Board Game News

Designer Diary: Age of Dirt: A Game of Uncivilization

Age of Dirt: The BeginningThe history of human (un)civilization is not for the faint of heart, and to understand it a little bit better, we have to go back nearly a decade.Back then, I had...

SPIEL of Regrets: 2019 Edition, Plus Final(?) Preview Updates

I'm on my way to Germany to attend SPIEL '19 — my fourteenth such outing! — and with that event due to start in a few days, it's time to wind up the previews and head into the views...and...

Designer Diary: Alice in Wordland, or Watch Your Language

The discussion topic is "Introduction". The forbidden letter is "B". Begin.Chris: There is a saying I like a lot: "Every game has a story." I think the reverse is also true: "Every story has a...

SPIEL '19 Game Preview: Last Bastion, or All Along the Watchtower

I have a few tasks still to do for SPIEL '19, so I must let this video overview of Antoine Bauza's Last Bastion — a new standalone game from Repos Production based on his Ghost Stories from...

Designer Diary: Super Farmer: The Card Game

Super Farmer: The Card Game is the second game that I've had published and the first game that I designed without a co-designer. I wanted to bring something new to the existing "choose a card and...

Designer Diary: Wayfinders, or Finding the Right Path

The idea behind Wayfinders came to me while I was working on a very different game.That game, which was called "Storylines", was a story generator of sorts in which you could assemble story bits...

SPIEL '19 Game Preview: Pharaon, or Prepare to Weigh Your Heart

In Pharaon, a big box game from designers Henri Pym and Sylas and publisher Catch Up Games, you are preparing for your death — or more specifically for your afterlife. Your actions in the world...

More Dominion, More Agricola, More Fluxx, and More of More Games

I've been focusing on preparations for SPIEL '19, including the publication of as many designer diaries and game previews as possible, but plenty of other game announcements are taking place as...

SPIEL '19 Game Preview: No Return, or Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

I've already presented an overview of the gameplay in No Return: Es gibt kein Zurück! — a game by Marco Teubner and moses. Verlag — in mid-September 2019 in this space, so let me quote that...

Designer Diary: Ocean Crisis, or Designing a Thematic Game with Social Impact

In early 2019, a game we designed called Ocean Crisis went on Kickstarter with a funding total of 68k USD. While that result won't get us hyped on a crowdfunding list, in the end we achieved some...

SPIEL '19 Game Preview: Minecraft: Builders & Biomes, or Building Blocky Buildings

As I mentioned yesterday, we're getting into crunch time when it comes to preparing for SPIEL '19, by which I mean that my brain feels like it's getting crunched every time I think of how much I...

Iranian Publishers Denied Visas to Germany for SPIEL '19

"Turn that horse around, mister!"In a Sept. 26, 2019 BGG News post, I noted that two Iranian game publishers who were scheduled to be at SPIEL '19 — Reality Game and Dorehami Games — had both...

Design Diary: War Chest: Nobility, or Making the Royals Relevant

David and I have been incredibly happy with War Chest's reception since its debut in 2018. Following the reviews, the comments, and the discussions has been a real treat. One thing that came up...

The BoardGameGeek Show: Last Bastion, Porto, Black Rose Wars, and Preparations for SPIEL '19

We're in the home stretch of preparations for SPIEL '19 with only a week or so left for me to prepare as many game previews as possible, yet fail no matter what number I produce. So much to say...

SPIEL '19 Game Preview: 10 Days in Europe, or Criss-Cross a Colorful Continent

In mid-2019, Hong Kong publisher Broadway Toys released a new edition of 10 Days in the USA from designers Alan R. Moon and Aaron Weissblum, a game that I've covered in written and video form in...

Designer Diary: Armata Strigoi, or Blood and Claws!

Who's WhoWhen Paolo Vallerga, owner of Scribabs and well-rounded artist (graphic designer, game designer, musician, actor, novelist and much more), asked me to design a game featuring the...

Put More Pop Culture on the Game Table with Rolling Stone, The Simpsons, and Rick and Morty

• Rolling Stone magazine isn't the cultural touchstone that it was in my youth when I scanned every issue to see whether any new album landed a five-star rating — I was ignorant of music...

Gloomhaven Gets Smaller

Gloomhaven, in case you didn't know, is popular. Lots of people want more of it, and at the SHUX convention that took place Oct. 4-6, 2019 in Vancouver, Canada, designer Isaac Childres announced...

Designer Diary: Porto, or Building an Iconic Riverfront "Co-operatively" Against Your Opponents

I love Porto! I think it's one of the most beautiful cities in the world, filled with history, culture, and dramatic cityscapes. When I studied there, I would often just sit near the river and...

SPIEL '19 Game Preview: Dekalko, or One Line Leads to Another

What's this image depicting?It's not a rooster walking through a rocky field, although one player in our Dekalko game interpreted my scribble that way.How about this image?Not a cenobiteThe party...

SPIEL '19 Game Preview: Rune Stones, or Stripping Cards for Cash

Rüdiger Dorn's Rune Stones, a 2-4 player game that Queen Games will debut at SPIEL '19, is a deck-building game that plays more like a traditional resource-gathering game.Each player is a druid...

Designer Diary: Deep Blue, or Into the Deep End

I was never much of a swimmer as a child. My parents were adamant that I learn to swim at least half-decently, so for a couple of years I spent every Tuesday afternoon in swimming class...

Designer Diary: Simultaneously Designing Silver and Silver Bullet

The card game Silver was almost named Silver Bullet.During development of Silver, once I determined that I wanted a silver token in the game, a silver bullet was the obvious choice as it's the...

Game Preview: Babylonia, or Burning with Ecstasy

Designer Reiner Knizia has eleven titles listed on BGG's SPIEL '19 Preview. Some of these games are listed despite not being new in 2019 because this convention will be one of the first times...

Game Preview: Zoom in Barcelona, or Get My Little Camera, Take a Pretty Picture

Zoom in Barcelona is the debut title from Spanish publisher Cucafera Games, with editor Núria Casellas co-designing the game with Eloi Pujadas and Joaquim Vilalta, whose names I hopefully did...

Designer Diary: Medieval Showbiz in The King of All Bards

The BeginningThe King of All Bards started as a spontaneous late-night idea and subtly became an ambitious project that has been a significant part of my everyday life for the past two years. In...

Game Preview: Hurricane Ball, or Gaming in a Whirlwind

Each year at SPIEL, BGG owner Scott Alden is on the lookout for new dexterity games to add to the Hall of Dexterous Wonders (not its real name) at BGG.CON, and I've found a contender for him,...

Counterfeiting Is Cheating

(This article by Scott Gaeta, owner of Renegade Game Studios, first appeared on his personal blog on Sept. 25, 2019 in a somewhat different form. —WEM)Fake copies of popular consumer goods have...

Designer Diary: Cooper Island

The first idea of a game mechanism that eventually developed into Cooper Island came after playing Antics!, a 2010 game from Fraser and Gordon Lamont published by Fragor Games.Back then I was...

SPIEL '19 Game Preview: Tajuto, or Mediate, Alleviate, Try Not to Hate Your Fellow Players

Tajuto is a big box Reiner Knizia game from French publisher Super Meeple for 2-4 players, with ABACUSSPIELE making the game available in German starting at SPIEL '19 in late October.The box is...