I have a Shelf of Shame. At one point, it was about 50 games deep. Fifty games that I owned and had never played. How did we get here? I think this is just one of the stages of getting into board games. I remember watching Paula Demming's video, Evolution of a Board Gamer, about the different stages of the hobby and thinking, ha! I don't get it. What is a legacy game? Turns out, she was right! Ooh, a new game! Add to cart! We went through the “ooh, a new game! Add to cart!” p

🚧 Cross the Line | 🏢 Publisher Gray Matter Games 🧑🏻‍💻 Designers: Joe Barron, Brady Peterson, David Yakos🎨 Artist: Sophia Ricciardi 👥 2-8 players | ⏳ ~30 minutes | 🎲 party game, guessing There is no bigger compliment than having people ask you to bring games to game night, or seeing a friend go out and buy a game you introduced them to. Even better is bringing a stack of games you've already played, having them pick one out of the bag, and then watching them teach it

🚀 Excursions | 🏢 Publisher Kinson Key Games 👽 Designer: Ben Rosset | 🎨 Artist: Ian O'Toole 🧑🏼‍🚀 1-6 players | ⏳ ~60 minutes | 🌠 Crunchy euro, simultaneous play If you’ve ever looked at Galactic Cruise and thought about the price, the size of the box, or how long it’s going to take to play, you are not alone. But if you’ve played it, you also know why it earned all of that table space. You’re building and upgrading cruise ships, recruiting guests, collecting the resou

Blitzword by Afterparty Games | ♟️ 2–8 Players | ⏳ ~30 Minutes I love word games, but I have a complicated relationship with them. I love spotting connections and finding the right answer, but not everyone at the table loves coming up with words on the spot. That’s part of what caught my attention with Blitzword. Instead of asking you to come up with a word from scratch, the words are already in front of you. Your job is to figure out which one in your hand connects to the ac

I really like Flip 7. It’s quick to teach, easy to get into, and somehow manages to make flipping over a card feel way more stressful than it should. So when Flip 7: With a Vengeance came out, I was curious. At first glance, it’s still Flip 7. You’re flipping cards, trying not to bust, and deciding how greedy you want to be. The difference is in how the two games get there Vengeance adds some new ways to mess with the other players and changes how you approach your turns. So

🃏 Flip 7 by Eric Olsen | 🏢 Published by The Op Games on 2026 👥 3+ players | ⏳ ~20 minutes | ⚙️ Press your luck, push your luck, take that I really like Flip 7. I've bought it as a gift more than once, and it's one of those games I can put in front of almost anyone and know we're going to have a good time. So when I saw Flip 7: With a Vengeance, I bought it. Then I played . . . My thoughts? This is for someone else. That's not to say I don't like it. I just don't know if I

🔢 Tally Up! |🧥 Designer: Eric Olsen | 🏢 Publisher Messy Tables Games 👥 2+ players | ⏳ ~20 minutes | 🎲 Push your luck, dice, simultaneous play Some people describe Tally Up! as Flip 7 with dice, and I get it. They’re both simple push your luck games where you’re deciding how greedy you want to be. In Tally Up! You decide to be either IN or OUT, but you’re still invested in every roll. Everyone plays at the same time. If you’re OUT, you’re probably hoping everyone else bus

🐐 French Goats in Trench Coats 🧥 Designer: Eric Olsen | 🏢 Publisher Messy Tables Games 👥 2–6 players | ⏳ ~20 minutes | 🎲 Bidding, set collection, take that For years, we've had a New Year's Eve tradition of buying cheap board games, wrapping them up, and putting them in a pile. The idea is to buy games we haven't played or don't already own. Then we play and whoever wins gets to open the next one. We learn it, play it, and then do it all over again. That's how French Go

🦎 A Lotta Axolotls by Eric Olsen | 🏢 Published by Messy Table Games 👥 2-6 players | ⏳ ~15 minutes | ⚙️ Matching, set collection, simultaneous play ⚠️ Disclosure: I was gifted a copy of A Lotta Axolotls and helped with the rules for the new version. As always, this is my honest review. We do not accept compensation for our opinions or recommendations I recently gifted a copy of A Lotta Axolotls to a friend's 8 year old. I had no idea she liked axolotls. We sat down to play,

🃏 Flip 7 by Eric Olsen | 🏢 Published by The Op Games on 2024 👥 3+ players | ⏳ ~20 minutes | ⚙️ Press your luck, push your luck, family game I honestly didn't think much of Flip 7 the first time I saw it. I got a promotional copy from my local game store, Millennium Games, and remember thinking the box was colorful. Cute. Whatever. I took it home, played it with my wife, and . . . 🥰 We liked it a lot. So much that we taught it to friends that same afternoon. And the rest i

🏴‍☠️ Booty Dice by Eric Olsen | 🏢 Published by Messy Table Games in 2023 👥 2–6 players | ⏳ ~15 minutes | ⚙️ Push your luck, dice rolling, take that, pirate chaos ⚠️ Disclosure: I was gifted a copy of Booty Dice and translated the game’s rules into Spanish As always, this is my honest review. We do not accept compensation for our opinions or recommendations Who didn't grow up playing Yahtzee? I never really caught the Pirates of the Caribbean bug, but give me some dice and

🧩 Glyphics by Eric Olsen | 🏢 Published by The Op Games on 2022 👥 3+ players | ⏳ ~20 minutes | ⚙️ Party game, guessing, spatial creativity Think Pictionary, but 3D Glyphics is a party game that comes with 150 cards and 40 random pieces for you to try out your best artist attempt. When the pieces click, it feels like magic. Other times? You're staring at a pile of shapes, doubting every artistic decision you've ever made 😂 One player becomes the Builder and chooses a prompt

🎡 Ferris Wheel | Publisher: Rush by RoseArt Games | Designer: April Mitchell 👥 1 to 6 players | ⏳ 20 to 30 minutes | ⚙️ Tile placement and hand management I love when a board game gives me a little piece of history. Ferris Wheel Rush is set in 1893, and after my first play, I went down a completely unnecessary rabbit hole. I can now tell you way too much about the World's Columbian Exposition 🤓 The world's first ferris wheel is about to open, but all the carts are in the w

The new and shiny comes and goes. Games get hyped, played obsessively for a few weeks, and eventually find their way back onto the shelf while something else takes their place. Some games stick. I went back through our Top 50 Played Games from 2020 and was surprised by how many of them are still games we genuinely enjoy playing today. Lost Cities, Quacks, Tiny Towns, Rummikub, Cubirds, Kingdomino, Welcome To…, Takenoko, Lucky Numbers, Sushi Go!, Stone Age, Everdel, NMBR 9, Wi

There's a good chance you've heard of Flip 7. The push-your-luck hit has found its way onto countless tables, introducing a lot of players to designer Eric Olsen. But while Flip 7 may be the game that put his name on the map, it's only one part of a growing catalog of clever, approachable games Every designer has a starting point. For Eric, it was 2020. The world had slowed down and he was home with his kids. Their table was covered in odds and ends, half-finished creations,

Icing on the Cake by FoxMind Games 👥 2 to 4 players | ⏳ ~10 minutes per player ⚙️ Abstract, tile placement, “I cut, you choose” drafting If you have ever dreamed of building the ultimate cake without getting flour all over the kitchen counter, Icing on the cake brings that sweet vision right to the table. You are dividing up displays of cake cards, drafting layers, and covering them in icing and toppings to build the highest scoring slice. ⚠️ Warning: this game will want you

High Society by Reiner Knizia 👥 3 to 5 players | ⏳ ~15–30 mins ⚙️ Auction and bidding Reiner Knizia has done it again. High Society is a thirty-one-year-old classic that feels fresh off the press. The game got a reprint by Allplay in English and is available in Japanese and Korean via Playte Games, and it is small enough to take anywhere. I think this is old enough to be called a classic, although with the new print, you could have fooled me The game is fast. It is brutal. I

If you had a time machine, which game would you give to your younger self? My answer is easy. I would hand myself a copy of Jump Drive I was hesitant about this game. It sounded complicated and it was space theme. Not my jam, but I was wrong. I'm glad my friend pushed to teach it. After we played it, we played it again and again. When I got home, I immediately told my wife about it, and we ended up at our local store. We purchased a used copy and got the expansion, you know.

I honestly thought Habitats was a brand new release. The artwork is gorgeous, the table presence is beautiful, and everything about the production feels modern. My only complaint? I desperately want the little wooden jeeps to have wheels that actually turn 😅 As we were learning the rules, I kept thinking, This feels a lot like Nova Luna. I was convinced Habitats had taken inspiration from Nova Luna or Sagani. Then someone pointed out that it was actually the other way around

We have a bird. His name is Maverick. And let me tell you, there is a certain type of person who visits our house and immediately assumes that because we have a feathered friend, they have the right to handle him. They do not! People see a bird and think, “Oh, I want to hold it!” But birds are not props for amusement. If you don't know what you're doing, you are probably going to get bitten Which brings me to this new party dexterity game that arrived on our doorstep as a rev