family-friendly marble pulling game. Fast forward to Gen Con and you have Potion Explosion – one of two new releases from Cool Mini or Not that actually sold out. Not The Others, with its expansive Kickstarter campaign-fueled miniature-fest. But this cute little marble-pulling game. Of course, this review isn’t about Cool Mini…
Have you noticed there are a lot of Viking games hitting the market of late? No? Maybe it’s just me. After all, the Norse cultures of the first millennium are ripe for game development. It was a long time ago and yet we have enough historical context to draw from, there is a rich and interesting mythology we can tap into, and the Viking culture in particular was both agrarian and martial. I think I just described a board game. And in this case, that board game is In the Name of Odin. Recently fulfilled after a successful Kickstarter by…
When I was a child, one of the best things that could happen on a Saturday afternoon was The Goonies on local TV, complete with the announced commercial breaks and TV-edits. I’m not quite old enough to have caught this in its initial release, but I watched the heck out of it later on TV. So when I saw that Matt Riddle and Ben Pinchback were creating a Goonies card game, I was immediately interested. So yes, I am a big fan of the property, and my review is almost certainly affected by that. Nonetheless, I still feel like The…
Glory to Rome is a card game from Cambridge Games Factory that is perhaps more well-known for its disastrous Kickstarter campaign than it is for its actual gameplay. Gameplay, by the way, that is pretty fantastic. So fantastic that it earned the #71 spot in our Top 100 Board Games of All Time. It’s a shame that such drama has overshadowed and overwhelmed what would have been a great game for the table top community to rally around. Before we get into my review of the game itself, let’s go over Glory to Rome’s odd history. Rome was built in…
What they say is definitely true – your first Gen Con is a whirlwind. This year, in our second Gen Con, we had a much smoother time navigating Indianapolis, finding events and booths, and actually playing some games! So to cover all the games we saw, played and bought, our post Gen Con episode this year is a smorgasbord of games – more than 24 to be exact. Join Anthony and Chris to discuss our absolutely favorite plays of the show, some games we brought home and haven’t had a chance to play yet, and others still we’re waiting on…
New from designer Chris Castagnetto and Passport Games at Gen Con this year was 3 Wishes, a small box card game in the same class as Love Letter about aligning your three cards and figuring out the hidden information hidden throughout the table. In fact, you’ve probably heard your fair share of direct comparisons to Love Letter, a game that has essentially created an entire genre unto itself. So does this one live up to the comparisons or is it yet another tiny box that is going to get lost on your game shelf after a few plays? Let’s take…
The following is a preview of a full-production copy of Carrotia, launching on Kickstarter from MAGE Company on August 25th. Real time games can be tricky. They require a careful balance of tension and simple mechanics that players can pick up and implement fast enough that the ticking timer doesn’t cause major mistakes. So, in approaching Carottia, I was a bit apprehensive. The game relies heavily on three hour-glass timers over the course of three rounds during which players must put down tiles to form a path through the woods, while avoiding birds that may swoop in and move the…