Welcome (Back) to Arrakis

I wrote a glowing review of the original Dune: Imperium earlier this year. To say that I was enamored with it would be an understatement. The game has risen in the ranks to claim its spot among my top board games of all time, and I jump at the chance to introduce new players to it. I even snagged the new digital version on Steam and have already sunk about 20 hours into the challenges and weekly scenario modes there. This is all coming from someone who isn’t that taken by the world of the original Frank Herbert novels and has seen the Denis Villeneuve film a grand total of once.

At Gen Con this year, Dire Wolf Digital announced a “standalone spinoff” for the game titled Dune: Imperium - Uprising. Initially, much of the conversation around the new game was slightly confusing for the gaming community because it wasn’t clear how this would work with the existing Dune: Imperium properties. The publisher quickly clarified that both expansions for the base game can also work with this new spinoff game and that cards from the base game can be mixed and matched. It is an example of making the waters a bit too muddy for my liking. It’s a sequel and a spinoff, but…

The post Dune: Imperium – Uprising Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

We should come to an initial agreement on how things will be abbreviated in this review. Jekyll & Hyde vs. Scotland Yard is a long title, and I’m disinclined to have to type it out over and over again. You are likely disinclined to have to read it over and over again. It’s a perfectly reasonable title. It’s only an issue here because I will need to refer to it with some frequency.

On the face of it, Jekyll & Hyde is the cleanest solution, but that’s only on the surface. Jekyll & Hyde vs. Scotland Yard, a cooperative trick-taking game for two players, is a sequel to Jekyll vs. Hyde, a competitive trick-taking game for two players. I’ll need to reference that too, at least a few times. Jekyll vs. Hyde and Jekyll & Hyde. Given what I know about how humans read, leaving matters in the hands of that slight distinction feels like a big mistake. Contradictorily, the temptation to refer to them as vs. and & is very real.

We cannot allow bits to take precedence over functionality. It saddens me to say it, but I recognize the truth of that statement. From here on out, I will refer to the original game by its full title, Jekyll vs. Hyde, while Jekyll & Hyde vs. Scotland…

The post Jekyll & Hyde vs Scotland Yard Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

“Wait, you have NOT played Disney Villainous?”

A surprising number of interactions over the last few years at a game night here or an event at a gaming cafe there have ended with this statement, as if I’ve been living in a board game cave for the last five years. (A cave without Disney Villainous, apparently.)

And, I get it…Disney Villainous (2018, Ravensburger) is popular for a reason. The concept is brilliant—players take on the roles of the evil characters from a number of Disney’s classic films, taking actions to complete a unique win condition while other players get the chance to play “Fate” cards from an opponent’s personal Fate deck, messing with their plans. The best part: each villain’s Fate deck is made up of heroes and items from that villain’s movie, such as Robin Hood for the Prince John Fate deck.

The game is considered a classic, and it’s doing well enough in sales to have spawned a boatload of expansions. But the original isn’t perfect—the main issue I always heard from other players is that it’s a game that takes a little too long to play.

Ravensburger has tweaked some of the original format for a new title, Disney Villainous: Introduction to Evil. It’s only available at Target, and like other Target exclusives such as…

The post Disney Villainous: Introduction to Evil Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

“You’ll notice the artwork on the cards depicts characters from Alice in Wonderland and they are, you know, lined up like they’re in a parade. And that’s about it for the theme.”

I’ve said this line or something very close to it every time I’ve taught someone to play Parade. Strangely, this disinterested theme only makes me love the 2007 release even more. Parade, from Z-Man Games and the mind of Naoki Homma, feels like the sort of game played a century or more ago with a standard deck of cards, albeit in a slightly modified form.

The Parade deck consists of six colors of cards, each numbered zero through ten, with a character of Wonderland denoting a suit (of sorts). The game begins with a line of six face-up cards and a draw pile. Players lay a single card into the parade, perform a brief appraisal, and possibly collect cards to display.

The appraisal is thus and so: After laying the card, count off the number of cards matching the number played. Of the remaining cards, collect and display any that are of equal or lesser value or the same color before drawing another card. The ideal is to avoid card collection for most of the game,…

The post Parade Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Welcome to Arrakis

Dune: Imperium takes place in the world of Frank Herbert’s Hugo-award-winning science fiction novel. For those unfamiliar with the novel, Dune is set in the distant future and centers around noble houses vying for control of the valuable “spice” found on the planet Arrakis. “Spice” is a drug valued highly across the galaxy, so naturally, control of Arrakis comes with placing a massive target on your back.

Since 1971, media adaptations of the beloved novel have been attempted, though nothing got off the ground until David Lynch’s 1984 film. Critical reception to the film was mixed, and the intellectual property spent the next thirty-seven years in various stages of development. In 2021, director Denis Villeneuve released the first part of his new Dune adaptation. To coincide with this release and capitalize on the mainstream appeal of the property, the Dune IP was used for a whole slew of new board game releases. Per BoardGameGeek, roughly twenty new titles were released since the media push behind the current films began.

Of those new titles, Dune: Imperium stands as a juggernaut. Released by Dire Wolf Digital in 2020, this brand-new adaptation of the source material recontextualizes the power struggle present in the books into a tense experience, where there are never quite enough resources, and players are…

The post Dune: Imperium Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Far from the confusion of the typical “chicken or the egg” argument, I know exactly which came first: I sought out the board game before the novel. Then again, I did seek out the board game because I wanted to read the novel. And I did finish the novel before I started the board game. But it was all because of the—

Nevermind. The point is that I wanted to go all in on the solo tabletop adventure at hand. Until recently, I had never read Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas. I was familiar with the 1954 Disney classic featuring James Mason as Nemo. At the age of eight I remember enjoying the ride at Disney World. But I can’t say I had ever put myself in the Captain’s shoes. I was probably confused. Both Disney efforts keep Sea as singular in their titles, which makes it sound as if a submarine descended nearly 70,000 miles into the earth—which has a diameter of around 8,000 miles. So I picked up the book to get the story straight and prepare for the game.

[caption id="attachment_276565" align="alignnone" width="1001"] No one writes a good 17-word subtitle anymore...[/caption]

Nemo’s War wins its first battle by getting the name right on the box cover. It…

The post Nemo’s War (Second Edition) Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Even though Stan Lee called the Scarlet Pimpernel the first superhero he admired, I doubt you’ll be seeing Baroness Orczy’s celebutante in the MCU anytime soon. Published in the early 20th century, the tales of the Scarlet Pimpernel follow England’s deceptively capable man of mystery into the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution as he rescues aristocrats from the guillotine. He had all the honor of Steve Rogers and all the money of Tony Stark. 

Baroness Orczy penned nearly a dozen novels about Sir Percy Blakeney—the man behind the countless costumes—and his infamous League. The stories of daring rescue are pulse-pounding page turners. Will the Scarlet Pimpernel keep his word? Will he arrive in time? Will he escape the deft clutches of Chauvelin once again? Every punchy chapter ends with a question that begs just a few more minutes by the fireside. 

I invite you to fast-forward a century from the novels to explore Brian Kelley’s 2019 tabletop design, The Scarlet Pimpernel, published by Eagle-Gryphon Games. Players take up roles in the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel to help the titular hero through seven missions on both sides of the English Channel.This semi-cooperative game sets at odds the desire to see the hero succeed with the desire to become the most trusted advisor. 

The Way of…

The post The Scarlet Pimpernel Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Imagination Is the Only Weapon In the War With Reality

There are some bad jobs in literature: Defense of the Dark Arts teacher in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, chimney sweep’ apprentice in Tom M. Franklin’s The Pterrible Pteranodon, and the pickpockets in Dickens’ Oliver Twist to name but a few.

[caption id="attachment_260959" align="aligncenter" width="351"] Paint the Roses: Deluxe Edition[/caption]

Then there’s being a gardener in The Red Queen’s garden in Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland. You know, the ones who had to paint the roses to the Red Queen’s ever-changing whims and, if they got the colors wrong, it was off with their heads.

Guess which one is now a board game?

Paint the Roses, the latest in a series of games set in the Alice in Wonderlandverse, is a deduction game where players will try to guess The Red Queen’s latest gardening whim. If you can completely fill in the garden on your last turn, you’ve escaped her axe and win the game.

Let’s get this to the table so you can see how Paint the Roses plays.

The Best Way to Explain It Is to Do It

Set up the board in easy reach of all players. Find the starting tiles…

The post Paint the Roses Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Since Dominion graced us with its presence over ten years ago, every board game company wants an expandable deckbuilder to cash in on this profitable genre. If we stacked all the deckbuilders and expansions to make a tower, it would be one of the tallest structures in the world, although it would still look small compared to a stack of unsold copies of Seafall.

Kamigami Battles: Rise of the Old Ones is another deckbuilder box to add to that tower. It’s about Gods who, for whatever reason, don’t like each other and now want to smack their rivals out of existence. There is no smiting here as they do the battles through card games. In other words, a sexy Yugioh.

Sexy is the right word here, considering this series’ history and lewd art direction. Kamigami Battles: Rise of the Old Ones, now referred to as Kamigami Battles, is the third game in a series.

A dirty history

Originally released in 2012 under the name Kanzume Goddess, the game was notorious for its awkward tin can packaging and, umm…pinup artwork? That’s the best way to describe it.

In 2018, Japanime Games re-released the game in a new package called Kamigami Battles: Battle of the Nine Realms. Despite barely getting media attention and being the subject of ridicule on social media…

The post Kamigami Battles: Rise of the Old Ones Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Arrakis: Dawn of the Fremen is the third major board game published in the last few years to make use of Frank Herbert’s Dune. First came a long-overdue reprint of the 1979 Dune game, a sprawling affair of area control and negotiation. Then came Dune: Imperium, which I’ve never played. Now we have Arrakis: Dawn of the Fremen, a slightly less sprawling affair of area control and negotiation.

Gale Force Nine, the publisher of the Dune reprint and Arrakis, seem to be making the most of two recent rights acquisitions. Arrakis is a reimplementation of Borderlands, a 1982 game from designers Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge, and Peter Olotka. That’s three-quarters of the team responsible for 1977’s Cosmic Encounter and, you guessed it, the original Dune. The tide is in folks, catch ‘em while you can.

Phases Phases Phases

Arrakis: Dawn of the Fremen covers events on the planet Arrakis, the source of the spice that drives the Duniverse, centuries before the novels take place. Never having played Borderlands, the mechanics make for a good thematic fit. Players struggle for resources and territory. The goal is to control a certain number of sietches, the basic Fremen habitational unit. You develop sietches and various pieces of technology by shifting your resources…

The post Arrakis: Dawn of the Fremen Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

I don’t read novels often, so it’s not a major surprise that I have never read any of the six books from the Marcus Heitz novel series The Dwarves.

In doing research for this review, I was surprised to find I haven’t met anyone else who has read the books either. The six books in the series kicked off with The Dwarves in 2003, with the most recent book coming just three years ago.

There’s even a video game based on this intellectual property, also something I had never heard of. So, when Pegasus Spiele offered to send a review copy of The Dwarves: Big Box, I was intrigued. I didn’t know anything about the series but I liked the artwork and the idea of a dice-driven, light-on-rules battler set in a fantasy universe.

Once I got The Dwarves: Big Box to the table, I appreciated how the base game (released in 2012) is very approachable as a cooperative experience, light on rules, and a little too light on story (given that there is such a backstory to begin with). While it falls victim to many of the things that fall flat for me as a coop gamer, I liked how breezy each game turned out.

I’ll just apologize now for talking so much about Pandemic.

The post The Dwarves: Big Box Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

I can’t explain it, but despite being an introvert, I like social deduction games. Maybe it’s the discussion with your friends about who needs to have an unscheduled meeting with the grim reaper. Or perhaps it is numerous ways designers gamify the act of lying to your friends that can lead to incredible memories. Regardless of the reason, it has thrown me into a never-ending journey of playing social deduction games.

This imaginary road trip of mine has many stops, and at today’s stop, we are looking at Methodologie: The Murder on the Links. It is about solving a murder mystery, and it is based on the book of the same name by Agatha Christie.

The truth is that I haven't followed the murder mystery genre and haven't read any of Agatha Christie's books. My initial attraction to this game was due to how unique it sounded after reading the rulebook. I can’t even use the old standby of “this is like Werewolf” or “this is like The Resistance” because I’m sure that statement can lead to a potential defamation lawsuit and also, no hidden traitor here. It’s a game with its own DNA.

Mission briefing

Open the box, and three boards greet you, each one representing one of the three decks:…

The post Méthodologie: The Murder on the Links Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

“Lord of the Rings” is one of the biggest franchises from here to the Misty Mountains, with five significantly sized books, six even more significantly sized movies, an upcoming television series that is sure to be some amount of significance, and multiple generations of influence in the world of “high fantasy”. When I heard there was a board game described as “Tolkien-in-a-box,” I knew it had some pretty big hobbit-sized shoes to fill. (If hobbits wore shoes, that is.) Does War of the Ring soar like the Great Eagles and capture the epic struggle between good and evil? Does it crash and burn in the fires of Mount Doom? Or does it land somewhere in the middle-earth? Read on for our review of War of the Ring, 2nd Edition.

War of the Ring is a game of area control, “troops on a map,” dice combat, hidden movement, hand management, and timely card play. If that sounds like a lot to you, that’s because well, it is. This game is massive, not only in its scope but its size. I have a decent sized game table and it consumed most of it. Like any self-respecting grandiose game it has loads of plastic miniatures to shuffle around, as well as custom…

The post War of the Ring Board Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.