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Whenever an old game from 30-40 years ago gets reprinted, there will always be a chorus of people who just don’t get it. Maybe their tastes just don’t jive with those of the 1980s, or maybe they just get tired of hearing people gush that their favorite game is back in print. Either way, the complaints will eventually migrate from griping about luck and game length, to complaining about the game’s fans. What moron would like a game like this? Why did we wait so long to get this game back in print? Why are people so excited? They...

 Better than War of the Ring? Yep.

Have you been following the ongoing drama of Glory to Rome? The original game by Carl Chudyk has been a gamer favorite for several years, but it’s impossible to have any conversation about the game that doesn’t eventually come back to the artwork. Cartoony, garish, and loaded with gradients, Glory to Rome wasn’t exactly easy on the eyes. Cambridge Games sensed an opportunity to Kickstart a do-over of the artwork. The ensuing fracas over the protracted production cycle of this reprint could fill its own article. But it’s hard to argue with the new look of the game, now...

    Ladies and Gentlemen, here is your daily boardgame trivia question: what is the property that comes just before Free Parking?

My reading material at the moment is Daniel Dennett’s book on evolution – Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. It’s a fantastic book dealing with both the philosophical and scientific aspects of Darwinism and ought to be mandatory reading for anyone obtuse enough to doubt the very real fact of evolution, or to try and substitute some form of creationsim. But enough politics; in a footnote in the book I found, oddly enough, a very interesting gaming reference. The author claims (with what veracity I do not know) that a popular tactic of the famous US chess Grandmaster Bobby Fischer...

I have written in the past about the physical limitations imposed on board game designers through the need to track everything with board and card. Similarly there’s often been speculation about what, if anything, the introduction of electronic appendages into board games does to widen that perspective. Reviewing children’s game Whoowasit?, which features just such a gizmo, for another site last week lead to me revisiting the topic in my head.Another factor in my choosing to write about this was the observation made to me recently that the audio CD-based cooperative game Space Alert hasn’t spawned any imitators, in...

On my first date with my wife, we went to a coffee shop. It was the usual chit-chat, just asking about interests and so forth. Since I had just started playing hobby games, I mentioned that I liked to play board games a lot. I assumed the conversation would end there, so I didn’t offer many details. But then she asked me if I’d heard of a game she enjoyed. She couldn’t recall the name, but it involved little wooden men and small tiles that you played together to create roads and cities that gave you points. She was...

Traders of Genoa (also published under the name Genoa) is a fairly interesting Eurogame. It’s got a fair depth of mechanical strategy sat under a layer of finely-tuned verbal negotiation and the whole hangs together as a pleasingly balanced affair, allowing gamers of a variety of tastes and skills to pitch in and enjoy themselves. I’ve played it exactly 4 times, won every single session, and enjoyed them all. I’d play it again, but not in a hurry, and I have plenty of other games to play.But I originally bought my copy to play specifically with two people, both...

Every game store I’ve ever been to has stacks and stacks of all of the different variations of Steve Jackson’s Munchkin. It’s a perennial seller, one that has spawned countless expansions and legions of fans. And at first glance it looks like a fun game, with amusing rules and funny graphics. And look at all those cards! It’s full of items like “The Boots of Running Really Fast,” which is indeed kinda funny. But for my own part, kinda funny doesn’t really cut it. In fact, by the end of my one and only game of Munchkin, I was...

Last week, I got to play Stronghold for the first time. I liked it, more than I thought I was going to, although I think there may be some question over its long-term replay value. It wouldn’t be fair to reflect further on the game after one play, but it is entirely fair to reflect on the board art. The Stronghold board is both striking to look at, and entirely functional in terms of allowing players to easily access and digest all the information they need to play. This is, sadly a relatively rare combination.One of the things I...