From the rulebook: “Scholars of the South Tigris is set during the height of the Abbasid Caliphate, circa 830 AD. The Caliph has called upon the keenest minds to acquire scientific manuscripts from all over the known world. Players will need to increase their influence in the House of Wisdom, and hire skilled linguists to translate the foreign scrolls into Arabic. In this Golden Age of wisdom and knowledge, be mindful not to neglect one in pursuit of the other”

In Scholars of the South Tigris (Scholars), players will be vying to score the most victory points by the game’s end. Players begin the game with a collection of Action cards and dice. Through the placement of these cards and the assigning of these dice, players will be traveling the world to collect scrolls, hiring translators to translate these scrolls into Arabic, and using the knowledge contained therein to increase their power and improve their standings in the game’s various guilds.

Of course, this is a high-level overview of the game. If you’d like to learn more about how the game is played, read on. Otherwise, feel free to skip to the end to find out what we think of Scholars.

Setup

Scholars is played around a central main board that is broken up into several distinct zones. Along…

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Have you ever been walking through the woods, enjoying nature, when you hear a weird rustle in the leaves? Or perhaps it’s a branch in the canopy above you making a sudden noise. Or maybe it’s just a general feeling that something is there, just off the path, watching you from the underbrush. Whether its intentions are good or bad are entirely unknown. All you know is that you are not as alone as you thought you were.

If you’ve ever had this experience before, chances are you were just mere feet away from a pixie. In the game of Pixies, players take on the roles of…

Well, who knows really? The story above is something I created out of whole cloth. Aside from the delightful images of weird little creatures created out of natural objects (think Little Big Planet meets Marcel the Shell With Shoes On and you’ll have an idea of the aesthetic), there’s not a lot of theme or story to go around. At its heart, Pixies is a pure abstract. Albeit, it’s an abstract with some ridiculously cute artwork.

Overview

In Pixies, the players will take turns drafting cards out of a lineup and then placing them into their tableaus following some…

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The Dwarves: Big Box - Andy Matthews

Up until 2022, I’d never heard of The Dwarves, a hugely popular German five book fantasy series, which spawned a video game and a board game. And I certainly never expected to play it. But my game group wanted to inject some cooperative action into our game nights and The Dwarves was picked.

The goal of The Dwarves is to work your way through a scenario deck of cards, while protecting your lands from invading orcs, trolls, and elves. Players may also complete side quests which can provide valuable bonuses or cause trouble in Girdlegard (the dwarven homeland). At the beginning of every player’s turn the hero marker advances can trigger new enemies to emerge, cause drama in the dwarven high council, or cause negative effects to the side quest deck. In typical coop game fashion there are multiple ways to lose, but only one way to win.

My group had a good time playing The Dwarves, and even spent some time afterwards talking about different approaches we might take in our next play. While I don’t think The Dwarves is going to win any awards, it’s a solid game and one we’ll be playing again. 

Ease of entry?:
★★★☆☆ - There were…

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Hello and welcome to ‘Focused on Feld’. In my Focused on Feld series of reviews, I am working my way through Stefan Feld’s entire catalogue. Over the years, I have hunted down and collected every title he has ever put out. Needless to say, I’m a fan of his work. I’m such a fan, in fact, that when I noticed there were no active Stefan Feld fan groups on Facebook, I created one of my own.

Today we’re going to talk about 2010’s Spiel mit Lukas: Dribbel-Fieber, his 11th game. One of two games in Queen Games’ Spiel mit Lukas line of games, Dribbel-Fieber was Stefan Feld’s very first and, so far, only co-design (co-designed with Wolfgang Panning).

From the moment that I latched onto Stefan Feld as a designer who I wanted to collect, I knew there were two titles that it was going to be next to impossible for me to obtain. The first, Strasbourg, was long out of print and apparently so good that nobody wanted to let go of it. The second was Spiel mit Lukas: Dribbel-Fieber (or, simply, Dribbel-Fieber for short), a game that didn’t see a large print run, was only available in German, was long out of print, and was highly sought after for its rarity. I had a good…

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Flip 7 - Andy Matthews

I love it when a game "hides" the premise in plain sight, like Flip 7 from The Op. It's a lightweight (and I do mean light) press your luck game that has you flipping over cards from a shared deck and deciding "do I stay or do I go?". Number cards earn you points, action cards do special things, and if you ever "Flip 7" cards you earn a sweet 15 point bonus and end the round. But if you flip over a number card that you already have in front of you, then it's a bust for you.

You'll earn points based on the numbers on the cards; their values ranging from 0-15. With the exception of the 0, each card is worth its face value and there are that many cards in the deck: three 3 cards, ten 10 cards, etc. But there's also a handful of action cards which can be both angel and demon (depending on who's receiving them). The Second Chance card lets you skip a "bust", the "Freeze" card helps you stop a runaway leader, and the "Flip Three" card forces a player to flip over three cards even if they might bust!

I played with 3 players and it hummed along…

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Nashville, TN - There are a lot of different Boardgame Box services that have sprung up over the last few years, but none of them has provided the consternation caused by the newest service on the block: Boardgames4U. We spoke to local gamer Gomer Gustafson about his recent experience with the service.

“When I saw that Boardgames4U was a mystery box service, I kinda got excited. I’ve been doing LootCrate for years and I usually get some really cool stuff from that so I was on board from the get-go,” Gustafson says. “At $15 per box, it was a temptation I couldn’t resist. I mean, their website had pictures of games like The Castle of Burgundy and Underwater Cities on it. $15 for a copy of one of those games? Yes, please!”

And then Gustafson began his long wait. This is typical for Boardgame Box services. Most offer monthly plans that will automatically bill you and then send you a new game each month with additional one-off options for people that are testing the waters before they commit or just purchasing a gift for a friend or a loved one. Gustafson went all in at the $150 annual commitment—a $30 savings if he had chosen to go month to month.

“I remember it was around the middle of June or…

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From the rulebook: “It was our darkest hour. All the warnings, all the screams of the desperates. Nobody wanted to hear them. Until it was almost too late. Until only burned soil was left. We couldn’t save ourselves, but the trees could. As if they knew that their time for action had come. They showed us what mattered. We understood them and connected with them. Now we know what to do and we support them as good (sic) as possible with the little technology that [is] left. But also with a new, more natural technology, the Arbors showed us. We need green energy and oxygen, to turn burned soil into live-giving green. You can find it everywhere in our new and promising world of Overgrown…”

In Planta Nubo, the players tend the sky gardens atop the canopies of the Arbors. Flower beds produce flowers which are harvested, carried away, and turned into the green energy that keeps civilization running. The soil left behind is fertile ground for planting new forestation which, in turn, creates the life-sustaining oxygen the planet so desperately needs. Each element of the system feeds into the next in a self-perpetuating cycle.

Zoomed Out - A Brief Overview of the Layout and Some General Concepts

At its heart, Planta Nubo is an engine-building game governed by…

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In classic mythology, the hydra was a many-headed demon that proved very hard to kill. As if its poisonous breath and tainted blood weren’t enough, a hero attempting to slay a hydra would have to contend with its heads not just  regenerating, but doubling, just as quickly as they were lopped off. Back then, the hydra was a friendless, angry beast.

The modern hydra is a much friendlier, more jovial hydra. Much of that is due, no doubt, to the hydra’s affection for the loveable, peaceable otter. Nothing pleases a hydra more than making its otter friends happy and, if there’s one thing that makes them happier than anything, it’s shiny stuff.

In Reef & Ruins, from Carla Kopp (Way Too Many Cats, Roar and Write!), players take on the roles of otters directing their 3-headed friends (represented by three 6-sided dice) as they search through the ruins of wrecked ships and the surrounding reefs for treasure. If they’re feeling particularly generous, they’ll even impart some of their magical essence into their finds to make them even shinier, enhancing their overall value for the end game.

Each round, a player will roll the three dice and players will use those dice however they wish across their three sheets: Ship Ruins, Enchantments, and Reef. Everything a player does…

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From the rulebook:

“For generations, the Blancgriffon school has trained apprentice sorcerers to master the arcane mysteries of earth, water, air, and fire. Every three years, the school’s most talented students enter the Tournament of Sorcerers to defend their class’s honor. In magical memory, the Dragombre school has always won this competition. But this year could very well be different… Who will win?”

Released in 2023, Clash of Magic Schools is a retheme of one of Uwe Rosenberg’s previous titles, Babel. You can check out my review of Babel. In Clash, players are wizarding students leading their class in a contest against other classes in an effort to come out on top and win the competition.

The artwork for this game is lovely. Rather than just rehash a general “blue student/red student/etc.” for each of the different schools of magic, artist Xavier Gueniffey Durin (Tokaido, Namiji, Seasons) has taken the time to provide a unique illustration for each student involved. This uniqueness not only serves to breathe life into the magical school concept, but also lends the game a measure of inclusivity that a lot of games still struggle with these days.

Rather than rehash the…

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Beware! There are hungry monsters living under your bed, and they have an unquenchable appetite for your fear. Classic wisdom says that the only way to get rid of them is to overcome your fears and deny them that sustenance which they crave so badly. But, it turns out there’s another, faster way.

Modern day Monster Science has revealed a chink in the monster armor. Each monster, whether by evolution or intelligent design, is born with a fear of their own.  It turns out each of these creatures is afraid of a very specific type of toy and will flee at the very sight of it.

So, keep your nightstand well stocked because there may come a day (night, actually) where you’ll find yourself assailed on all sides by creepy crawlies and the only weapons you’ll have are your brains, your speed, and the toys that you have at hand. If you’re quick enough and smart enough, you just might emerge victorious and send those monsters fleeing to the closet where they belong.

Let the Monster Chase begin.

How It’s Played

Monster Chase, designed by Antoine Bauza (7 Wonders, Tokaido), is a memory game of monster chasing mayhem for 1 to 6 players aged four and up. The game is played out in two theaters. The first…

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From Wikipedia: “In the early 6th century Judah rebelled against Babylon and was destroyed (586 BCE). The royal court and the priests, prophets and scribes were taken into captivity in Babylon. There the exiles blamed their fate on disobedience to God and looked forward to a future when a penitent and purified people would be allowed to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.”

Decades later, this future they looked forward to came to pass.

The game Ezra and Nehemiah chronicles the challenges that the noted priest and scribe, Ezra, and cup-bearer to king Artaxerxes of Persia, Nehemiah, faced as they worked to restore the city of Jerusalem to its former glory and bring the word of the gospel to the people therein. In the game, players will be using their hand of cards and the workers at their disposal to clear away the rubble of the destroyed city, rebuild the walls and the temple, and teach the Torah to the people.

It is worth noting here that, while Ezra and Nehemiah is inspired by biblical events and takes place in the setting of the story, it is not a religious game. It is a meaty, thinky eurogame with a lot of moving parts and interconnected systems. The aim of the game is to earn the most points by…

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Heaven & Ale - Andy Matthews

Have you ever played one of those “highly recommended” games that are beloved by other people, only to have it fall flat for you? That was my experience with Heaven & Ale, the 2017 release from eggertspiele. There's lots to like about this game: moving up on tracks, managing money, comboing, and that central rondel. But the combination of all of it just left me feeling frustrated and underwhelmed.

I went into the game knowing that money was tight. You start with $25 and the only way to earn money is to “harvest”, and the only way to harvest is to land your player pawn on one of the purple scoring spots (of which there are 6). But first you have to buy tiles that allow you to harvest, and place them on your board (light or dark side?), and arrange them into a configuration that will allow you to build a shed, or by color, or by value… Are you seeing where I'm going with this? And I haven't even gotten to the math-heavy end game scoring.

I'm not questioning whether people like this game, as I mentioned there's lots to sink your teeth into. It just seems that I enjoy softer foods. :D The…

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A Gentle Rain - K. David Ladage

I not only write for Meeple Mountain, I am a fan. When I first read Tom Franklin’s excellent review of A Gentle Rain, I was immediately drawn in. It was well before the review was published to the site that I ordered a copy. When it arrived, my wife and I sat down to experience this meditative exercise disguised as a game.

The rulebook makes it clear that this game knows exactly what it is. If you want to view it as a puzzle, it is a beautiful puzzle. If you want to view it as a game, it is a wonderful solo or cooperative game. If you want to view this as a meditation, it is as calming the sound of wind through the trees. It is a lot of things, and what it is for you will depend upon what you put into it and what you want to get out of it. My wife and I had three sessions in a row that first day. We have returned to that lilly laden lake a few times since. Each time, the experience is fresh but familiar.

I prefer to think of this as a meditation more than anything. I check my score,…

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