Orbit A race to visit all planets but they are moving around on orbits, propelled by player cards. This has been a big hit in the club. We think it might be the most consistently replayed game we've ever hard - definitely among middle-weight games. #boardgames

Panda Spin We enjoyed this Carl Chudyk climbing game very much. Every time your combo is beaten, you get it back and spin the cards 180⁰ to a more powerful rank. It's complicated and might be too difficult if you've never played a climbing game before. #boardgames

Battle of Hoth Simplest, cleanest version of Memoir '44 possible. You cannot go wrong with this system. I need one of the series in my collection. #boardgames

Fishing Trick-taker by Friedemann Friese. You keep the cards you capture and draw from them for next hand. If not enough, you draw from the deck, which get more powerful. Doing badly means your next hand will be stronger. It's fun, but I'm not convinced there's much skill. Not sure it's a keeper.

Sub Terra Simple co-op where you escape from a cave pursued by horrors. The twist is that it's designed to be played in the dark under UV light. Was a lot of fun but hard not to get sleepy. #boardgames

Ticket to Ride: Asia Partnership Ticket to Ride is good. You share some but not all of your tickets and contracts with your partner - so you can't be sure what they are aiming for. #boardgames

Taj Mahal More confrontational than I remember. It is often called an auction game but they are are really small battles like in Ivanhoe/Condottiere. The area control reminds me a lot of Web of Power. This is less intuitive than a regular Knizia. Not one of his best but memorable. #boardgames

Splendor Pokemon Regular Splendor is smooth and intuitive so I was a bit concerned that this might be gilding the lily. I shouldn't have hesitated. This version just replaces the nobles with upgrading (evolving) cards (pokemon). It's a nice thematic twist on the original. #boardgames

Rebirth I finally won this. Classic Reiner Knizia. Fast and smooth playing but tons to think about. #boardgames

yup #boardgames

Star Wars: Rebellion This is longer than I usually like and I don't often play 2 player games but I love Star Wars - at least the first 3 films. Fury of Dracula for two is a good summary as you're hunting for the rebel base around the galaxy. #boardgames

"Maybe don't say “maybe”: How and why invitees fail to realize that they should not respond to invitations with a “maybe”" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Power Grid: The Stock Companies An expansion for Power Grid that turns it into an 18xx-style stock management game. Seems like a significant improvement. There's none of the turn-order rubber-banding. The English translation is poor. Should be smoother next time. #boardgames

I have played this a couple of times at BGA. It's good. If you like the original you'll like this. Not sure you need both. As a Brit, I prefer this one.

Original post: mastodon.social/@CTD/1151572...

Fate of the Fellowship I couldn't resist this in the shop. It's thematically brilliant. Better than War of the Ring because the characters are so important. Punishing. Played 3 times and only came close once and that was because I got a lift from the giant eagles to Mt Doom. #boardgames

Elevenses Sweet little half hour tableau builder from 2014 about serving tea to the ladies. The white cubes used for scoring are sugar cubes. #boardgames

Uh oh, cleaning my home office floor and got distracted with crayons and colored pencils 🧙‍♂️

🎲🤩 #boardgames

Fist of Dragonstones This one divides opinion. It's in that uncomfortable spot of being more complicated than a pub game, but not really meaty enough for a regular games night. It's also got blind bidding which you either love or hate. I love it. It's classic Bruno Faidutti. #boardgames

Luthier Not my kind of game at all. Took us 4 hours. It's a classic crowd funded modern worker placement game. Tons of incredible components and art. 30 pages of rules. Tons of tracks and counters and ways to score. Minimal player interaction. Good for what it is, but I'd rather not. #boardgames

This podcast about a woman retracing the fate of her family who were murdered by the Nazis in Poland is touching. www.economist.com/podcasts/202...

It seems like there is not enough of a policy response to the existence of self-driving cars, with 57M miles of data, Waymo’s autonomous vehicles experience 85% less serious injuries & 79% less injuries overall than cars with human drivers 2.4 million are injured & 40k killed in US accidents a year

Sure, you could use AI to summarize papers and explain them at a level anyone could understand... or you can turn the abstracts into music videos for no reason. The tools are obviously not perfect yet, but the disparate elements (consistent characters, lip syncing, etc.) are evolving fast

Marvel Remix Receive 7 cards. Every turn draw 1 from deck or table and discard 1 to make a higher scoring hand. Game ends once 10 cards discarded. That's it. This Fantasy Realms reboot has much nicer art but also slightly fiddlier scoring and doesn't have an scoring scanner app. #boardgames

Wonderland's War This is a good game for Sunday morning at a convention. It's not too hard to learn and play but there's plenty going on and you don't mind about it taking 2.5 hours. Sometimes the production values of modern board games are jaw-dropping. #boardgames #handycon

Odin Climbing games aren't as variable or as deep as tricktakers, but this is surprisingly different. Instead of the usual 2-3-4 or 4-4-4 combos, the cards make number place values so a combo of 6-3-1 is the number six hundred and thirty one. #boardgames

Stop debating this website's growth potential. I don't care. I'm a digital hermit crab. If it dies, I'll find another shell as I've done a dozen times before.

Cave Troll My 2002 copy looks battered and it's weird to play a dungeon game without a foot-deep box and 40 minis, but the game itself has held up well. 45 minutes of knockabout fun. Adding this to the short list of area control games I actually like. #boardgames

You can now play my trick-taking card game, Pala, against AI opponents on the Trickster's Table app: boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/226...

Breaking Away Plays best with 6. Easy to teach and constantly engaging. The strategy is more subtle than first appears. It feels like a race game. Everyone enjoyed it very much. My only complaint is that it is 30 minutes too long. It is an unusual game. I prefer it to Flamme Rouge. #boardgames

I am super grateful to @seandavidross.bsky.social and his discord server for fostering such an amazingly creative environment for trick taking and climbing/shedding design. boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/349...

I was at the Wye Valley Sculpture Garden today and came across the most unbelievable guitarist - Simon Cottle.

Here’s to @grahamsmith.bsky.social, signing off from RPS after 20 years in game journalism with the wisest thoughts about games media you’ll read www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-sunday-p...

Quartermaster General: 1914 is such a great game. There’s plenty of historical flavour but the turns never feel bogged down by theme or rules. Of the three QMGs I’ve played, this is my favourite.

Bottle Imp plays astonishingly well as a 6 player game. It is fast and has an easy rhythm. Lots of laughs when someone gets stuck with the bottle. Sadly I súck at it. #boardgames

Bishops Rock Lighthouse.

Rival Cities Andreas Steding makes old-school euros like Hansa Teutonica and this is no exception. This is a quick, 2-player game that's easy to learn, but it's pretty involved. The board edge is a large rondel with interspersed preset and random actions. I haven't seen this before. #boardgames

The Gallerist I have heard a lot about Vital Lacerda games, so was happy to try this - despite 4.22 weight at BGG. Vital Lacerda was a graphics designer, and you can see it in the iconography. It make an indigestible game swallowable.

I used Veo 3 to solve Shakespearean tragedies as pictured in classical art. (sound on)

Bottle Imp I have the original from the 90s, but the new version of this trick-taker is gorgeous. It's confusing and it explodes in your face, but that's the fun. #boardgames

After a year of consistent online play, I finished the Gloomhaven Digital with my two oldest friends. We have had a blast. Can't recommend it enough. #boardgames #videogames

Deep Regrets I feel mixed about this. On one hand, it's pretty original mechanically and thematically plus the art is lovely. On the other hand, it drags on for too long and I didn't find the decisions interesting. #boardgames

Played: Had another go at Breaking Away, a 1991 design by John Harrington that simulates a bicycle race, with an ingenious luck-free system that allows for smart choices and an impactful drafting system: boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2981 I need to play this game more often! —WEM

Wrote about this earlier this year but if you want to break up with NYT Games, Merriam-Webster has a great collection of free daily puzzles: Wordle-likes, a Spelling Bee-like, crosswords, trivia, etc. www.pcgamer.com/games/i-only...

New Review! Old Game! New Version! Our latest video is taking on Innovation - the beige box of oddities that’s been delighting and frustrating folks since it hit shelves in 2010! Does it hold up? Yes! youtu.be/ra3yS6NoQ-A