The beauty of trying so many games each year is that you know it immediately when you play a winner.

Such was the case with my first play of Everything Ever (2023, Floodgate Games), which took place with Floodgate’s marketing lead, Ian Birdsall, at Gen Con 2023. Ian, along with myself and two complete strangers at the con, played almost a full game while standing at a demo table.

It was the perfect movie, in a sense, even though this was a game in real life: action, drama, comedy, a couple of sweet moments, and rap songs. Ian was gracious enough to provide a review copy after the play, allowing me to see if the gameplay would be replicated in my home environment.

Additional plays only cemented my initial thoughts. Everything Ever is great.

Every Rule

Each of Everything Ever’s 250 cards feature the word Every and then something else from the world you might already know well. “Everything That’s Orange.” “Everything That Has a Hook.” “Every Bird.” “Every Character on ‘The Office.” “Every Disney Villain.” You get the idea.

A draw deck of three cards per player is set in the middle of the table, then the first two cards are revealed. Each player begins play…

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Dear publishers: I will happily play any of your small box, 15-minute gaming experiences because the world can never have enough games like this. Plus, they are perfect for starting or ending any of my review crew gaming experiences between plays.

With that as a primer, let’s talk about Linkto, a 15-minute trivia game that comes in two different flavors: Linkto Travel, and Linkto Food. (I believe these games were available in other countries a few years ago, but they are making their way to US shores for the first time now.)

There are 50 different picture cards in each box, along with 49 question cards with five different prompts on each question card, which represent the game’s difficulty levels. That leaves just one leftover picture card; after sorting through all of the picture cards and matching each one with a prompt/question card, that leftover card is matched up with an answer key to determine if you’ve solved that game’s level or not.

Limited, In Almost Every Way

Each Linkto game is the same in a few ways, which will either make it shine for you or not.

Each of the games has a very handsome price point, about $10 USD at most major tabletop online retailers. Each…

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Although I dabble in the business of creating tabletop content—to the tune of 169 articles in 2022—it doesn’t scratch the surface of my movie junkie bonafides.

In 2013, the year before my first child was born, I watched 160 films in theaters. Technically, this was every single “wide release” film that year. That means I have a problem; that also means I sat through the likes of Smurfs 2, RIPD, and the only Die Hard film to be legitimately terrible, A Good Day to Die Hard.

I regularly see 75-100 movies in theaters each year. I refuse to talk to other human beings during the Oscars broadcast. I’ve seen Indian films in India. I went to see movies in theaters, alone, during COVID. I’ve been to the Sundance Film Festival and watched 19 movies in just four days. I used to wait outside of theaters in all weather conditions to be the first person in line for midnight premieres. I read Deadline, and yes, I know that the writing is terrible. I had MoviePass when it first debuted, then again when it came back. I’m an AMC Stubs member to this day.

It’s safe to assume I enjoy films. I am decent with movie trivia, but my general film knowledge through the ages is pretty strong. When our friends…

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Given the types of heavier games I usually put out for review nights, I appreciate having a few lighter games that can be taught in 60 seconds and played in 15 minutes.

Enter Zero to 100 (2022, Scorpion Masqué). The game delivers because it asks the perfect kind of questions: with answers ranging from 0-100, each question is the sort of general knowledge inquiry that everyone at the table might know, but probably won’t know the exact answer.

Designer Antonin Boccara found about 150 approachable questions that will make players wonder silly thoughts then guess at an answer that will lead to some fun conversations.

Here We Go!

Zero to 100 splits players into three teams (or two, if there’s a small and/or even number of players) then gives each team six question cards. The cards have a question on the front, and an answer on the back that ranges from zero to 100.

To begin play, a card with the number 50 is placed in the center of the table. Then the teams look at their face-up questions and pick one that they believe will be answered closest to the target number, in this case, 50. Each team is also armed with three single-use “power cards” that…

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Buy Snakesss on Amazon

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Everyone Else Thinks This Game Is Awesome is a new trivia game from Zach and Kelly Weinersmith, the creative team behind the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. SMBC is known for its niche science jokes, and the couple are the New York Times bestselling authors of Soonish, a book on near-future technologies, so it shouldn't come as a shock to anyone that this academia-themed game tests players’ knowledge of the sciences.

If you never did well in biology or chemistry, don’t let that scare you. The game includes questions about those fields, certainly, but it also includes economics, anthropology, philosophy, and more. "The Sciences" here is used in its broadest sense. While some of the questions can be challenging, most of them are accessible or include hints within the question itself. You don't need to be a practicing zoologist to guess that the answer to “Draculin is an anticoagulant chemical found in what animal’s saliva?” is the vampire bat.

Take a Chance On Me

[caption id="attachment_232652" align="alignnone" width="1024"] A typical four-player setup with the university board and citations track in the middle of the table.[/caption]

As…

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As a teacher I get asked many questions during the day:

How do you spell “Axolotl”?

Is Ms. Wrenna your twin sister?

What is your favourite material: quartz block, stone, obsidian, or nether bricks?

Combien de minutes y a-t-il dans une année?

Can I see where you sleep at school?

The never-ending string of questions can be exhausting, but Le Scorpion Masqué has found a way to turn being ambushed with questions into a fun and exciting (albeit still a little stressful) game. Stay Cool is a party game for three to seven players in which you are answering questions. But it isn’t a trivia game: Stay Cool is less about the depth of your knowledge and more about whether you can multitask and remain levelheaded while responding to basic questions. This is because Stay Cool takes the more traditional “ask a question, respond” model and scrambles it: in this game a player answers a number of questions verbally and non-verbally all at once.

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Hocus Bogus

Like it or not, we’re living in an era of history where truth is becoming increasingly more irrelevant as “fake news” and “alternative facts” become more commonplace. With the decline of truth happening in real-time, it was only a matter of time before someone in the board game space took a stab at a game that takes inspiration from this real-life trend. The Game of Lies is a trivia party game where you and your friends gather around to suss out the bullcrap and figure out what’s real, what’s fake, and who’s bluffing.

The Game of Lies operates in the same vein as many trivia party games like Trivial Pursuit, Cranium, and Quelf. Each team takes a turn by answering a question, and if they get it right, they forward a number of spaces. The first team to make it all the way to the center of the board and defeat the final challenge wins the game.

It may sound quite familiar, but that’s about as far as the similarities go. Everything else in the game takes inspiration from the “alternative facts” trend. The categories are all based on lies, how many spaces you move presents an opportunity…

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anomia [uh-No-mee-uh] - noun - 1) A problem with word finding or recall. 2) Chaos. 3) The game where common knowledge becomes uncommonly fun!
(from the rulebook)

Anomia is a speed word game in which players are trying to name something in the category on their opponent’s card. Anomia Kids works in the same way, but it has been simplified for children. If you are already familiar with how Anomia plays, you can skip ahead to the “What’s New in Anomia Kids?” section below. If not, continue reading to learn how the games work.

Let The Shouting Begin (Gameplay Overview)

A game of Anomia is easy to set up: take one of the coloured decks of cards (the Draw Pile) and place it in the centre of the table within reach of all players. A turn will play almost as easily. On their turn, a player flips over a card from the Draw Pile and places it in front of them.

Players only ever have a single card faceup in front of them (their Play Pile) so each new card drawn on future turns is added to their deck of cards. Play continues this way, in clockwise order, until the symbols on…

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