Gloomhaven is a game that was released in 2017 to immediate acclaim. It quickly shot up to the #1 spot in the Board Game Geek rankings, and has held the top spot ever since. Gloomhaven is a massive game with an enormous amount of content. Playing through the entire campaign easily takes over 100 hours of gameplay.

Full Disclosure: Gloomhaven is one of my all-time favorite games, and I have put in nearly 150 plays across three different campaigns. There is still content that I have yet to unlock and I can’t wait to play it again.  

When I heard about Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, purportedly a smaller, entry-level version, I was both excited and skeptical. For everything that I can say about Gloomhaven, there is nothing “entry” about it. Its learning curve is as steep as its price point: both at least double what you’d expect for such a popular board game.

So, does Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion live up to its promise? Is it the culinary prix fixe to its big brother’s smorgasbord? Can it be appreciated equally by both long-time Gloomhaven residents and casual tourists?

Family Resemblance

[caption id="attachment_219493" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] One Franchise; Two Games[/caption]

Gameplay

At its…

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Cats. Catty cat cattingtons. Bird-botherers, fish-filchers, dirtbox-dwellers and ‘The Smell’.

Believe it or not I actually like cats.

And with a game as gorgeous as this it’s hard not to. The Isle of Cats is lovely from the box lid down, filling you with the warm satisfaction of a cat purring on your lap.

Which is just as well, because the plot is barmy as a sack of kittens. No amount of beautiful artwork can convince you that you’re rescuing cats from imminent destruction by Lord Vesh Darkhand*.

Perhaps it’s a good thing. I mean, if you genuinely felt you were enacting a feline Dunkirk then you’d have to wonder what happens to those left behind… Don’t beat yourself up, they probably had it coming – this used to be the Isle of Birds.

*Yes, that’s his name. Yes, it’s a bit stupid. No, it has no impact on the game so let’s move on.

The Isle of Cats

The Isle of Cats is the latest game from UK designer Frank West and publisher The City of Games, sharing the same universe as The City of Kings, Vadoran Gardens and the upcoming Rising Blades. But other than the shared narrative setting there’s no connection between them.

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Settling Into Catan

When Catan (or The Settlers of Catan, as it was originally named) was first published in 1995 it created something of a revelation in board game circles, undeniably changing the way people would look at board games and gaming in general.  Part of Catan’s success has been due to designer Klaus Teuber’s ability to combine different gaming mechanics (resource management, trading, route building, dice rolling) in a way that made the game easy to teach and learn, while maintaining enough depth to make the game challenging for serious players.

Despite it being such a relatively simple game, there are some people who shrewdly manage to convert resources into points with speed and ease while others seem to be barely getting started by the time another player announces they’ve scored their tenth point and have won the game.

After my most recent back-to-back losses I decided to take a closer look at Catan and see what I’ve been doing wrong and, more importantly, what I should start doing right.  Here’s what I’ve learned.

Don’t Play Resources, Play the Odds

One of my regular gaming friends likes to go after the Longest Road.  I decided to try and follow this idea and focused solely on the two things necessary for…

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The shores of Ridback Bay are teeming with savory seafood just waiting to be caught; but they’re also prone to violent storms that threaten the boats docked in harbor. As an experienced captain of a fishing fleet, you know the most abundant hauls are when competition is thin on the water. So you roll the dice and send your vessels slicing through the waves, propelled by visions of wealth and glory waiting for you back on land.

Fleet: The Dice Game is a strategic and competitive “roll-n-write” game for 1-4 players, designed by Matt Riddle and Ben Pinchback and produced by Eagle Gryphon Games. Players will take on the role of a Captain who manages a fleet of fishing vessels seeking the most glory in Ridback Bay. Does Fleet: The Dice Game swim with quality gameplay and design, or does it sink amidst the sea of other roll & write competitors? Read on to learn how to play, or skip ahead to my impressions in the following section.

Setting Sail

Fleet: The Dice Game is played over 10 rounds (8 rounds if playing solo) with each round having a Boat phase and a Town phase, and a corresponding set of dice for each phase. Players…

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Welcome to Dragon’s Gate College.  Here you will learn all the skills you need to become a contributing member of secret society.  Upon Graduation we have a 100% success rate in placing you in a job as well. Just remember to tell your friends what house trained you to be the best of the best and don’t do anything to sully our name; we have our reputation to uphold you know!

In Dragonsgate College you take on the role of a head of one of the great houses of the College.  Your goal is to oversee your house, hire staff to train your students, and develop your house’s reputation to make it the most glorious in all of Dragonsgate.

I’m sure you can already start to sense it, but this game seems to borrow heavily from the beloved-book-series-gone-movie-sensation, Harry Potter. While there may not be a sorting hat, Dragonsgate is often falling into the “visually similar to but legally distinct from” category.  From a “secret chamber” to a tournament with a very fiery looking goblet at the end to even house elves, er I mean “imps” who will help you on your quest, there are many thematic and visual similarities. While I found this entertaining but somewhat disappointing from a creative perspective, it did not…

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When I first heard about Grand Austria Hotel, I was immediately drawn to it. I watched the Rahdo Runs Through of the game and knew that I had to have it. I was so excited that I convinced my fiancé to walk in the cold Canadian winter back to where he had already bought games from earlier that day because I found out they had a copy. We brought it to a friend’s house to play a few days later and I was instantly hooked.

How Grand Austria Hotel Works

Grand Austria Hotel is a dice drafting game where you are trying to fill your hotel with guests. But before they can check in, there are some things you’ll need to do. Obviously, you have to prepare their room. You start with three rooms prepared before you open for business (start the game), but a successful hotel needs more than 3 guests, so you’ll be busy working on that. You also need to feed your guests. Depending on how fancy they are they may want a simple strudel with a glass of wine, or some cake and a cup of coffee.

To prepare your hotel and feed your guests you’ll need the right dice. The dice drafting mechanic in this game is quite interesting. Depending on player count,…

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Lorenzo il Magnifico takes place during the time of the Renaissance in Florence, Italy. Each player is the leader of a noble house and throughout the game they will be sending their family members out into the different boroughs of the city on various missions in an effort to achieve fame and glory, while also maintaining a strong relationship with the church.

Each player controls three family members in different colors - white, black, and orange - as well as one neutral family member. With the exception of the neutral family member, each of these units has a numeric value associated with it that is determined at the beginning of each round by rolling some dice, although the values can be altered in various ways. In between the players is a central game board and players will take turns sending their family members to different areas of the board, following specific placement rules, to perform the associated actions. These actions will help the players earn the resources needed for them to earn the victory points (VP) they will need to win the game. When the game comes to an end, the player who has scored the most will be declared the victor.

…

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Dragon Castle, is that the Mahjong game?

I first learned of Dragon Castle while at the 2018 CMON Expo with Justin Gibbons. When I walked in the first day,  I was asked to join a Dragon Castle tournament. At this stage, I had never heard of the game. I was assured it was a beginners tournament and that I would be taught how to play. Alas, I did not win the tournament; didn't even place. However, I did get to play Dragon Castle five times that day. And have many times since. Let's get a bit into gameplay and then I can detail my thoughts a bit more.

Overview

Most people have heard of Mahjong, the tile-game with its roots planted in the 18th century. This classic game, based on draw-and-discard card games, shares common origins with games like Rummy. Brought to the US in the 1920’s and finding a huge boon in recognition following the adaptation of a solitaire game, leveraging Mahjong tiles, into the realm of computer games. It released under various names on both Macintosh and Windows in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The single-player matching game quickly became what most Americans think of when they hear the name Mahjong.

Finding inspiration in solitaire Mahjong, designers Hjalmar Hach, Luca Ricci,…

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From time to time there is a discussion around whether or not something is a game or an activity - Apples to Apples comes to mind. These are games which have minimal depth of strategy and derive their enjoyment more from the social interaction than the rules and gameplay. Recently, Spiel de Jahres nominee The Mind has renewed this debate amongst board gamers. Read on to find out if it might be a game for you.

Overview

The rules of The Mind are simple: starting from a uniquely numbered deck (from 1 to 100), players are each dealt cards equal to the current level (1 card per player in level one, 2 cards per player in level two, etc). Then as a group the players must play all of their cards in order from smallest to largest.

The trick? Players can’t talk; they have to read each other's’ minds (hence the name) to know when to play the cards. The players play for 12, 10, or 8 rounds for 2, 3, or 4 players and if they don’t run out of lives by the end, they win the game.

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June is LGBTQ Pride Month, in honor of the Stonewall Riots of 1969 - a reaction to police raids on the homosexual community in the Greenwich Village neighborhood. In the spirit of Pride, I wanted to discuss my experiences with Fog of Love, a storytelling board game that’s character driven, depicting an often doomed or awkward romance in the style of romcom movies.

From the outside, Fog of Love hits all the popular methods for addressing gender and sexuality diversity in board games. Two sided character cards let you choose a male or female silhouette for each player. The manual and scene cards avoid gender specific pronouns. It even affirmatively mentions the ability to play a same-sex couple in the manual, and notes that if there is a scene that uses a specific gender combination different from the couple you're playing, you can discard it and draw a new one.

This is all a great step forward for commercial board games, especially one that you can get from Wal-Mart. I’ve seen in…

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Originally blue and white, but later produced in many bright and vibrant colors, azulejo tiles have been around for a very long time. The beginning of these functional works of art dates back to the 13th century. Originally Moorish in origin, the art form really caught on once King Manuel I of Portugal visited Spain in 1503. While he was there, he was mesmerized by the beautiful tile covering almost every visible surface. Transfixed and inspired, he commissioned the production of Portuguese azulejo upon his return.

In the game of Azul, you are taking on the role of one of the commissioned artists. Your goal is to construct the best display (i.e. - score the most points) by the game’s end to please the king. After all, a king’s favor is worth its weight in gold.

Overview

During each round of Azul, players will be taking turns drafting tiles from several collections of tiles in the center of the table. The tiles that a player selects has a direct effect on the pool of tiles that are left for other players to choose from. After taking all of the tiles of the same color from one of the…

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Double-Time Heist

When the world’s most valuable artifacts start disappearing throughout time, four adventurers are called upon to find them and restore them to their rightful eras. Professor Evil is no slouch at time-thievery; I mean he’s stolen everything from Excalibur, to DaVinci’s notebook, to the Crystal Skull (don’t worry, no Shia LaBeouf present). So how must these adventurers recover these incredibly rare artifacts? Easy. They simply need to break into Professor Evil’s impregnable Citadel of Time and steal them back! But it will take cooperation and ingenuity to outwit the master thief, because Professor Evil protects his Citadel with more traps than Jigsaw, and is on the prowl himself.

Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time by Fun Forge is a cooperative game for 2-4 brave steampunkish adventurers.

It’s Party Time

At first glance, the board looks like you’re playing “cool gamers Clue,” as it’s a square-roomed mansion with hallways and multiple entrances to each room, many of which have locked “doors” blocking entry. Some rooms will also contain treasures that are on a timer. The center of the board is a large clock that tracks how close Professor Evil is to nabbing that treasure and locking it away for good. Your goal is to steal 4 treasures from…

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What if we reimagine all of the significant historical figures in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics as superheroes?

The significant personalities of these fields are our real-life epic heroes. For Jason Jones, creator of STEM: Epic Heroes, this was true. However, in early spring 2015, he realized that this was not the case for his son. While playing a game of the Pokémon CCG, Jones was talking to his son about Alexander Fleming (winner of the Nobel Prize for his discovery of penicillin). During that conversation, Jones said to his son, “He’s one of the giants…one of the epic heroes of science.”  In reply, his son said, “But daddy, scientists aren’t heroes.” You can read the rest of the origin story for STEM: Epic Heroes HERE, but in short this exchange with his son is what set Jones on the mission to create a CCG of STEM Heroes that displayed Scientists, Technologists, Engineers, and Mathematicians as the epic heroes they indeed are.

Overview

STEM: Epic Heroes is a family friendly competitive set collection game with Take That elements. It is a lightweight, fast-paced, game that can be taught quickly to new players. The game is bright, with outstanding art by a team directed by Aaron Hanna and including artists: Maria Poliakova,…

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