I would have told you that Decrypto had been out for way longer than five years. Like Just One, Decrypto arrived in 2018, out of the blue, and immediately established itself as a go-to word game. To think there was a year in which we received Decrypto and Just One. The heart quickens. We had no idea how good we had it.

To celebrate five years of success, Scorpion Masqué has released a 5th anniversary edition, spicing up the classic—board gaming has a short memory—with 440 new words. Does it change the game in any appreciable way? No, this is still very much the Decrypto people know and love. It does freshen things up a bit, though, for those who’ve put their copy of the original release through its paces.

It takes a round or two to get used to Decrypto’s structure, and it’s difficult to describe in absence of the game in front of you. What I’m trying to tell you is, what I describe may not sound fun. I assure you, it is.

The players are divided into two teams, each of which has four secret words that everyone on the team can see. Each round, one player on each team (the “Encryptor”) has a secret three digit code that they need their teammates to guess.…

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Deep State or Deep Sleep?

A game called Deep State promises machinations, intrigue, and skulduggery. The actual Deep State is a drafting game that feels as onerous as the bureaucracies you’re attempting to overthrow.

The game presents you with two areas to manipulate: First, four mats, each functionally serving as a track to advance on that grants powers and endgame points; Second, a row of cards (scaled to player count) which players place workers (“agents” in game parlance) to claim for their individual tableau. In a 3-player game, there are 8 Objective cards available, and each game round, the leftmost 3 are available for players to attempt to claim. There are some additional rules for 5 players that I won’t cover here.

Play takes place in rounds, with each player taking an action. There is another phase that occurs once all the Objective cards have been claimed. The first player token, known as the Supervisor, travels around to each player in clockwise fashion after a round is complete. Each player takes one action. The Supervisor receives two agents from their pool (which starts with 3) but their actions are limited to tying to claim an Objective card or accomplishing a single big contract, called a Covert Operation, which requires…

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The Crew: The Search for Planet Nine is one of my favorite games. The combination of trick-taking with a cooperative format was entirely novel to me, and jump-started my fascination with trick-taking as a genre. With the release of The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, which somehow managed to improve on the original, publisher Kosmos established an unassailable line of trick-taking credit.

I think of Inside Job, another trick-taker with another novel approach, as being the spiritual successor to those games. This is the third game in the Kosmos Trick-Taking Universe, the moment the publisher looks around and asks, "Are we going to do a whole line of small box trick-takers?" This time, trick-taking has been welded onto a hidden role social deduction game. I was not only excited by the announcement of the game, I was intrigued.

The good news: Inside Job is certainly intriguing. The bad news: Inside Job is not, in my experience, very good.

Tricky Business

Inside Job has a few layers of complexity. The manual suggests adding them in one step at a time. In the simplest version, players are divided…

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MIND MGMT, all caps, is a comic by Matt Kindt, published by Dark Horse. Mind MGMT, sporadic caps, is a hidden movement game by Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim, published by Off the Page Games. It’s the little differences that matter in life.

Like many hidden movement games, Mind MGMT is 1-v-all. The hidden participant plays as the Recruiter, attempting to either outlast the ten-round timer without being found or recruit 9 Agents for…some nefarious purpose. I haven’t read the comics, I don’t know the mythology. I assume the Recruiter is the baddie. The hidden mover in a hidden movement game usually is. There’s also the fact that the Recruiter’s minions, the Immortals, have skulls printed on the back of their black wooden pieces. All signs point to Bad Guy.

The other players work together as Rogue Agents, attempting to track down the Recruiter. I assume they are canonically the good guys. Their wooden pieces are painted in fun colors reminiscent of Tropical Skittles. The backs of their heads are filled with dreams. All signs point to Not the Bad Guy.

The turn structure is extremely simple. The Recruiter picks an eligible spot on the board to move to, and moves there. This is done in secret, of course, using a miniature dry-erase version of the main board. Write…

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Overview

The throne of Moody Bear Kingdom has been empty for years. Only the one with the most power will be able to claim the kingdom’s throne. Will the player with the most gems rule or will the Dark Night Villain come to consume everything?

Moody Bear Kingdom is a quick Traitor card game for three to five players. Players work together to seek these elusive gems before the Villain’s henchman, the Dark Swallow, shows up.

Set Up

[caption id="attachment_270005" align="alignnone" width="1024"] The Red Volcano team needs to collect 3 Lava Gems. The Iceberg team needs to collect 3 Snow Diamonds. They can use the Mace of Light to stop the Dark Swallow from ending the game.[/caption]

The game features two types of item cards, Lava Gem cards and Snow Diamond cards. The object of the game is for teams to get all three of their Gem cards before the Dark Swallow makes its appearance. 

Also in the deck are three character cards which work in combinations of two or three, to determine special actions. Certain double card combos allow players to exchange cards, spy at another player's hand, rearrange the first three cards in the draw deck, or steal a card. And a three card combo allows players to demand…

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I love a good logic puzzle. Games like HABA’s The Key series, The Search for Planet X, Decrypto, Codenames XXL, Awkward Guests, Cryptid, and many other deduction games are the types of experiences I will always try. (One game I won’t try: Alchemists. I have rules about long games, especially ones that overstay my body’s interest in solving a grand deduction puzzle!)

I used to love the parts of those old SAT tests when the logic problems showed up on the math portion of the exam: Lamont and Sally walk X miles, then pick up groceries, but then Sally takes the long way back, while high-fiving 40 of their best friends. What time is it?

Ridiculous, right? Love those brain teasers. That’s why Turing Machine (from Le Scorpion Masqué) was so high on my list. The game was so hot at Gen Con 2022 that media members couldn’t grab a copy, so I tried to stay patient while our friends at the publisher secured a review copy.

Once the game is in hand, Turing Machine is easy to get to the table because its playtime is so brief. If you love a good logic puzzle, Turing Machine fills a brand new niche for me: the 15-minute punch card deduction…

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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…

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From 1936 to 1939, as the rise of fascism in Europe was accelerating, Spain was riven by a civil war between the combined leftist forces known as the Republicans and a collection of right-wing groups fighting under the banner of the Nationalists. Led by General Francisco Franco, the Nationalists eventually won the war and solidified their control over the country through misinformation, repression, and brutality. Some of those who opposed Franco’s horrific dictatorship became part of the Maquis: guerilla fighters working to destroy his iron grip on the nation. Using the skills and materiel earned at great cost during the Civil War, the Spanish Maquis fought not only to liberate their own homeland but also to support the neighboring French under the Nazi-backed Vichy government. Their acts of resistance carried on long beyond the end of World War 2, finally dissolving during the 1960s. Resist!, from Salt & Pepper Games, puts the player in control of a Maquis cell during the height of Franco’s reign.

Man on a Mission

During a game of Resist! the player is racing to complete as many clandestine missions as they can manage using their available Maquis agents.

[caption id="attachment_265490" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Each Maquis agent can be played in different ways. Getting the most out of…

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I remember it like it was yesterday.

I sat down in a booth at my first Gen Con with designer Kane Klenko. Kane was there to demo Covert (2016, Renegade Studios) and while walking by the table, I saw lots of things that excite me about games: dice, a spy theme, dice placement locations, multi-use cards. A board that feels like Europe from 60 years ago. Player screens to hide your components. Variable player powers.

Then, this, from Klenko: “Believe it or not, I like playing Covert most with only two players.”

This intrigued me; at the time, I really wasn’t playing many two-player games with my wife, but I saw an opening with Covert. Maybe this would be the kind of mid-weight experience we could play often, especially after the kids went to bed?

I was right. And then some.

Roll Dice, Block Your Friends

Covert gives you the feeling that you are completing covert operations all over Europe for a rogue spy agency (maybe good, maybe nefarious; what if I’m working for SPECTRE?). The idea here is that players are out collecting items like a lockpick or fake passports to complete “Missions”, but the secret agent veneer wears off quickly.

In the game, you are running…

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The Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, Extortion (SPECTRE) is the perennial thorn in 007’s side—so long as the rights to the criminal organization aren’t enmeshed in intellectual property disputes, that is. SPECTRE was certainly the thorn in Sean Connery’s side, and eventually became the thorn in Daniel Craig’s rebooted side. The fifty years in between are more legally tenuous, though Roger Moore had a direct run-in as well.  

I cannot imagine the depth of struggle and cost involved in obtaining permissions for the characters and film imagery surrounding SPECTRE: The Board Game. Yet here they are. Modiphius Entertainment (Thunderbirds, Agatha Christie: Death on the Cards) has teamed up with Kaedama, the design team that includes Antoine Bauza, Corentin Lebrat, Ludovic Maublanc, and Théo Rivière (Draftosaurus) to unleash the Bond baddies.

SPECTRE puts players in the role of iconic villains from the James Bond franchise as they compete to become Number One in the notorious organization. As part of a singular evil entity, they must occasionally work together and avoid 007, who is always in the way, but when the last chip falls, there can be only one victor. 

“World domination. The same old dream.”

The dominant feature of the SPECTRE board is a world map broken into seven regions. Atop the map, the SPECTRE Track is a…

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I’m staring at five animal cards. All I have to do is split four of the cards into two piles face up on the table and hand my opponent, Lisa, the fifth. She’ll add it to one of the piles, choose a pile to keep and give me the other pile.

I’ll get points for keeping my ninja monkey agent and if Lisa takes my dastardly octopus spy. We both want to get the spymaster owl – this game’s double agent. I think the femme fatale fox is Lisa’s agent (which she’ll want), and there’s a suave lion in a tux that might be Lisa’s spy, so I should avoid that. But… I could be wrong about Lisa’s agent and spy, either could be the gadget-whizz chameleon which isn’t amongst the cards in my hand.

How should I split the cards so that Lisa chooses to give me what I want? And which card should be the fifth card?

Animals in Espionage

Inspired by the ‘Fact of Fiction’ card in Magic: The Gathering, Animals in Espionage leans into the ‘I split, you choose’ game mechanism hard. At the start of the game you know the identity of three of the six animals in play: your agent, your spy and the double agent. The…

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[caption id="attachment_251474" align="aligncenter" width="600"] BurgleBros Intro image[/caption]

During the COVID lockdown, my weekly gaming group moved online. As the months went by, I kept looking longingly at the Burgle Bros. box on my shelf as it slowly collected dust.

Then I discovered Burgle Bros. was on Steam! Could it compete with the tabletop experience?

Set Up

[caption id="attachment_251475" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Burgle Bros Splash screen[/caption]

The main splash screen looked promising. The tiny artwork for the character meeples had not only been used, but increased in size. This gave both the personalities and the special skills of each character a better chance to shine.

In the cardboard game, the advanced character attributes can only be unlocked after winning a game of Burgle Bros. with the standard character traits. Here, however, you can’t cheat. The advanced abilities are clearly locked and inaccessible until you win with them.

…

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“Modern” board gaming has been around for around 20-30 years now. Popularized by the runaway success of games like Catan (published in 1995), Carcassonne (2000), and Ticket to Ride (2004), a wave of games from primarily German and European designers would soon make their ways around the world. That first wave of board games helped coin the term “eurogame” because they were largely conflict free, used abstract components (wooden cubes could represent any number of different things), and required more thinking and strategy than games like Trivial Pursuit, Scattergories, or Pictionary. And even though modern board games have continued to evolve, occasionally you find a game that has the feel of those classics, and it’s refreshing to see.

Let me introduce you to Spy Connection.

Spy Connection Overview

In Spy Connection you act as a spymaster, spreading your influence far and wide by creating a string of secure connections across Europe, Russia, and the UK. Travel to different cities, tasking your agent network to gather the intel you need to complete 7 missions before the other players.

Spy Connection Gameplay

Spy Connection is a relatively simple game, with some…

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