Despite reviewing board games for nearly 5 years now and having written over 100 reviews, I never reviewed a campaign game. Time is a bit of a luxury for me, and campaign games have the daring proposal to subject me to hours of my time to get the “full experience” these behemoth boxes offer.

So why on earth am I reviewing this one? The answer is as simple as writing this sentence: I used to play the Monster Hunter video games back in the day. Much like how Nemesis is an unlicensed version of Aliens, Primal: The Awakening is an unlicensed version of Monster Hunter. However, that isn’t the only reason.

Campaign games have always irked me on their design. You see, a game calling itself a "dungeon crawler" or "boss battler," and you think, "That's my jam!" But then you're stuck doing some bean-counting for upgrading a town or playing choose-your-own-adventure in between the good stuff. I'm here to skewer baddies, snatch their loot, beef up my gear, and then go skewer even bigger baddies. I want boss fights to feel like I’m a third monkey rushing towards Noah's Ark because, brother, it is starting to rain.

Taming the Complexity

Fortunately for Primal: The Awakening, the campaign structure is exactly that. Your “prologue” is fighting a creature that…

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From card games to social deduction, mega games to role-playing adventures, the possibilities of board games might seem endless. However, this wasn’t always the case. In the late 2000s, 'narrative' games were far less common than they are today. The concept of app-integrated storytelling or voice-acted narratives wasn’t even an idea at the time. If you wanted to have your story experience in a board game form, options were scarce, and the most well-known at the time was Tales of the Arabian Nights.

As you can tell from the game’s name, it draws inspiration from the classic “One Thousand and One Nights” as players traverse the lands to seek fortune and glory. Instead of complex mechanics, they are told about their situation through a book and the players decide on their response to the situation. To some players, this was a great game, especially for families that want to tell silly stories. For others, like myself, we found the game to be quite random and nonsensical, often overextending its welcome.

When I heard about Tales of the Arthurian Knights, saying I was interested is downplaying my reaction. I loved the idea of Tales of the Arabian Nights, but I was yearning for something that was a bit more consistent and I was quite curious to see fifteen years’ worth…

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Anyone that has followed my work for the past few years knows that I have a weird affection for the deckbuilding genre. I have been into deckbuilders since the days of Ascension and Dominion, and my first handful of reviews were deckbuilders. Because of this experience, it’s hard for me to get interested in any random deckbuilder.

Queen by Midnight’s hook is that’s a battle royale with a heavy emphasis on diplomacy and a round limit. Yes, a round limit, in a deckbuilder game. Absolutely bonkers proposition that engrossed me enough to play the game and spend some time writing many sentences about it.

The plot is not too hard to understand. The Queen is dead and her last wish is to have a trial by combat with the deadline being midnight. Six princesses show up and you know the ending to this one.

Like many other deckbuilders, the starting deck is full of money cards that you use for the first few rounds to buy new cards to improve your deck. So far that seems quite straightforward, until you look at your options to buy. While this does use Ascensions’ familiar “market row” system where you buy your cards from a row, the similarities end there.

Dealt a Royal Hand

On your Princess playmat, you have a “Vault…

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Whenever the discussion of adventure board games comes up, the game Talisman is always mentioned. A relic from the 80s, Talisman was originally designed to mimic the adventures of role playing games in a condensed experience and light rules. The popularity could not be ignored, as the game had several editions since its inception.

Despite the rich legacy behind Talisman, it wasn’t viewed favorably by the gaming public at large. Its roll-and-move mechanics, heavy reliance on luck, and notoriously long playtime have often been cited as significant drawbacks. The game's endurance seemed to rely more on nostalgia than on its merits as a tabletop experience. Personally speaking, I have never seen this game played at conventions and rarely requested in public gaming groups. While it undoubtedly retains a dedicated fanbase, this following appears reluctant to expand.

This is where the 5th edition of Talisman takes the helm. A good portion of the game’s marketing was committed to informing the world of some changes to “speed up” the game. Being turned into a Toad was no longer a death sentence, as it was akin to skipping a turn instead of outright destroying your progress. Specific board game spaces were adjusted to keep the pace flowing along. Perhaps the most interesting change was the end game condition, where you simply need…

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As a board game reviewer, I frequently venture into the unexplored realms of tabletop gaming. While the masses hunt for the latest offerings from first-rate publishers, I find a unique excitement in unearthing games yet to grace store shelves or Kickstarter campaigns. Sometimes this leads to interesting gems, while others remind me why not every game is published.

Runner Tactics is a game where these two perceptions are engaged in endless combat. While its core concept is undeniably intriguing, certain aspects of its product design and gameplay raise questions about its readiness for the spotlight. Of course, for you to understand where I’m coming from, we need to delve into this game’s mechanisms.

In a few words, Runner Tactics is a strategic, grid-based, two-player programming game where the players will draft a team of three members for a 3 vs 3 match. Instead of abilities, each member has their own movement range and attack pattern. On the field itself, there are two lines, similar to a North American Football field. The objective is easy: Eliminate your opponent’s team or, at the end of any round, have more members on the other side of the line than your opponent.

Gridiron Hussle

Turns are as simple as the objective. You put a big wooden player shield in front of you and…

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Typically, reviews of game reprints follow a predictable pattern. The author reminisces about their experience with the original edition or argues that it was an overlooked masterpiece. It’s a bit cliche and it works for the most part. I know this because I do this. However, in this instance, I'm unable to follow suit since I never had the opportunity to play the original version of Yokohama.

As shallow as this sounds, the only reason I never played the older edition is the graphic design. The original box cover art felt claustrophobic and the view looked like you were thrown down in an oddly shaped well. When I saw it at board game meetup groups, it didn’t bolster my confidence. Cards littered all over the table and the detritus of wooden cubes was simply too much.

After playing the newer edition a few times for this review, I must confess and say that I missed out. This is a great game that easily sits next to fantastic titles like Concordia and Puerto Rico. It’s the next step after being pampered by the starter trio of Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, and Catan. Like any other game, it’s not perfect, but does far more right than wrong.

Setting Sail

With that…

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Racing games have been around for a long time in the board game world. You can even classify games like Sorry, Candyland, and Snakes & Ladders as racing games. They involve moving pieces from a starting point to an end point, with the player reaching the finish line first being declared the winner.

However, if we narrow our focus to motorsports-themed racing games, the options become surprisingly scarce, as the majority of published board racing games revolve around either NASCAR or Formula 1 racing. Rallyman: DIRT stands out as perhaps one of the few examples of modern rally racing board games, a niche within the broader world of motorsports.

It's a pity to point out that rally racing, despite its thrilling nature, often gets overlooked in the motorsports hierarchy. This sport involves pushing high-performance vehicles to their limits on terrain unsuitable for such extreme driving conditions. It's this contrasting dynamic that makes rally racing exhilarating.

From a game design perspective, the sport of rallying offers a wealth of opportunities that go beyond simply replicating famous circuits like the Monaco GP, which is a common approach in many other racing games. Rally racing allows for the incorporation of diverse challenges such as uphill and downhill sections, jumps, drifting maneuvers, shortcuts, and treacherous surface conditions. As a game genre, rally racing…

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The connection between board game design and intellectual properties is frequently superficial. The typical approach for such games is to create a generic board game system that can accommodate a variety of themes and then gradually introduce rules to give the illusion of capturing the essence of those IPs. It is uncommon to encounter a game where the IP takes point, and the game designer is trying their utmost to ensure that the rules serve the franchise effectively.

Fortunately, The Thing Boardgame is on the other side of this situation. This is one of the few games where every line of rule makes sense in context while still offering a plateful of systems that one would expect in a well-designed cooperative game. But before I chirp about my praises and concerns, you should probably get to know the game first.

The Thing Boardgame is based on the 1982 film of the same name by John Carpenter. The film, proudly sitting on the horror sci-fi throne, is about a shape-shifting alien life form that can spread like a virus and takes place in a research station in Antarctica. At the start of the game, one of the players starts out as an infected Alien player.

Now, if this sounds like a social deduction game, you are one-third correct. Social deduction…

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Board game expansions offer a refreshing way to breathe new life into beloved games. Through new mechanics, characters, scenarios, or game pieces, expansions often add excitement to the gameplay experience of the original game. They can add depth and complexity, catering to experienced players seeking new grounds to discover and conquer. Expansions are also a good way to fix issues with the original game after getting plenty of feedback from the players due to the hundreds, if not thousands, of game sessions.

In a perfect world, an expansion would always be a welcome addition to anyone’s library for their favorite game. However, we are not a perfect world. Some expansions are questionable and, dare I say, should be avoided. The Thing: Norwegian Outpost, unfortunately, falls into this category, nose first. I know I’m risking reading retention by stating this in the intro paragraphs, but I had to get off my chest.

It’s a surprise that I say this too, because it tries quite hard to stick to the original principles of the base game. You still have the Thing going around, infecting people with encounters with the eventual reveal. Dogs, now replaced with NPCs, roam around the base, causing problems for everyone. The non-infected players are working together to escape and make sure the Alien doesn’t tag along.

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Japan, a nation that has seamlessly woven itself into the fabric of our daily lives, defies the need for introduction. From the vehicles we navigate our streets with, to the gaming platforms that transport us to realms of fantasy, and the captivating animations that grace our screens, Japan's influence is something we cannot ignore. Yet, its significance extends far beyond media manifestations and cars. Even its long, rich history has lured the eyes of Hollywood as it tries to capture its historical grandeur on the silver screen.

Encapsulating the essence of Japan's vast cultural tapestry is a daunting task, and it's the perfect backdrop for a game about vacation planning. Let’s Go To Japan is a game that focuses on the dilemma of every traveler longing to immerse themselves in Japanese culture. In this game, you are thrust into a crucible of decision-making, forced to prioritize and curate your journey with watchmaker precision. The objective? Craft a vacation plan that eclipses the experiences of your peers.

Vacation Planning Enigma

The game tries to facilitate this conundrum through card drafting. For those unfamiliar with the term, card drafting is where you get a hand of cards, pick one card to play, and pass the rest to a neighboring player. Unlike most card drafting games like 7 Wonders and Sushi Go,…

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A little glimpse into my past: Video games were a major passion of mine before I discovered the joys of board games. I doubt my story is unique—like many PC gamers back then, I was obsessed with first-person shooters. But my second love was racing games, though not the uber-realistic sims. I gravitated towards the arcadey racers, where drifting and nitro boosts flowed as freely as coins in a Mario game.

As someone who loves board games and has a soft spot for racing video games, my options are quite slim. For the past few years, the only racing board game that has truly captured my heart is HEAT: Pedal to the Metal. However, that game focuses more on hand management than delivering an authentic racing experience. Most other racing board games either lean too heavily on dice rolls or become ridiculously convoluted in their attempts to simulate the intricate details of an F1 race.

REM Racer promises to be none of these things. The track doesn’t have a grid to represent spaces on the board. Instead, you move your vehicles using template movement rulers that you would find in a miniatures wargame. That’s not a surprise, because the publisher behind this one is Corvus Belli, a Spanish company. Corvus Belli is mostly known for their miniatures wargame, Infinite,…

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Trains and board games. Peanut butter and jelly. High living costs and Canada. Me and bad jokes. For whatever divine reason, these subjects cannot be separated. What’s quite interesting about train board games is they are often associated with complexity and mind melting sessions. Here comes Isle of Trains: All Aboard to show the world that you can have some train conductor fun with a deck of cards in only an hour of your time. With a concept like this, you can see why this one wrangled more than a few pairs of eyeballs.

The story driving this one is quite barebones. There is an island where train conductors throughout the world attend a competition to see who is the best. This involves delivering passengers, fulfilling cargo contracts, and showing off your sweet ride that rewards you with victory points. Think of it as the Isle of Man TT except replace motorcycles with trains and without a body count.

Since this is a card game, it’s time I talk a bit about them. Isle of Trains: All Aboard is one of the few card games that consists almost entirely of multi-use cards. For those who don’t know the terminology, it means that cards can be used in a variety of ways, depending on the context. In Isle…

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Trick-taking games are one of the easier genres to get into when it comes to board games. Most of them are simply a deck of cards, a concept the entire world understands, and the rules are mostly straightforward. While some like Bridge and Cribbage can be more complex, most trick-taking games are easy to learn compared to modern board games.

Modern board game publishers are certainly prone to chasing trends, like deckbuilding, social deduction, roll and writes, and legacy games. Lately, trick-taking games seem to be having a moment. As a reviewer, I appreciate this since the key mechanism is so well-known that I don't need to explain the core gameplay in detail. Just saying a game is a "trick-taking" game conveys the basics of following suit, playing one card, and winning tricks with the highest card.

Which is why the reprinting of The Dwarf King makes perfect business sense. Originally released in 2011, this lightweight card game with simple "Quest tiles" flew under the radar in North America. It's quite accessible with its minimal components—playing cards, Quest tiles, and a thin rulebook. The only thing you’ll need to grab on your own is a scorepad, making this game feel like it was released over ten years ago.

Familiar…

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