When I first saw this, I read Road to Edinburgh. I was so excited. All I could think about was Makars, but nope. I read that wrong. The game art is super cute, and if you want to play something like Irish Gauge or Ticket to Ride without the time commitment, this is it! I’m a sucker for a game that distills a massive genre into a sleek experience, and this one manages to do it in about 30 minutes! Plus, my wife didn’t hate it, so I can play train games again 🚊 Mini Rails Road

I have a type. While some people collect massive campaign games, I gravitate toward roll-and-writes. There is something about the tactile click of dice and the efficiency of a dry-erase marker that just speaks to my soul (and when they are not dry-erase ready, I laminate the games 😎). In my collection, I like a balance. Sometimes, I want a real brain-burner. The kind of cutthroat tension you find in the Clever series (looking at you, Ganz Schön Clever--someone please teach m

👩🏻‍🎨 Designer: Roberta Taylor | 🎨 Artist: Shawna J.C. Tenney | 📦 Publisher: KTBG ⚙️ Worker Placement. Dice Placement. Resource Management ♟️ 1-5 players | ⏳ ~45-60 minutes The second I saw the cover art, I was sold. This was my first-ever Kickstarter pledge. I waited over a year to finally dive into Maple Valley and start prepping my burrow for winter. The game’s art looks like a warm hug. It is nice that it also has a clever puzzle of planning and probability hiding und

👩🏻‍🎨 Designer: Mark Gerrits | 🎨 Artist: Nick Liefhebber | 📦 Publisher: CMYK ⚙️ Abstract strategy. Spatial reasoning. Quiet chaos ♟️ 2 players | ⏳ ~10-15 minutes My local store rotates their displayed games, and the second I saw the cloth mat and the colorful flower-like components, I was sold. I had no idea what this game was, but I just wanted it. Plus, it comes in a cylindrical box. Does the box feel bigger than it should be? YES, but it fits in a backpack, so why n

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – Trick-Taking Game is a 1 to four player game that takes about 10 to 20 minutes per round. It is published by Office Dog and designed by Bryan Bornmueller. The beautiful art was made by Elaine Ryan and Samuel Shimota and if you told me that I’d be writing about a Lord of the Rings game, I would have laughed. I used to be the person who said "eh, hard no" to anything LotR. But after falling for Duel for Middle-earth (read that

Yesterday we tried something new. Two very different indie games. One table. Maximum chaos. I honestly thought it was going to flop; it did not 🥳 🎯 The Main Event: Space Gits What It Is Space Gits is a wild, almost RPG style war game where each player controls three minis. It feels part skirmish, part party game, part what just happened. It is miniature agnostic, so you bring your own everything. Minis. Dice. Tokens. Creativity. Vibes. It is also a beautiful book. The kind

Introduction There hasn't been a game by Phil Walker-Harding I haven't liked (yet). I learned his name when we purchased Silver & Gold . The game is great and the markers are everything. When we learned that there was a sequel even though a standalone, we had to get it. Silver & Gold: Pyramids . It takes the core flip-and-write mechanics we loved from the original and moves the action from tropical islands to ancient tombs. It remains fast-paced and language-independent, but

If you’ve spent any time with The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine ( read my review ), you already know the magic of "silent" trick-taking. It’s that unique brand of cooperative tension where a single card played can feel like a triumph or a total catastrophe. It’s the same player cooperative experience (play it at 3+), but it swaps the vacuum of space for the crushing depths of the ocean. More importantly, it swaps a rigid mission structure for something much more clever The

🚀 The Crew: the Quest for Planet Nine 👩🏻‍🎨 Designer: Thomas Sing | 📦 Publisher: Kosmos ♟️ 3-5 players (the box says 2 players, but I’d skip it at that count) ⏳ ~15 minutes per round (with the tendency to hook you for hours) ⚙️ Cooperative trick taking. Zero table talk. Maximum feelings Another Game that Changed My Mind For the longest time, if you said, “trick taking”, I suddenly remembered I had somewhere else to be. I did not grow up on Spades, and the competitive, ma

I’m not really a space fan. I’ve enjoyed space themed games, but it’s never what I gravitate toward. Maybe it’s because I struggled learning the planets growing up. I gave Race for the Galaxy a shot but never really clicked with it. Then I tried Jump Drive, and everything changed. I AM HOOKED! It’s fast, fun, and surprisingly addictive. My wife was hesitant at first, but now she’s just as into it. It’s become our “We have 15 minutes, quick!” go-to game In fact, I could use so

For the first time ever, we actually played a Hanukkah themed board game on Hanukkah. We broke from our usual holiday game night routine and gave Gelt Galore a spin at the table 🚨 Spoiler alert: Gelt Galore is surprisingly educational Trivia games aren’t usually my thing, but this one mixes holiday cheer with learning. The game comes with four types of trivia cards covering a wide range of topics about Hanukkah. If you’re playing with people new to the holiday or with kids,

Every October, Spiel Essen lights up with the hottest board games, indie gems, and clever reprints you might otherwise miss. One publisher that has been catching my eye is Playte. Over the last few years, I’ve played a bunch of their titles, and I love their clever design, compact boxes, and thoughtful use of every component, sometimes even the box itself. Whether you’re at the convention or following from afar, these are the kinds of games that sneak into your bag and onto y

I wasn’t sure what to expect with Etherstone. The art is gorgeous, the rules are light, and once you get rolling it’s deeper and faster...

I've been on a kick to discover the best Playte game, and this one is a bit bigger than their usual L-shape small box, but don’t let that fool you. Layer Puzzle was a delightful surprise. I’m a big fan of spatial puzzles and roll-and-writes, and this game manages to mash those ideas together into something very unique I’ll admit, at first I thought it might be fiddly. The game has transparent sheets and dry-erase markers. You play over five rounds, you layer one card after an

I’m a sucker for two-player games, and Hanafuda: Koi-Koi is a reprint of a fast, elegant game that checks all my boxes. Pencil First...

Ever wonder how much slang has changed over the past 100 years? Slanguage teaches you all about it in about 30-minutes. This 3-8 players...

Introduction Lately, I’ve been obsessing over Playte games. I love their clever design and small boxes packed with big games. Enter,...

Introduction Two player games are our favorite, and cooperative ones always give us just the right amount of stress. Codenames Duet ...

Some games teach you how to plant crops or stack engines. Watergate is about corruption, conspiracy, and dragging a president’s...

Tasso Banana is fast, silly, and way more strategic than you'd expect from a bunch of wobbly wooden bananas. It’s also a Playte game,...

Let's Talk Farkle! 🎲Farkle is a game that's pretty easy to learn, but boy, it can be a real challenge to master. In this dice game, you...

Everdell, but shrunk down for the younger crowd? Or maybe a quicker version? Yes please. But don’t let the “Lil” fool you—this is still a...

I heard about Rainbow Bunny Bop on a podcast and I had to get it. A rainbow game where you race? Sign me up. Adorable bunnies, fast...

"You Can't Say Umm" by Big Potato Games is a fast-paced party game for 4–10 players that sharpens public speaking, vocabulary, and teamwork skills. Describe hilarious object combos without using filler words like "umm" or "ah" to score points. Easy to learn, quick to play, and packed with laughter and replayability