I was excited about Dracula vs Van Helsing. I’m a big fan of Korean publisher Mandoo Games. They put out beautiful and unusual games, games that stay with me long after the box is back on the shelf. It’s easy to feel like publishers exist to extrude content, which, well, the necessities of capitalism mean that they do, like it or not. Mandoo Games is in that rarified circle of publishers who feel like they take risks, even if those risks don’t always pan out.

The brand on the side of the box was enough to get me going, but Dracula vs Van Helsing was also sold as a trick-taking game, and as we all know, I’m a fan. Having now played it, I’m not so sure, but we’ll get back to that.

The early impression is strong. Weberson Santiago’s art is striking. I’d read that comic, and I’d certainly watch that movie. The box, which 25th Century has faithfully reproduced for the American market, is high-quality. That sounds stupid, sure, like I’m grasping for straws, but it’s a nice box. Maybe this is just where I’m at these days. My first thought about The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth was that the box is larger and flimsier than I…

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I’m leaning as hard as ever into quick-playing card games, in part because the industry can’t churn a trick-taker out fast enough these days.

Our partners at Matagot provided a review copy of Bottle Imp, a remake of The Bottle Imp, a game that was released all the way back in 1995, before the dawn of tabletop time. (I’m only partially kidding here.) In both the old and new versions, the game’s conceit is simple—you want to win tricks, at least until you definitely do not want to win tricks…and if you end the game with the devilish bottle in question, all the points you score in that round are negative, while everyone else scores positive points.

There’s a bit more to it than that, but not really. Bottle Imp freshens the shine a bit with a very refined set of rules and an exceptionally well-drawn and textured card back that feels great in the hands and is easy on the eyes. I’m glad I had the chance to get my first play in with the Matagot team because I think that smoothed over a rulesheet that confused me the first time I read it on my own. After playing the base game version with friends, we had the game down by the end of the first round.

…

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[caption id="attachment_301989" align="aligncenter" width="600"] The Box Cover[/caption]

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Emperor's New Clothes is an art project that claims to be a game. It is not a game, it is a collection of blank, stark-white game pieces that could be used to create a game, I suppose. But that is not really the point. The point is the joke.

If you do not get the joke, then I highly recommend…

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I love War of the Ring, but I can never find the time, let alone the space, to play it. Rightfully considered one of modern board gaming’s crowning achievements, War of the Ring is a remarkable blend of theme and gameplay that results in some of the best storytelling in The Hobby™. It is an unfortunate reality that not everyone has three or four hours and a table the size of a Honda Fit, let alone a friend ready to take the plunge.

It is partially with that in mind that publisher Ares Games released War of the Ring: The Card Game, a two-to-four player card game that covers the same thematic ground. It has an impossible mission brief: turn a sprawling, miniatures-laden affair into a straightforward card game.

Miracle of miracles, War of the Ring: The Card Game largely succeeds.

Play/Discard

Players split into two teams: two players control the Free Peoples of Middle Earth, while the others marshal the forces of the Shadow Armies. Each player’s deck is filled with unique cards, representing a combination of the armies, characters, items, and events that define The Lord of the Rings as a property.

Most of your…

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Welcome (Back) to Arrakis

I wrote a glowing review of the original Dune: Imperium earlier this year. To say that I was enamored with it would be an understatement. The game has risen in the ranks to claim its spot among my top board games of all time, and I jump at the chance to introduce new players to it. I even snagged the new digital version on Steam and have already sunk about 20 hours into the challenges and weekly scenario modes there. This is all coming from someone who isn’t that taken by the world of the original Frank Herbert novels and has seen the Denis Villeneuve film a grand total of once.

At Gen Con this year, Dire Wolf Digital announced a “standalone spinoff” for the game titled Dune: Imperium - Uprising. Initially, much of the conversation around the new game was slightly confusing for the gaming community because it wasn’t clear how this would work with the existing Dune: Imperium properties. The publisher quickly clarified that both expansions for the base game can also work with this new spinoff game and that cards from the base game can be mixed and matched. It is an example of making the waters a bit too muddy for my liking. It’s a sequel and a spinoff, but…

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We should come to an initial agreement on how things will be abbreviated in this review. Jekyll & Hyde vs. Scotland Yard is a long title, and I’m disinclined to have to type it out over and over again. You are likely disinclined to have to read it over and over again. It’s a perfectly reasonable title. It’s only an issue here because I will need to refer to it with some frequency.

On the face of it, Jekyll & Hyde is the cleanest solution, but that’s only on the surface. Jekyll & Hyde vs. Scotland Yard, a cooperative trick-taking game for two players, is a sequel to Jekyll vs. Hyde, a competitive trick-taking game for two players. I’ll need to reference that too, at least a few times. Jekyll vs. Hyde and Jekyll & Hyde. Given what I know about how humans read, leaving matters in the hands of that slight distinction feels like a big mistake. Contradictorily, the temptation to refer to them as vs. and & is very real.

We cannot allow bits to take precedence over functionality. It saddens me to say it, but I recognize the truth of that statement. From here on out, I will refer to the original game by its full title, Jekyll vs. Hyde, while Jekyll & Hyde vs. Scotland…

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“Wait, you have NOT played Disney Villainous?”

A surprising number of interactions over the last few years at a game night here or an event at a gaming cafe there have ended with this statement, as if I’ve been living in a board game cave for the last five years. (A cave without Disney Villainous, apparently.)

And, I get it…Disney Villainous (2018, Ravensburger) is popular for a reason. The concept is brilliant—players take on the roles of the evil characters from a number of Disney’s classic films, taking actions to complete a unique win condition while other players get the chance to play “Fate” cards from an opponent’s personal Fate deck, messing with their plans. The best part: each villain’s Fate deck is made up of heroes and items from that villain’s movie, such as Robin Hood for the Prince John Fate deck.

The game is considered a classic, and it’s doing well enough in sales to have spawned a boatload of expansions. But the original isn’t perfect—the main issue I always heard from other players is that it’s a game that takes a little too long to play.

Ravensburger has tweaked some of the original format for a new title, Disney Villainous: Introduction to Evil. It’s only available at Target, and like other Target exclusives such as…

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“You’ll notice the artwork on the cards depicts characters from Alice in Wonderland and they are, you know, lined up like they’re in a parade. And that’s about it for the theme.”

I’ve said this line or something very close to it every time I’ve taught someone to play Parade. Strangely, this disinterested theme only makes me love the 2007 release even more. Parade, from Z-Man Games and the mind of Naoki Homma, feels like the sort of game played a century or more ago with a standard deck of cards, albeit in a slightly modified form.

The Parade deck consists of six colors of cards, each numbered zero through ten, with a character of Wonderland denoting a suit (of sorts). The game begins with a line of six face-up cards and a draw pile. Players lay a single card into the parade, perform a brief appraisal, and possibly collect cards to display.

The appraisal is thus and so: After laying the card, count off the number of cards matching the number played. Of the remaining cards, collect and display any that are of equal or lesser value or the same color before drawing another card. The ideal is to avoid card collection for most of the game,…

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Welcome to Arrakis

Dune: Imperium takes place in the world of Frank Herbert’s Hugo-award-winning science fiction novel. For those unfamiliar with the novel, Dune is set in the distant future and centers around noble houses vying for control of the valuable “spice” found on the planet Arrakis. “Spice” is a drug valued highly across the galaxy, so naturally, control of Arrakis comes with placing a massive target on your back.

Since 1971, media adaptations of the beloved novel have been attempted, though nothing got off the ground until David Lynch’s 1984 film. Critical reception to the film was mixed, and the intellectual property spent the next thirty-seven years in various stages of development. In 2021, director Denis Villeneuve released the first part of his new Dune adaptation. To coincide with this release and capitalize on the mainstream appeal of the property, the Dune IP was used for a whole slew of new board game releases. Per BoardGameGeek, roughly twenty new titles were released since the media push behind the current films began.

Of those new titles, Dune: Imperium stands as a juggernaut. Released by Dire Wolf Digital in 2020, this brand-new adaptation of the source material recontextualizes the power struggle present in the books into a tense experience, where there are never quite enough resources, and players are…

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Far from the confusion of the typical “chicken or the egg” argument, I know exactly which came first: I sought out the board game before the novel. Then again, I did seek out the board game because I wanted to read the novel. And I did finish the novel before I started the board game. But it was all because of the—

Nevermind. The point is that I wanted to go all in on the solo tabletop adventure at hand. Until recently, I had never read Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas. I was familiar with the 1954 Disney classic featuring James Mason as Nemo. At the age of eight I remember enjoying the ride at Disney World. But I can’t say I had ever put myself in the Captain’s shoes. I was probably confused. Both Disney efforts keep Sea as singular in their titles, which makes it sound as if a submarine descended nearly 70,000 miles into the earth—which has a diameter of around 8,000 miles. So I picked up the book to get the story straight and prepare for the game.

[caption id="attachment_276565" align="alignnone" width="1001"] No one writes a good 17-word subtitle anymore...[/caption]

Nemo’s War wins its first battle by getting the name right on the box cover. It…

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Even though Stan Lee called the Scarlet Pimpernel the first superhero he admired, I doubt you’ll be seeing Baroness Orczy’s celebutante in the MCU anytime soon. Published in the early 20th century, the tales of the Scarlet Pimpernel follow England’s deceptively capable man of mystery into the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution as he rescues aristocrats from the guillotine. He had all the honor of Steve Rogers and all the money of Tony Stark. 

Baroness Orczy penned nearly a dozen novels about Sir Percy Blakeney—the man behind the countless costumes—and his infamous League. The stories of daring rescue are pulse-pounding page turners. Will the Scarlet Pimpernel keep his word? Will he arrive in time? Will he escape the deft clutches of Chauvelin once again? Every punchy chapter ends with a question that begs just a few more minutes by the fireside. 

I invite you to fast-forward a century from the novels to explore Brian Kelley’s 2019 tabletop design, The Scarlet Pimpernel, published by Eagle-Gryphon Games. Players take up roles in the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel to help the titular hero through seven missions on both sides of the English Channel.This semi-cooperative game sets at odds the desire to see the hero succeed with the desire to become the most trusted advisor. 

The Way of…

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Imagination Is the Only Weapon In the War With Reality

There are some bad jobs in literature: Defense of the Dark Arts teacher in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, chimney sweep’ apprentice in Tom M. Franklin’s The Pterrible Pteranodon, and the pickpockets in Dickens’ Oliver Twist to name but a few.

[caption id="attachment_260959" align="aligncenter" width="351"] Paint the Roses: Deluxe Edition[/caption]

Then there’s being a gardener in The Red Queen’s garden in Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland. You know, the ones who had to paint the roses to the Red Queen’s ever-changing whims and, if they got the colors wrong, it was off with their heads.

Guess which one is now a board game?

Paint the Roses, the latest in a series of games set in the Alice in Wonderlandverse, is a deduction game where players will try to guess The Red Queen’s latest gardening whim. If you can completely fill in the garden on your last turn, you’ve escaped her axe and win the game.

Let’s get this to the table so you can see how Paint the Roses plays.

The Best Way to Explain It Is to Do It

Set up the board in easy reach of all players. Find the starting tiles…

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