Disclaimer: I am not an expert. This guide is written based on my personal experiences and opinions. Your mileage may vary.

Table of Contents

• Background
• Decide what kind of content you want, and know why you want it
• How should you approach creators?
• Paid content
• Free content
  • Previews
  • Reviews
• How do you choose a content creator? What should you look for?
  • Numbers
  • Personality
  • Demographics
• Support from your peers
• Over to you

Background

I’ve been running Punchboard for four years now. It’s a hobby for me, something I do because I enjoy doing it in my spare time when I’m not working full-time or being the dad in my family. During that time I’ve seen plenty of controversies, and more keep happening. As recently as this week there’s been another example of a content creator being deeply unethical, to say the very least. I wish I could say it’s the first time, but it isn’t, and it won’t be the last time either.

As someone trying to put your game out there in the world you’d be forgiven for not knowing how to get your game seen, or who to trust when you decide how. This guide won’t be recommending or warning off anyone in particular. Instead, I want to give you some basic tools to help you make an informed decision, so that people can find your game, find out if it would be a fit for them, and avoid any pitfalls along the way. Other content creators might disagree with me, but this is my guide, so it’s tough.

Decide what kind of content you want, and know why you want it

I’m not a marketing guru. I write reviews and previews, and I do a little bit of social media posting. I’m not going to tell you what you should be targeting and when, but I can at least point you in the right direction.

Speak to people who do this professionally: consultants. There are some great crowdfunding and marketing consultants out there. Invest in this part and you can take the guesswork out of the realms of “what should I be doing?” and focus on the “who do I want to do this with me?”.

You’ll probably find that you end up looking at a mixture of media and formats based on the stage of your game’s lifecycle that you’re in at any given time. In the build-up you might try to get some interviews on podcasts, then get some short-form (Tiktok, Reels etc.) content to raise awareness before launching your campaign. Once it’s out there in the wild, you’ll probably want to get reviews published so that others can tell the world how awesome your game is.

At this stage, it’s definitely worth thinking about what platforms you want your game on, and why. Let’s take reviews for example, as that’s a part of the puzzle I feel confident in talking about. There are plenty of different ways to get a review out there, but each has its pros and cons. Let’s look at some quick examples.

Where do you want reviews posted?

Tricky, isn’t it? There’s no perfect all-in-one solution, so it’s common for people to use multiple platforms. And this is just for reviews. This is all on top of paid advertising considerations like Facebook ads, promotion on Google etc.

Once you choose the platforms you want to use, that’s where the most confusing part starts.

How should you approach creators?

You’ll notice I said approach instead of ‘choose’ because even if you want someone to cover your game, there’s no guarantee you’ll get them. There are a lot of reasons why, but I’ll come to those shortly. You’ve got two approaches for this – direct and prospective.

Direct involves just reaching out to people and getting in touch. Most of the ‘bigger’ outlets will have information available about how to contact them, what they expect, lead times, what they cover, and what they explicitly don’t cover. If you reach out to the really big channels, don’t take it personally if they tell you no, and don’t be surprised if their backlog is too big to work for you.

Prospective is where it gets interesting. It’s essentially an open call for people to contact you to see if you want them to cover your game. You could do this via your mailing list, Facebook groups, or posts on social media. If you choose to post on Facebook it is very important to get in touch with the group admins first to make sure they’re happy for you to post your advert. The same is true of any Discord servers, and other community hubs. People want you to contribute to a community, not just leech from it. The last thing you want to do is immediately get a bad name for yourself before you even start.

The most popular route that I know of (and am in no way endorsing) is the Facebook group Board Game Reviewers & Media. Again, check the rules before you post anything.

Once you get this far you get to one of the most contentious issues of them all. Paid-for vs Free content.

Paid content

Be super, super careful when it comes to paying for content. Let me get the most important part out of the way first. It is not normal to pay for reviews. It doesn’t matter who tells you it is, it isn’t. Morally, ethically, and even legally in many parts of the world, a paid-for review isn’t a real thing. If you want someone’s opinion, money cannot change hands. Some creators will tell you it’s okay, they’ll tell you they can remain unbiased, and they’ll tell you whatever it takes for money to leave your account and make it to theirs. Make no mistake – any reviewer worth their salt will stand firm on the principle that a paid review is nothing more than an advert, and should never be called a review. 99% of the reviewers I’ve met, engaged with, or read opinions from online are vehemently opposed to paid reviews and the people who make them.

That said, there is still plenty you can pay a content creator for and keep your morals intact. Playthroughs can be a really good investment, highlighting your game in great detail and showing how it works. You might pay for someone to do a thorough how-to-play video, supplementing the rulebook with something players can use as an alternate reference.

You can even pay for a crowdfunding preview, just be aware that as with reviews, paying for an opinion is a no-no. If you watch the vast majority of preview videos you’ll notice that they’re strictly informational when it comes to the game itself. “This thing looks cool”. “I really like worker-placement in games”. “Look at the great artwork on the board”. The list goes on, but none of it tells you if the person thought the game was good, or fun. There’s nothing wrong with that as such, it’s just something you might not expect or even be aware of. Free previews can get the praise and adoration you’re looking for, as well as gaining exposure for lesser-known creators.

Free content

Most of the creators you will interact with are not professional. I’m not professional. This isn’t my job. I’m not a trained, qualified journalist. We do these things because we have a love of a hobby and the people and things in it, and we want to spread that love. Keep this at the forefront of your thoughts when you deal with creators, and use it to temper your expectations.

When you aren’t paying for a service, generally speaking, you aren’t entering into a contract with someone. You might have a conversation where someone promises to make a video within two weeks of getting the game, but don’t bank on it, especially if it’s your first interaction with someone. There is zero level of expectation on the part of the person writing or recording something about your game. Promises, platitudes, kind words and anything else are great in theory, but it might not always work out.

Previews

If you’re sending out a precious prototype copy of your game, set out any expectations upfront. Explain how many creators need the copy forwarded around to, offer to pay for postage and packing to send it on, and keep in touch with the person so it doesn’t slip through the cracks.

Whether you choose to send the person a final copy of the game is up to you. Don’t let anyone pressure you into it, and don’t believe them if they say you must send them a copy. You might choose to offer one, and it is very common to do so, but there’s nothing written in stone. Especially if you’re doing a small print run and are relying on the income from selling all of the copies to pay the bills.

Reviews

If we’re talking about a review of a finished product instead of a preview copy, understand that if you send the person a free copy of the game, it is essentially a gift. Treat it as nothing more. Don’t get me wrong, most creators are good and will deliver the review they offer, but understanding that you might not get anything in return is just being realistic and will save you a whole lot of heartache.

“That’s not very professional”, you might think, which is where I urge you to read the first sentence of this section again.

How do you choose a content creator? What should you look for?

We’ve got this far. We know what kinds of content we want for the game, and we know whether we want to pay for it or not. If you put out a prospective call for creators you might have had a ton of applicants you’ve now got to filter through them and decide who you want to make something for you. The problem you might face, especially if you’re relatively new to tabletop games, is that you don’t know these people. You might not be familiar with them or their sites, channels, or podcasts. So how on Earth do you decide who you talk to?

It’s not easy, but there are things you can do to help.

Numbers

Ultimately, what you want is to sell your game to people. You want them to enjoy the thing you’ve created, and maybe you want to make some money at the same time. With this in mind, you want to understand how much reach your potential creators have, and ideally, what that reach entails. Let’s look at a few examples.

YouTube – YouTube is nice and easy for the most part. You can easily check how frequently someone is publishing videos, you can check how many subscribers they have, and you can see how many views their videos get. This alone isn’t enough. Subscribers can be bought, and people can knock out poor-quality videos 10 times a day to boast how many they’ve made, but it doesn’t mean anything if nobody is watching them. Tools like Social Blade are great here. You can look at a channel and look for red flags. If their subscribers graph suddenly has a near-vertical ramp in it, there’s a good chance they paid for subscribers. This isn’t what you want. You want real people who really watch their videos.

Instagram / Tiktok – The same is true of Instagram & Tiktok really. You can quickly see how many followers an account has, you can see how often they post, and more importantly, how much engagement their posts are getting. The algorithms in services like these are very clever at putting the right content in front of the right people when their engagement is good. Are they getting lots of comments and likes? Are people sharing their posts and videos? Do their posts make you take notice, and do you enjoy them? If you’re still unsure, ask them. It’s easy to get analytics on their part.

Written / Blogs – As a writer I can say that we’re often forgotten about when it comes to quantifying how well we do. Most people want to know how many subscriptions a person has, which is great if you’re on YouTube, but not so great if you’re posting written pieces to websites. All is not lost though! Anyone using a platform like WordPress can get really useful analytics and demonstrate how many views their work is getting. If they post their reviews on BGG’s forums you can see how many thumbs and comments they get. If you use Google Analytics and Google Search Console you can get even better information. You can find out how many visitors per day they get, and what their SEO (search engine optimisation) is like.

Podcasts – Podcasts can be really tricky. Podcasting platforms have their own analytics tools, so you can speak to the hosts and ask them about their numbers of subscribers and listens per episode, and you can see where they rank in various podcast service charts, but it’s tricky. The best thing to do is have an open and honest conversation and ask questions.

One of the easiest tests you can do is to head to your favourite search engine and search for ‘<name of game> review‘ and look through the first couple of pages, to see if the review of the game you know they’ve reviewed appears there. Choose a game in the same sort of genre as yours. You want to be findable, right? Visible? Do you want your game’s review to appear on page 20 of Google because the creator has terrible SEO and fills their pages with ads or spam in an attempt to make a few quid, or makes low-quality videos?

If you’re in any doubt, ask. Any respectable content creator will be up-front with the information.

Personality

Do a little digging when you think you might have found someone. At least do the bare minimum in terms of due diligence. Read their About pages, watch/read/listen to some of their content and see what you think of it. Someone might have all the warmth and charisma of a robot, but have a dry sense of humour which really resonates with you and your game’s theme. Someone else might wear their political stance front-and-centre and it might be that even if you have the same leanings, you don’t want your game associated with someone so outwardly political.

The best thing to do is exchange some words with someone. People are just people, after all. Strike up a conversation by email, or invite them to talk in a Zoom or Teams meeting if there’s money changing hands. You can very quickly get a feeling for someone, so trust your instincts.

As I was taught in my first (and only) retail job – People buy people first.

Demographics

This is where we start to look at some of the less obvious things. What kind of person does the creator you’re considering interact with the most? Someone might not have the same raw numbers as a bigger, more established outlet, but what if their engagement comes from communities you want to target? Let’s imagine you’ve made a game about being a musician. A creator who’s also a musician may not only have a better understanding of the subject of your game, but they might also engage with musicians in their day-to-day lives, busting open the dam of a new pool of potential players.

Is your game an adults-only party game full of double-entendres and outright naughtiness? That massive YouTube channel that covers family games might not be a good match for you. Maybe you’ve made a game and you’re proud of how eco-friendly and sustainable it is. Look for people who value and feature that aspect of its production. Your game about fluffy bunnies isn’t going to do well on a channel that covers hardcore wargames, and vice versa.

What about just choosing to support a channel that’s run by people from marginalised or under-represented groups? You might just open your game up to an unexpected audience. Be open to avenues you hadn’t considered when you started out.

Raw numbers are a good place to start, but only a part of the whole picture.

Support from your peers

It’s all well and good for me to preach to you like I know everything, but I don’t know it all, I don’t understand it all, and I’m not pretending I do. The stuff I’ve written above is all based on my own personal experience, and from watching from the wings as yet another scandal comes to the surface. But I have my own biases, as we all do. For instance, I want people to consider written content more than they might, because – shocker – I write reviews.

So talk to people in your position. Speak to other designers and publishers. It’s a reassuringly tight-knit group of people for the most part. Those of you based in the UK should check out the Board Game Designers UK Facebook group, and there’s a bigger, international group here at the Board Game Design Lab. Even without that though, reach out to other people. Ask questions, talk to them. People have been through the same things you have, faced the same questions, and made the same mistakes, and many are happy to share the benefit of their experience.

Head to conventions, even if your game is nowhere near being ready to show. Meet other designers and talk to them about their experiences. Find out what they have and haven’t tried, and what worked for them. The digital content landscape is constantly changing, so dedicate a little time to keeping up with what’s going on. As an example of what I mean, during the course of my writing the draft for this piece, X (Twitter) has been banned in Brazil. Not great news for the Portuguese language game you were hoping to promote on X.

Over to you

As I said at the outset, this whole article is written from my perspective from the other side of the looking glass. It’s a small lens to be looking at it through, I admit, and my knowledge of the likes of TikTok and Instagram is far behind those who actively use it, and do well from it.

That’s why I’d like to turn it over to you. Especially if you’re a publisher or designer who has recently been through this whole process, or interacts with it on a regular basis. I’d love to know about your top tips, potential pitfalls, and recommended communities. Please, reach out to me either in the comments here, my social channels (linked at the top and bottom of this page), or good old-fashioned email via adam at punchboard dot co dot uk.

If there’s enough feedback I’ll post another article written from the POV of the people actually in the trenches, dealing with it regularly. Thanks for reading.

The post How to find a content creator for your game appeared first on Punchboard.

If you’ve no idea what the UKGE is, you can read about past events in my write-ups for 2021, 2022, and 2023 respectively. It’s the biggest games convention in the UK and the third biggest in the world I’m reliably informed that actually there other shows across France and other countries that are plenty bigger too. I need to do some more research! It means that despite the show taking place in three massive halls, it gets busy. Really busy. But that’s a part of the charm.

I’ve said it a lot of times before but it bears repeating. There’s something special about being surrounded by thousands of like-minded people. It gives you a buzz that stays with you for days. If ever you feel your love for the hobby getting stale, head to a convention. It’s like drinking an elixir of gaming rejuvenation.

Ringing the changes

For the most part, every UKGE is the same, but when you’ve been a few times you start to notice small changes. The Shop and Drop, for example, is usually my first port of call. It’s a stand where you can rent a storage box for the day to pick up and drop off anything you’re carrying so you don’t have to lug it around all day. However, when I went to the point in Hall 3 first thing but it wasn’t even setup ready to go. Not a great start, but later while I was wandering the halls I realised that there was another Shop and Drop in Hall 1 too. This was great to see and helped keep the crowds more manageable.

There were some notable absentees from the exhibitors this year. Publishers such as Queen Games and Games Workshop had big stands in the past, but neither was there. Instead, though, there seemed to be more independent publishers than I remember in the past. More gaming-adjacent stalls selling dice, 3D-printed dragons, journals, clothing, bags, and even replica weapons. I spoke to two vendors who were selling cosplay masks and weapons who had never been to the UKGE before but saw enough business to want to come back again.

Ticketing and the Bring and Buy were different too. Collecting tickets seemed quicker and easier than in the past. Especially as a member of the press, I got ushered straight to the front which felt cheeky, but welcome after five hours in the car. I heard stories from some people who had to queue for the best part of an hour on Saturday morning, but if you turn up on the busiest day of the show, you’ve got to expect to queue.

The Bring and Buy saw a big change which limited the number of items any one person could list, fix minimum prices, and prevent price changes during the show. Some people said there seemed to be fewer games in there, but those who added games to the sale experienced a much smaller queue thanks to people not being able to abuse the system by bringing literally hundreds of games in to sell.

On the whole things are improving little-by-little, year-on-year, and it’s a good thing too, because it’s only getting bigger. 39,306 individual people attended, making for 65,281 total visitors over the weekend. That’s incredible.

My time at the show

After picking Paul from Gaming Rules! up on the way, I got to my hotel in time for a quick shower before heading over to the halls. A quick curry at Wetherspoons and a pint of Leffe later and it was off to the press preview. It seemed like there were more stalls than usual and it was a great chance to say hello to people I didn’t know and to catch up with those I do. From there it was over to open gaming to meet up with my extended board game family and play some games.

Friday was another whirlwind of people, stands, and meetings. The buzz around the halls was electric all day and all night. Even though there was barely space to sit and play in Open Gaming until later in the evening, it was great. I was especially pleased as Stefan from Feuerland Spiele came across from Germany for the show and brought a prototype of the new Uwe Rosenberg game, Black Forest, with him. Part Glass Road, part Nusfjord, part something new, it’s a great game with a ton of things to think about. I’m already looking forward to playing it again, and very grateful to Stefan and Paul for the chance to play.

Over the course of the day, I racked up 18,000 steps, and didn’t my feet just know it! It was worth it though. Despite feeling exhausted I couldn’t get to sleep for love nor money that night as my brain tried to process the sensory overload from the previous 14 hours.

Saturday is usually my final day at the expo, and this year was the same. There’s only so much I can take when it’s busy, and Saturday was even busier than Friday, which was already crazy. In some parts of the halls, you could barely move at times, which leads to some frustration for some visitors. People grow tired and impatient, and a few people I know who were demonstrating for various publishers told me about some rude visitors they had. Those people are greatly in the minority, thankfully, and on the whole, the atmosphere is brilliant. There were lots of people with various mobility problems, or pushing prams, and people were considerate enough to help them get from point A to point B.

By mid-afternoon, I was done. Another 17,000 steps on the soles of my feet, a dehydration headache (despite constantly drinking water) and arms and shoulders complaining due to carrying far too many boxes, I made my way back to my car. Four-and-a-half hours later with another 260 miles on my poor car’s odometer, I was home and unwinding. Happy, enthused, and desperate to play more games already.

Thank you

Adding a quick edit here: I can’t believe I forgot to mention Flavien and the crew from Hachette Boardgames UK. He’s the most unmissable person at these shows. Je suis désolé Flav.

I won’t come close to thanking everyone who made my weekend what it was, but I’ll try. Thanks to Paul for the company in the car and the invite to play Black Forest. To Mark, Jill, Clare, Hilmar, Mak, John, Peter, Ben and the rest of the Gaming Rules! crew who chatted and played games with me. To JP, Davey, Tambo, Becky, Kerley, Adrian, Rob (seriously, how many of you are there…?) and whoever else I’ve forgotten from the Whose Turn is it Anyway podcast team for laughs and the invite to a dirty hot dog. To Iain and Oliver of Brainwaves and Rich from their Discord server for the company at breakfast and on the walk to and from the halls. To Tim Clare, whose writing exercises I was doing earlier this year, for playing games with me, introducing me to new ones, and being great company. To Chris, Chris, Jess, Gavin, Devon, Dorka, Ola, Dave, Mark, Sophie, and the countless other publishers and designers who talked to me about everything from their games to the state of American politics. The games are cool, but the people make UKGE what it is.

And of course, a massive thank you to everyone who helped organise and run the expo, the volunteers on the stalls, and the NEC staff for keeping things running.

See you all next year!

The post UK Games Expo 2024 Convention Report appeared first on Punchboard.

I’m here to help you get started.

There are two main things to think about when you’re getting into board games: what will I play, and who will I play with?

You’re probably excited to find out about the games, so let’s start there.

The best board games for beginners in 2024

Board games have come a long way since the games that many of us grew up with. There’s so much more than Cluedo (Clue for my American readers) and Monopoly. That’s actually a part of the problem; there’s a dizzying amount of games out there, so how are you meant to know where to begin?

If you join in with board game groups on Facebook and Reddit or follow trends on Instagram or Twitter, you’ll quickly get overwhelmed with designers’ names and a lot of terminology. Don’t panic! Let’s cover the basics, give you some good ideas to get started, and you can worry about things like designers later.

Carcassonne (2-5 players)

Carcassonne has been around for over 20 years now, and there are two main reasons it’s endured. Firstly, it’s easy to learn, and secondly, it’s really good. It’s a game where you take turns to lay tiles to connect roads and cities, attempting to claim the best ones to score lots of points.

Don’t be tempted to shun Carcassonne because it’s not new or hyped. Most board game fans will have a copy of it years after they start in the hobby, and I don’t know of anyone who’d refuse to play. It’s a true classic. You’ll also know if you like tile-laying games, and it’s likely to be your first introduction to the little wooden folk we all know and love – meeples.

Buy Carcassonne now at kienda.co.uk.

Azul (2-4 players)

Azul is an abstract game. You and your friends claim matching groups of tiles from the middle of the table, aiming to complete rows of different lengths on your own board. It gets tactical pretty quickly, it’s very easy to learn, and it looks great.

Abstract games have a near-universal appeal, and the presentation in Azul elevates it over most other games of its type. The tiles are gorgeous and very tactile. It’s the sort of game you can teach to anybody, and they’ll usually have a great time.

There are several different versions of Azul now, but my advice is to stick with the original for now. The others are variations on a theme, but the original does it best.

Buy Azul now at kienda.co.uk.

Everdell (1-4 players)

Take a look at Everdell on a table and tell me you don’t just fall in love with it. This gorgeous game of woodland critters is a mixture of worker-placement and tableau-building, and it’s a very approachable introduction to both.

There’s no denying that despite its cutesy looks, Everdell ramps up the complexity compared to other games you might have played in the past. It’s got a nice, light set of rules though, and every time you play it will be a bit different to the last time, due to the sheer number of cards the game comes with.

It’s also the first game on this list which includes a solo mode. That’s right, you can play board games by yourself – who knew?! Everdell’s solo is quick and easy to run, and offers up a great way to play the game when you find yourself without other players. If you want to read more about Everdell, I wrote a full review a while back.

Buy Everdell now at kienda.co.uk.

The Crew (2-5 players)

I’ve shortened its name here, which is the overly long The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine. The Crew is a cooperative trick-taking card game where between you, you’ll try to complete missions where you all win or lose together.

Trick-taking games are great to get older generations of players to join in, because the idea of winning a trick isn’t something new. It’s the concept at the heart of traditional card games like Whist or Euchre, so there’s a decent chance your grandparents will understand the aim of the game. What makes The Crew so much fun is the concept of minimal communication. You’re in space, after all, so the only way to communicate which cards you have in hand is with the clever use of tokens.

I’ve never met anyone who didn’t enjoy the crew, and know a surprising number of people who have completed all 50 missions that come in the box.

Buy The Crew now at kienda.co.uk.

Klask (2 players)

Dexterity games tend to come in one of two flavours: balancing and action. Klask is an action game through and through. You hold strong magnets under the raised playing field which make the striker pieces on top of the board move around. Your goal – knock the ball into the other player’s hole.

If you’ve ever played Air Hockey then you’ll know what to expect. The ball goes pinging around off the edges while you try to avoid getting the little magnetic ‘biscuits’ stuck to your piece. It’s quick, easy, and best of all, cheap. It won’t cost you anything like as much as an air hockey table, it’s extremely portable, and it’s a great laugh. I reviewed Klask a while back, so if you want to know a bit more you should probably head over and read it now.

Wingspan (1-5 players)

Wingspan is a little like Everdell in as much as it’s one of the most complicated games on this list. There’s a chance you’ve already heard of it, after all, it even made it as far as appearing on Coronation Street. Another similarity it shares with Everdell is having a powerful, yet approachable table presence. The birdhouse dice tower is lovely, and you’ll need constant reminders that the little eggs are not chocolate mini eggs.

The game itself is a mixture of engine-building and action-selection. You try to collect the right kind of food to add bird cards to your board, then get them to lay eggs in order to carry out the actions they give you. The key is in collecting birds that all complement one another abilities. It’ll definitely take you a while to get the hang of if you’ve never played anything like it before, but there’s a really nice guided introduction game included in the box, to ease you into things.

Wingspan is another game I’ve reviewed here, so pop over now and find out what it’s all about.

Buy Wingspan now at kienda.co.uk.

Just One (3-7 players)

There are so many good party games out there now. Wavelength, So Clover, Codenames, Dixit, The Resistance to name but a few. I’ve gone with Just One here because it’s incredibly portable, scales to just about any number of players if you have enough things to write on, and it’s cooperative.

The game is as simple as trying to guess a clue word after every other player had an opportunity to write a one-word clue on their little easel. The catch? If anyone writes the same clue as someone else, their clues aren’t revealed to the guesser. Simple, cheap, and hysterical fun when someone tries to justify a really outlandish clue. You can’t go wrong with Just One.

Buy Just One now at kienda.co.uk.

Ticket to Ride (2-5 players)

It’s nearly 20 years since Ticket to Ride was released, and it’s still on my list. A true modern classic, Ticket to Ride is a network-building game which has stood the test of time and still deserves a place in this list.

Collect locomotive cards of different colours and trade them in to place your trains on the routes on the board, aiming to join two destinations. There’s a lot of competition for those routes though, so planning and second-guessing what the other players are up to is key. It’s really easy to learn, and there are a ton of versions out there. I’ve gone with the original here because it’s clean, uncomplicated, and a lot of fun.

Buy Ticket to Ride now at kienda.co.uk.

Railroad Ink (1-6 players)

I really want to include a roll-and-write game here, because it’s a sub-genre that’s booming in popularity. Strictly speaking a roll-and-write game will involve dice, but it’s a kind of catch-all term that incorporates a whole heap of verb-and-write games, such as flip-and-write.

Railroad Ink gives each player a grid of squares to draw on and a dry-wipe pen each. Someone rolls the dice, and you have to draw the various pieces of road and rail printed on the dice, on your grid. The aim is to link up as many road and rail links as you can, scoring bonuses for connecting to multiple connection points or going through the middle of the board. It’s quick, easy, and there are a load of different versions to try. Give it a go, it’s another one of those games with near-universal appeal.

Buy Railroad Ink now at kienda.co.uk.

Finding people to play games with

I get it. You’re fired up, you’ve found this wonderful, welcoming hobby, and you want to get stuck-in and play some of your new games. There’s just one hitch… who are you going to play them with?

If you’re lucky enough to have a group of friends who already play tabletop games, you’re lucky. If that’s the case, you probably don’t need this guide, either, as I’m sure you’ll have had plenty of recommendations. The truth, however, is that for a lot of people it’s hard to find people to play with regularly.

So let’s have a look at your options.

Family

If you live with family, you’ve got a captive audience just waiting to experience the delights of your new cardboard hobby. Despite having a captive audience, it’s still really important to get it right when you introduce your nearest and dearest to board games.

First of all, you need to consider your audience. There’s no point trying to get your seven-year-old child to engage in a heavy Euro game or railway share game. Pick your games accordingly. If you aren’t sure what to put on the table, ask someone. Ask any number of online groups, or even just comment here or join my Discord server, where the community will be only too happy to offer suggestions.

Secondly, and most importantly, don’t try to force it! I know, I know, you’re keen, but trust me. If you try to force your family to play and the game falls flat on its face, you’ll have a hard job ever convincing them to play something else again. Be patient, choose your games wisely, and know the game well. You want to be able to explain the game and answer any questions without saying “I don’t know. Let me check the rulebook and BGG forums”. Ten minutes later and your wife’s lost to her phone, Grandpa’s snoring, and your kid is kissing the dog.

Existing friends

If you’re lucky, you might already have a group of friends. You might think “Perfect! Ready-to-go board game players”. Sometimes that’ll work for you, but you need to set your expectations accordingly. I’ve had the same group of friends for over 30 years now, and for the most part, they really don’t like board games. I’ve tried over the years to introduce them to different types of game, but the reality is they’re just not the people I play games with.

If you’re looking to get your existing friends into some gaming with you, and if they don’t sound excited at the prospect of this cool new game you’ve got where you get to make cathedrals in 17th Century Hamburg (you should check out Hamburgum, it’s a great game), then aim your sights lower. Start with some quick games, card games, or fun dexterity games. Games reminiscent of the games they may have played when they were younger. Nostalgia’s a powerful drug.

My main advice when it comes to playing with your friends is to tread carefully. Approach it that way, share your enthusiasm, and know when to take a loss.

Board Game Groups

Now we’re talking. If you want to play games with people, what better place than with a group of people who get together for the sole reason of playing board games? There are board game groups all over the country and the reality is that there’s likely to be one near you. It’s usually just a case of finding them, and then finding one that’s a good fit for you.

What do I mean by that?

There’s a wide range of different types of board game clubs available. Some are long-established with loads of people playing in a hired venue every week. Some are irregular meetups of a group of four or five people at someone’s home or office. It may be that you feel anxious about turning up a big group full of people playing complex games, when all you want to do is rock up with your copy of Love Letter and chill with a cup of tea at the same time.

Take the time to look around at what’s available. If you can’t find anything, ask. For those of you in the UK I suggest joining the Board Game Trading & Chat UK group and asking in there. If you still aren’t having any luck then there’s always the option which I took myself – start your own group. It’s slow-going at first, but it’s definitely both possible and plausible. If you want any advice, drop me a message and I’ll be glad to help.

Play online

As much as we all might want to get our shiny new cardboard on the table with other people, sometimes it’s just not possible. We live in a digital age though, and there are plenty of options to play some of these games online.

Take a look at websites like boardgamearena.com, yucata.de, and boiteajeux.net. You’ll find hundreds of games available to play, often for free. One of the big advantages of websites like these is having two ways to play. You can play in realtime, there and then, with friends or strangers from all around the world. The best thing about using a service like BGA, however, is asynchronous play.

That means you can take your turn, close your browser or turn off your phone for the night, and take your turns the next time you log-on. It’s a great way to play a lot of different games at the same time, but do so at your own pace. It’s also a great way to make friends too.

Playing solo

If you’re new to games, this might seem like a bit of an eyebrow-raiser. Play a board game by yourself? How, or why, would you ever do that?

Solo board games are hugely popular, there are Facebook and Reddit groups dedicated to nothing more than playing games by yourself. The majority of big, new games tend to have a solo mode in them nowadays. Some task you with beating your own best score (Uwe Rosenberg’s games like Atiwa (review here) and Nusfjord (review here) do this), and some like Terraforming Mars set you specific challenges.

The most interesting of the bunch have AI opponents to play against, often referred to as Automa. They often use an extra deck of cards to determine what the bot does on its turns, often mimicing the behaviour of a real, live human being. Some games are built from the ground up to be enjoyed solo, such as Maquis (review here), Black Sonata (review here), and Nemo’s War (review here). I’ve written a lot of pieces here around solo gaming, so check them out.

Summary

Board gaming is still a niche hobby compared to many, but its popularity is growing rapidly. You’ve got a good idea now of how to start building your collection and who you might play your games with. Choosing a set of entry-level games is a difficult task, and no doubt if you ask someone else they might have some crossover with my list, but will probably hear other games mentioned too.

You’ll hear names like Patchwork, Barenpark, Catan, Lords of Waterdeep, Calico, Pandemic, Kingdomino, No Thanks, Skull and many others mentioned. All are great games, and all are great options to get started with. This list can only be so long before it gets overwhelming though, so I’ve tried to keep it to some of my own favourites.

Tabletop gaming is generally a warm, friendly, and welcoming hobby. There are conventions all over the world to go and meet with like-minded gamers, and I recommend going along to one if and when you have the chance. You’ll never feel so buzzed and happy to be a part of our wonderful pastime.

If you have any questions or comments, please just get in touch with me. You can use the contact form on this site, find me on Twitter, pop onto my friendly Discord server, or just drop me a line using adam at punchboard.co.uk. I’m always happy to talk about games, and I’m very keen to make newcomers feel as welcome as possible.

Disclaimer

Wherever possible I’ve linked to my own reviews. In order to be completely transparent with you I’ve also included links to my partner store Kienda.co.uk whenever possible. If you sign up for a new account here – kienda.co.uk/punchboard – you’ll get 5% off your first order of £60 or more, and I’ll get a whole £3 to spend on more games to review. Use the links, don’t use the links, I really don’t mind, they’re there for your convenience. If Kienda doesn’t have something you want, I highly recommend finding an FLGS (friendly local games store) to spend your money at. Jeff Bezos and Amazon don’t need your money.

Thanks for reading,

Adam.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to read more like this, consider supporting the site by joining my supporters’ membership at either Patreon or Ko-fi. It starts from £1 per month, offers member benefits, and lets me know you’re enjoying what I’m doing.

The post How to get into board games in 2024 appeared first on Punchboard.

Enjoy.

Jump to:

The Expo Review

My time at UKGE

UKGE: The Convention

I suspected this year would be a big one, and I was right. Unique attendees went up to 32K this year from 25K last year. That’s an insane number of people, all descending on three halls to buy, sell, talk about, and play games. If it sounds like that number of people would make things very busy, then you’re right. At times certain areas of the halls were absolutely rammed with people. I’m thinking of places like the main thoroughfare between halls one and two, just past the top of the stairs. A combination of a lot of people, retailers with a lot of browsers taking up aisle space, and people walking around with enormous board game backpacks didn’t help.

Seriously folks, If you’re wearing one of these, remember that when you turn side-on to traffic to dig through bargains, you turn into a heavy, swinging saloon door. For the second year in a row, I saw a kid obliterated by a bag. Not good times for them.

Other than those minor gripes, the rest of the show was pretty awesome. There was such a good buzz around the place all of the time, right from the time the doors opened at 9am on Friday. I visited my friend at the Ravensburger stand and asked about the big queue that had already formed, only to find out it was for Lorcana, the new Disney CCG. Mark my words, Lorcana is going to be HUGE. To put that statement into context, I understand that the queue was hours long at times, and this was a queue just to play the game. You couldn’t buy it, it hasn’t been released yet. Disney, in true Disney fashion, is going to make an absolute killing with Lorcana.

Welcoming

One of the things I love to see at board game conventions is how welcoming a hobby it is. UKGE, despite its size, still manages to keep that feeling alive. I saw people of all ages, genders, races, and abilities all over the halls the entire time, and all having a good time. People in wheelchairs were given space to move through the aisles, even when it was crowded.

My favourite moment from the weekend was on the first morning of the expo. I stayed near the airport, which is a short monorail ride away, followed by a walk over the concourse between the railway station and the NEC. For the whole of my journey, I was surrounded by people from all walks of life who were chatting and visibly excited. Seeing grown men dressed in all manner of geeky clothes as excited as kids on Christmas morning was a timely reminder of just how important events like these are. Opportunities to be this way dwindle as the years go by when we become responsible adults. Being able to relax, let down your receding hairline, and just be yourself is heaven-sent.

I was especially pleased to see this on the display boards on the walk over from the train station. It’s exactly the sort of message we should all support. Well done, NEC.

The expected…

All of the things the UKGE is known for were present. The Bring and Buy was huge again, and so were the queues, both to check games in and to get in and browse. I know some people go to conventions especially for the bring and buys, and that’s great, just make sure you take the time to see the rest of the show.

The open gaming area was kitted out in its usual yellow livery courtesy of Game Toppers play mats, and once again there was plenty of space to just sit and play games, whether that’s with old friends or new ones. I like the way the food trucks are in the corner of hall three, where open gaming is. It means you can grab a bite to eat and a drink while you take some respite from the craziness of the main show floor. One word of advice I’d give to everyone attending is to make sure you take a water bottle with you. It gets very hot in there, and the NEC has free refill stations. Just don’t be a dummy and leave your bottle – which you brought especially – in your car in the car park. I’d hate to be that person, right?

There was a huge range of vendors, from the wall-of-games retailers like Chaos Cards, Games Lore, Firestorm Cards, and others, right down to the one-man bands making jewellery and accessories. As tempting as it is to just blow all your money on the latest hotness, I urge you to walk around and look. Really look. Talk to the people behind their stands, because there’s some great stuff waiting to be discovered. I found a stand selling prints of gorgeous hand-drawn anime-inspired posters which made for a great gift for my son.

UKGE runs tons of events during the days and evenings, but I can’t really comment on them, as I don’t go to them. My time is divided between meetings with publishers, catching up with friends, and playing games. I only wish I had more of it.

…and the unexpected

I was caught by surprise by a few things this year. Firstly by Dungeons & Dragons, who I don’t even remember having a presence before. They had a huge area with really impressive displays and umpteen tables where people could have taster sessions in the RPG phenomenon. I didn’t play myself, but I spoke to others who did, and the feedback was really positive. Friendly, welcoming DMs who knew their audience and helped make RPGs more accessible for newcomers. Kudos, D&D.

Another thing that not only surprised me but also sent waves of nostalgia crashing over me, was Tomy’s stand. We had a Screwball Scramble game when I was a kid, and Tomy were running a Screwball Scramble championship over the weekend.

The biggest surprise of all was one particular serendipitous moment. I was meeting with Mighty Boards, talking about one of their games. The designer of that game just happened to be sitting next to us. While we were talking, somebody I work with – who had made the trip to Birmingham without me knowing – walked past and said hello. The designer of the game who had flown in from Malta, who was sitting next to us, just happened to be an old friend of my work colleague, and they used to work together!

It’s a small world indeed.

My UK Games Expo

It was another whirlwind for me. After picking-up Paul (Grogan, of Gaming Rules!) from his house on the way, I got to my hotel late in the afternoon, and barely had time for a quick freshen-up before I was out the door again. Thursday evenings at UKGE are when the Press get a preview show, when we can go in and talk to the various publishers and designers before the madness of the convention starts the following morning. It was great to catch up with people I hadn’t seen for a year, including Joe and Maddie from Cogito Ergo Meeple, whose Solar 175 I covered here some time back. The rest of the night involved a few overpriced beers and some games with my friends from the Gaming Rules! Slack server, also joined by Branislav and his friend, from the Nithrania Youtube channel.

Friday for me was a mixture of meetings and browsing. I met up with Pandasaurus who were back at the Expo after a long Hiatus, Mighty Boards, Dave from Paverson Games (I covered their game, Distilled, here), Wise Wizard Games, and finally I met with OIa again, from Board&Dice. I really enjoy these meetings. Sometimes it’s just good to put a name to a face, and other times you learn things about really exciting projects and games for the coming year or two. If you run a board game channel, podcast, or blog, I highly recommend making these meetings. It gives you some really valuable insight into the other side of the industry.

I was pretty restrained when it came to shopping this year. I’m lucky in that I got to take a few review copies of games home with me, but even so, I’d normally spend whatever money I take with me. This time though, I didn’t. I treated myself to a copy of Pax Pamir 2nd Edition (I was hoping to bump into Cole Wehrle, the designer, but missed him) and a copy of Next Station: London, but that’s it. I know – check me out. The very model of restraint.

Look mum, I’m famous

On a personal level, I’m very proud of the fact I had a pitch for an article in the expo’s programme accepted, and it was great to see it in print at the show. If you went, and if you have a copy of the programme, you can turn to pages 24 & 25 to read my piece about worker-placement in games.

I’m not a fan of people with egos, or show-offs, but in the same breath, I’m told that there’s nothing wrong in having pride in something you’ve made. Here’s the something I made.

Thank yous

Massive thanks to so many people who make the UKGE what it is. From all of the staff at the NEC, the organisers and volunteers of UKGE itself, through to the friendly staff at the hotel. This is especially true of the people who helped make memories with me. Paul for the company in the car on the way up and the game on Saturday evening. My new friends Branislav and Peter from Slovakia. J P, Becky and the rest of the crew from Who’s Turn Is It Anyway podcast (go listen to it, it’s good, I promise). A very special thanks to my extended Gaming Rules! Slack family – John, John, Mak, Peter, Clare, Ben, Jonny, Graham, Leanne, Mark, and the ever-shy-and-retiring Jill. If I missed you on the list, it’s nothing personal, I just have a memory like a sieve.

I’ll see you all next year, if not before at Gridcon in November.

The post UK Games Expo 2023 – Convention Report appeared first on Punchboard.

Heading to Harrogate in March should mean trees coming into leaf, with crocuses and daffodils adding colour like an embroidered carpet throughout the town. Not this year though. It was all white. There was snow – lots of snow. Still, the intrepid tabletop community weren’t about to let something as trivial as sub-zero temperatures, dangerous travelling conditions, or the risk of slipping over stop them. (For the record, I slipped and fell just once, which is a win in my books).

Harrogate Convention Centre was teeming with people, and despite the huge numbers of people, it didn’t feel crowded. That was thanks to the Airecon crew who rented much bigger areas of the centre to run the convention this year. Even then, it still felt pretty full on Saturday, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see it grow again in 2024, if money and Mark’s (the founder of Airecon) stress levels allow.

Come and play

Airecon is a play-focused convention, which means it caters to the likes of you and me: people who want to meet up with like-minded people and play games. It’s in contrast to something like UK Games Expo (you can read my previous reports for UKGE here and here) or Essen Spiel, which have open gaming areas but are set up for vendors first and foremost. Last year’s Airecon (which I wrote about here) had a retail and publisher presence, but it was pretty small. This year the exhibition space was much bigger and felt more like one of the halls at UKGE. 

The purists among you might want to turn their nose up at the growth of places to spend your money, but I’m actually in favour of it, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the additional income from exhibitors means Airecon can afford to occupy as much of the building as it did, and allows it to cater to increased numbers of attendees. Secondly, and maybe most importantly from an attendee’s point of view, the exhibitors were in a completely separate hall from the rest of the convention. If you wanted to you could spend the whole weekend at Airecon and not step foot inside the exhibition hall once. If it continues to grow, I hope the convention keeps this feeling of separation, because it helps Airecon to feel like it has in the past. It’s that spirit and feeling of a gathering of people who just want to play games which makes Airecon what it is.

Airecon isn’t just about playing or buying games. They also run a ton of events. I didn’t attend many, but I did take part in the board game pub quiz again, which was great. Despite having had quite a few drinks between us, our team – Full Fact Hunts (sorry Mark!) – came 4th out of 30+ teams, which was great. Mark runs a great quiz, and we had an absolute hoot. I watched some of the giant Just One game which seemed to be getting a lot of laughs, not to mention the Jolly Boat show, the charity raffle, the Park Run, beer tasting, or the morning meetup for coffee and breakfast. It’s fair to say there’s plenty to be doing at any given moment.

Personal highlights

I had a great time at the convention. On Thursday evening after heading out for a beer and pizza with Iain from The Giant Brain, I nipped over to the hall to collect my pass, only to bump into a certain Mr Rodney Smith, who many of you may know as the face of Watch It Played on YouTube. I went back to the bar with him and Matthew Jude from the same channel (among other things), where we had a couple of beers, waxed lyrical about what makes a good wargame rulebook, and shared our mutual admiration of The Players Aid (go and check them out, Grant and Alexander are great).

It kept snowing overnight, which meant my genius idea backfired on me. I took a large, rolling suitcase with me to transport my games, thinking the rollers would help me. Clever, right? Not so. The snow was so deep that the rollers never touched the tarmac, and I used my case as a makeshift snowplough as I trudged through the streets, dragging it behind me.

You’re welcome, residents of Harrogate.

Once in the halls, I met up with my extended, adopted family of people from the Gaming Rules! Slack server, who I tend to spend time with at every convention. I pretty much just played games all day, which was amazing. I played (and won at!) The Great Wall, which was very good, Yokohama, Ominoes, No Thanks, Scout, Gorilla Marketing, and Can’t Stop.

Saturday was when I took some time out to go and speak to people in the exhibitors’ hall, which was really good. I met a load of new people, including, but not limited to – Andrew from Yay Games, Tristan from Hall or Nothing, Tim from Critical Kit Ltd, and Tony from Meeple Design. Along with them, I managed to bump into old friends too: Tom from Trolls & Rerolls, Laurie from SDR, Paul from Patriot Games, Flavien from Hachette Boardgames UK, and Nicky at Kosmos Games,  I could have spent much longer talking to more people in that hall, but that’s the sort of thing I prefer to do at UK Games Expo. Airecon is for playing games for me.

For the rest of that day I played a few games, including Atiwa, Cuba Libre, and frustratingly a game I can’t tell you much about! I booked in a few months ago for a demo of a new game by David Turczi (Tawantinsuyu) and Simone Luciani (Barrage). I’m not allowed to show you photos of it, I’m not allowed to tell you what it’s called – it’s all very hush-hush.  What I can tell you is that it feels like someone made a game using 60% Brass, 20% Barrage, and 20% Concordia. I can tell you it won’t get crowdfunded. I can tell you it’s coming from a big publisher. I can tell you you should be able to pick it up at Essen this year. I’m very excited to play it again, and I can believe it might already be my game of the year.

Thank yous & final thoughts

There are so many people I want to thank, I’m bound to miss some of them. With that in mind, THANK YOU to:

Mark, Ben, and everyone who set up and ran Airecon, from the organisers to the stewards and everyone in between. From the planning to the execution, without each and every one of you, we wouldn’t have the Airecon we all love.

Rodney, Matthew, and Paula from Watch it Played for taking the time out of their crazy schedules to share a drink and a laugh with me.

Dina from Dina Said So, who not only pushes new indie studios my way, but also brought me Moomin fudge from Finland. MOOMIN FUDGE!

Iain from The Giant Brain, who I’ve known for ages, but met for the first time. We had fun playing games and setting the world to rights over Norwegian breakfasts. Gavin and Sara-Jayne were very welcome additions to our games too, so thank you all.

Last, and in no possible way least, thank you to Mak, Jill, Mark, Bob, Neil, the other Bob, and everyone else from my Gaming Rules! Slack extended family. You guys make conventions for me, and there’s no other group I’d rather play games and drink beer with.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating – if you’re on the fence about going to a convention, or you’re nervous about going, Airecon is a fantastic place to start. There’s no denying that it is very busy, and from the outside, it can seem intimidating. However, in all my years of attending events in different places, for different hobbies, there is nothing that compares to the friendliness you’ll find at an event like Airecon. No matter which demographic you fall into, you’ll be made to feel welcome, and I’ll wager you a bratwurst from the food trucks that you leave with more friends than you arrived with. Even for someone like me who lives a long way away, the 16 hours on trains and 800 miles of travel to get there and back is more than worth it.

See you all next year.

The post Airecon 2023 Convention Report appeared first on Punchboard.

Is it morally reprehensible? Does it make me a bad person?

Or is it actually okay?

A bit of background

When we talk about war games in the modern context, I’m not talking about abstract games like Chess, Go, or Shogi. I’m talking about tabletop games which simulate conflict in some way. Although we think of wargames as a relatively recent invention, this sort of game has been around since the late 18th Century. Most of the early examples came from Prussia, and in the early 20th Century a certain H G Wells (yes, the same H G Wells who wrote The War of the Worlds) even published wargame rules in a book titled Little Wars.

A lot of the early examples were made as educational simulations for the military, but games weren’t mass-produced until the 1950s. That’s when Charles S Roberts founded Avalon Hill and started producing board game wargames. Boxes which contain everything you need to play games like the one which started it all, Gettysburg. Even if you haven’t played an Avalon Hill game, if you’ve been in the board game scene for any length of time, it’s likely you’ve heard of them. The ripples that Avalon Hill games made can still be felt today, thanks to perennial titles like Diplomacy and Advanced Squad Leader.

Ordinary people like me and you have been simulating war on our tables for the last seventy years. Are we monsters?

The voice of experience

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an expert in this field. I know what I enjoy, but I’ve never studied game design, I haven’t studied history formally for the best part of 30 years, and I’m not a student of philosophy. With my level of ignorance already established, I reached out to a couple of wargame designers, people who have both a vested interest in wargames, and a lot of experience in the area.

Volko Ruhnke had a hand in many of the COIN games that GMT Games published, including two of my favourite games of all time – Cuba Libre (review here) and Fire in the Lake.

David Thompson can list games like War Chest, Pavlov’s House, and the Undaunted series on his CV.

I asked each of them the same questions, and here’s the short version of their answers.

Q&A

Me: Do you think it’s morally wrong to enjoy a wargame based on real events?

Volko: No, no more so than enjoying a book, article, movie, play, or any other medium of examination of real events, war included. But I would be interested to hear why someone would separate games from those media in regard to morality.

David: My answer to the question is “no,” but with a caveat. It’s all about the word “enjoy” and what aspect of the game you’re enjoying. For me, I play historical wargames to help explore the situation. I study the maps, the units involved, the reason for the conflict, and use the game as a way to help that exploration. The study is what I enjoy, and playing the game (either solitaire or multiplayer) helps that exploration, and thus provides that enjoyment by extension.

However, each person has different limits to that enjoyment. For me, I don’t like designing (or playing!) games that put the player in the role of performing immoral or unethical actions. For example, in my game “Soldiers in Postmen’s Uniforms,” I don’t allow a player to take on the role of the Danzig city police and German attackers because of the atrocities they commit during the game itself.

Me: Do you have a personal cut-off period for when soon is too soon? So for example, wars in the middle-east, Ukraine, etc. Is there a length of time you feel it’s okay to tackle them, after the end of the conflict?

Volko: No, I don’t. I designed the boardgame Labyrinth in 2009, when its setting, the “global war on terror”, was still very much on, and with an uncertain end. The design remains highly popular today, so apparently it is bringing enjoyment to people. And it has spawned to expansions that examine where things went in the real world from the time of the original game’s printing.

I would return to my comparison above to ask, should there be a cut-off period for writing or film-making to tackle wars in the Middle East, Ukraine, etc.? And, if not, why should game designers uniquely muzzle themselves?

Imagine a cut-off period in topics examined by professional wargaming for the US Department of Defense or the British MoD. Would that not be absurd?

David: Yes, absolutely. For me, I don’t work on games about conflicts where there are living combatants. So WW2 is my cut-off (there are still some WW2 survivors of course, but not for any of the games I’ve designed). I’ve been approached about designing games set in more modern periods, and it’s not something I’m comfortable with. But if I did consider it, I wouldn’t feel comfortable working on the game without the consent of the living combatants.

Me: Is there anything you outright do or do not put into your games, because you have strong personal feelings about them?

Volko: I try (with uncertain success) to include the perspectives and intentions of all the major actors in the affair. That is easier said than done, and we could talk about the importance, challenges, and strategies for doing so at some length.

David: I would just point back to my answer for the initial question. It’s not so much something I do, as something I don’t do. I don’t allow players to take on the role of directly committing immoral or unethical actions in the context of the game itself. This can be a bit of tightrope act – the critical element for me is the context of the game itself.

Me: What would you say to anyone telling me, you, or anyone else that they’re a bad person for enjoying a wargame?

Volko: I would ask them to say more about why they think so, and with regard to what games. Individual player motivations, representations in individual game designs, and individual life situations of those who may level ethical critique of wargaming are all decisive to this issue.

David: I think it’s fine for a person to have that opinion. I don’t necessarily agree with it (see above), but I do understand why someone might feel that way. And to be honest, there have been instances of gamers (not just wargamers) who enjoy elements of games that make me feel uncomfortable (fascination with Nazi Germany, colonization, slavery, etc). And for that reason, I can see why people, in general, might think it’s odd to enjoy a wargame. My only request would be that the person tries to expand their viewpoint and perspective, to try to better understand why gamers might enjoy wargames.

The takeaway

David and Volko are both very successful designers, but even they don’t agree on all aspects. In saying that, it’s important to realise that these are very concise answers, and there’s a huge amount of nuance at play. I’ll be speaking to each of them in more detail soon to go into it all more, as I find it fascinating.

The one thing they absolutely agree on is that it’s perfectly acceptable to play a wargame and have fun with it. So let’s have a look at the things which turn them from the glorification of bloodshed to something we can enjoy in good conscience.

Games as an educational tool

When I was at school, history didn’t do anything for me. I liked science and geography. As I’ve grown older, my interest in what came before me has grown, and modern wargames have been a fantastic teacher.

When I started playing these games, I was surprised by the level of depth in the history and background of each of them. Most board games, even those based on a very specific setting, might only have a couple of paragraphs of background. Open a wargame, and you’re in for a very different experience.

The COIN games take an approach of only very lightly covering the scenario in the rulebook, but the playbooks have some great examples and expansions on those themes. I love the way the game delivers the history piecemeal, with each card representing a real-world event from the time. When I first drew the ‘Sinatra’ card in Cuba Libre, it led me to Google, and in turn a rabbit hole of reading about his meeting with the heads of the crime syndicate in Cuba in 1946.

While I was playing Salerno ’43 I spent a lot of time reading the rulebook. Mostly to learn how to play, but also because I found the level of depth that Mark Simonitch had gone into absolutely insane. In the design notes towards the end of the book he has an explanation for why one particular road isn’t on the map of Northern Italy he used:

Why no Amalfi Coast Road?
I left out the coastal road that runs between the towns of Amalfi and Sorrento because some playertesters were using it to supply a multi-division force along the road to rush up the west coast. This famous scenic road which runs along cliffs and through tunnels would never have been used to supply even a single regiment—it was far too vulnerable to sabotage and demolition.

When I reviewed By Stealth and Sea, by DVG, I was honestly taken aback by the level of detail Nicola and David (the designers) had gone to. If you don’t know the game, you play as Italian submariners who ride torpedoes into bays, in an attempt to take down allied ships. Each of the crew members on the torpedoes has a name and a photograph. These aren’t just made-up names and faces, these are the actual human beings who took part in these terrifying missions. Once again, I learned so much about a portion of history I never knew existed, and I couldn’t help but feel a strong emotional connection to each of them, despite them being a part of the Axis. This leads us nicely to my next consideration.

Levels of abstraction

In my limited exposure to the genre of wargames I’ve noticed that the scale of the games can vary greatly. Using a similar size board on my table, I can be controlling huge numbers of soldiers across the entire country of India in Gandhi (review here), or individual, named soldiers in Lanzerath Ridge. I found the difference in scale interesting and found that the different levels of abstraction in wargames have well-known scales.

If you have a look at the BGG category for Wargame, the games tend to get split into one of three sub-categories:

• Tactical – these games are at the sort of scale I talked about before in Lanzerath Ridge, or the Undaunted series. Identifiable individual soldiers or units moving around a map that might only be a few miles across.
• Operational – moving the operational level is the equivalent of ‘zooming out’ on the battlefield. Our counters representing individual soldiers become battalions, brigades, or divisions. Those of you more experienced than me might disagree, but to my mind, this is the sort of scale we’re talking about with Simonitch’s ‘4x series of games.
• Strategic – at the strategic level we’re looking at entire continents at a time, or even the entire world. I don’t have much in the way of experience here unless you’re counting games like Twilight Struggle.

So the scale is a thing. But how does it tie back to the original topic of this article, and why it matters when it comes to enjoying wargames, or not

Some people can feel very uncomfortable when it comes to taking named people into a battle, knowing they may die, and knowing that that person may well have gone into combat and died. Even while writing that, there’s a small something inside me that’s flinching.

Taking a step back from the on-the-ground bloodshed isn’t a case of denying it, or negating the fact that it ever happened. It just makes it more comfortable for some people to enjoy when it’s in the form of entertainment. And it’s understandable. We play games to have fun, most of the time, and if someone adds something to your game which makes you feel uneasy, or straight-up upset, is that something you want? There is definitely a time and a place to bring those things to the fore, but we’re talking about an elective activity, a way to spend your free time.

This is all a round-the-houses way of me trying to say if you feel happier playing a game at the operational level, rather than the tactical, go for it. It doesn’t mean you’re denying the fact it ever happened.

In closing

I want to apologise for the way this article may feel like it’s leading you down a dead end sometimes. It’s been as much an opportunity for internal reflection and resolution as it has been for creating something for other people to read. Right off the bat, I asked ‘Is it okay to enjoy wargames?’, and the answer I’ve come up with is an ambiguous ‘it depends’.

Each of us has our own moral compass, with its North set by our upbringing, education and personal opinions. If the idea of war is so abhorrent to you that you wouldn’t even watch a film or TV series about it, then a wargame isn’t going to be for you. But that doesn’t mean the same applies to everybody else. Enjoying a wargame doesn’t mean you’re glorifying and making light of the sacrifice made by thousands of people, or the atrocities carried out in the name of genocidal maniacs. Quite the opposite.

When I play these games it provides me with entertainment, but also a sense of reverence, humility and appreciation. It’s keeping history alive, and making sure these things aren’t forgotten or twisted by works of fiction, or the minds of people who would seek to obscure them in the fog of time. Thanks to All Bridges Burning (review here) I know about the Finnish Civil War, and the power struggle between the Red and White, with Germany and Russia playing their parts. By Stealth and Sea (review here) taught me about the Italian men who set out on near-suicidal missions with unreliable equipment, all in the name of someone else’s fight. There’s even a free downloadable PDF companion book for the latter. Both are fantastic games, and eye-opening glimpses into a past I didn’t know existed.

Enjoy your wargames for the same reasons you enjoy a good book or film set during a war.

Feedback and disclaimer

Thanks for getting this far. Just a quick note to say that this entire article is based on my opinion, and in some places, the opinions of others. If you have any feedback, questions, or concerns, please just leave a comment, come and find me on Discord, or drop me an email using adam at punchboard dot co dot uk.

I also want to say a huge thank you to both Volko and David for their valuable input, and for taking the time to talk to me.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to read more like this, consider supporting the site by joining my monthly membership at Kofi. It starts from £1 per month, offers member benefits, and lets me know you’re enjoying what I’m doing.

The post Is it okay to enjoy wargames? appeared first on Punchboard.

Now that we’re able to be in the same room as other people again, why not throw a Halloween party of your own, and get family and friends gathered around a table to turn the spook dial all the way up to 11. Below you’ll find my guide to my favourite Halloween games for families, kids, gamers, and groups of friends. Whatever your situation, you’ll be able to find something to fit the bill.

Special note: Kienda is now a sponsor of Punchboard. Some of the included games are available there. If you buy any of them (or any others), and your order totals £60 or more, you can get 5% off your purchase. Just head to kienda.co.uk/punchboard to create your account. No tricks, just treats.

Clickable games index

Family games

I’ve chosen these games to work with a combination of adults and older kids. Or just adults, there’s no shame in a bit of Scooby-Doo action, especially at Halloween.

Horrified

I reviewed Horrified here on the site a while back, and it’s still in my collection. It’s a cooperative game (great to avoid arguments!) in which you’re trying to stop the monsters from achieving their goals.

The monsters are classics from Universal’s back catalogue, including Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster (and his wife), and The Wolfman. They can be mixed and matched, and all play the game very differently.

It works great on a family games night because of the combination of bright colours, cool plastic monster minis, and the ‘us against the monsters’ feel. Younger kids can play too but might take a little bit of careful steering by experienced parents. Win or lose, you’re all in it together.

Scooby-Doo: Escape from the Haunted Mansion

Nothing says “child-friendly spooky” like Scooby-Doo. There are probably countless games out there that bear everyone’s favourite scaredy-dog’s name, but Escape from the Haunted Mansion (review here) must surely be the best.

It’s another cooperative game in which you control the gang as they attempt to escape the titular mansion. The artwork and presentation are fantastic, and you’ll use the various books included in the game to do your very best Shaggy impressions – like, zoiks!

The gameplay is great and makes clever use of a code system. If you want to try using an item with a character’s skill, look up the unique code in the book and see what happens. My son absolutely loved this game, and I think your kids will too.

Mysterium

It doesn’t get much spookier than ghosts, right? Mysterium is another cooperative game, where one player is a ghost, and the others are paranormal investigators.

If you’re the ghost, you don’t speak at all in Mysterium. Instead, you try to pass clues as to the identity of your killer, and the location and weapon. The clues come in the form of dream-like cards which you hand to the players, who then have to decipher your hint from the (sometimes surreal) images on the cards.

It’s great fun, and half the fun comes when you fail and try to explain how each card was meant to be a clue for something really tangential.

Buy it now at Kienda and don’t forget to sign-up with this link for a potential 5% off (see top of page)

Children’s games

Halloween is (apparently) for kids, so ramp up the spook factor safely with games like these.

Zombie Kidz Evolution

Kids’ games don’t have to stray far from the path of the sort of games hobbyists play. Zombie Kidz Evolution is a proper Legacy game, but one which your screaming ankle-biters control.

As unlikely a scenario as it may be, in Zombie Kidz Evolution the kids are trying to save the school. The janitor scarpered at the first sign of trouble, and the children need to work together to fend off the zombie horde while trying to lock the entrances to keep them out.

They’ll unlock new heroes, and new abilities, and even get to do the cool thing of opening envelopes to see how the story progresses. It’s a fantastic game that deserves to hold the #1 spot on BGG’s children’s games list.

Buy it now at Kienda and don’t forget to sign-up with this link for a potential 5% off (see top of page)

Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters

This game is so frequently recommended for kids that not including it in a list of top Halloween kids’ games would be criminal. It’s another cooperative game and this time you’re trying to find jewels in a house. A haunted house!

It’s really easy to play – rolling dice to move around, collect treasure and fight ghosts. There are some great little tweaks that force the kids to work as a team, like for example when a third ghost enters a room and it becomes a Haunting. Two of you then need to fight those spooks.

The little ghosts are adorable, and the plastic player characters are very cool, with slots in their backpacks that the jewels actually fit into. It’s basically a lighter Pandemic, but with ghosts instead of diseases, which is awesome.

Ghost Adventure

Ghost Adventure is a bit of a gimmick game, but it’s a great gimmick. The aim is to guide your ghost mouse (don’t ask) on missions, collecting stuff and moving through the various boards. “How?” you ask. A spinning top!

It’s a dexterity game where you pick up the boards and tilt them to move the top around, avoiding traps, and trying to reach specific spots. The boards are beautifully made, double- and sometimes triple-layered. You’ll be jumping the top, flipping boards, making perilous board-to-board transfers.

I played this at last year’s UK Games Expo, and while it might not keep adults interested too long, the game and its gorgeous comic certainly keep kids hooked.

Buy it now at Kienda and don’t forget to sign-up with this link for a potential 5% off (see top of page)

Gamers’ games

Look, I get it. Halloween is cool and all, but you’re serious about your board games. Ghost mice and anthropomorphic crime-fighting Great Danes won’t keep you or your group entertained. Here are some more serious games which ought to keep you busy, spooky hardcore.

Betrayal at House on the Hill: 3rd Edition

There’s a reason Betrayal at House on the Hill is on a 3rd Edition – it’s great. One of the original hidden traitor games, Betrayal has these great narrative elements, telling the story of a group of explorers seeking to discover the secrets of the eponymous house. One of you, however, has a hidden role. Once the Haunt begins, the traitor needs to do whatever’s required of them before the good guys do the same. Who is it though!?

The plastic minis are great, and just the sort of thing a good spooky games night can do with to build atmosphere. The designers created a great modular system, with the house being revealed as you explore and flip tiles.

This third edition tidies up some of the things that left a sour taste for some people in its predecessors. There’s less of a chaotic feel at times, and the inclusion of scenario cards provides some back story, which helps pull the narrative together. It’s a great game.

Buy it now at Kienda and don’t forget to sign-up with this link for a potential 5% off (see top of page)

Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein

If you can find a copy, Abomination is the perfect game for Halloween. It’s a worker-placement game where players hope to prove themselves as the next Dr Frankenstein by creating a new creature, to keep the previous monster company. Bless, he’s lonely!

The presentation of gothic Paris on the board is great, and it’s cool fun to actually find and place the body parts on your boards. Worker-placement is the order of the day, and it ties in with the theme so well. Digging around in graves and the morgue, researching science, even trying to find the spark itself, to bring it all to life.

If you play it, I highly recommend playing the official Igor Variant, which shortens the length of the game and tightens things up.

Zombicide: 2nd Edition

If you’re after a zombie game that recreates the feel of films like Dawn of the Dead, look no further. A group of over-the-top characters band together to fight off swarms of Zeds, find weapons and items, level-up, and engage in good ol’ fashioned carnage.

The scenarios are all linked with an overarching story, which lets you choose the way it branches, as a team. It adds a feeling of investment which keeps the same players coming back for more.

Zombicide really is the zombie game these days, and with good reason. The second edition tightens up a few rules which bring down the dependence on luck, and I understand you can mix in your stuff from the original. There’s a stupid amount of extras and expansions available to fuel your zombie-slaying for years to come. It’s a brilliant ‘beer and pretzels’ co-op blast-fest.

Buy it now at Kienda and don’t forget to sign-up with this link for a potential 5% off (see top of page)

Mansions of Madness: Second Edition

It wouldn’t be a horror compilation without a bit of Lovecraft, right? The original Mansions of Madness did really well, but required one player to act as the DM as such, controlling the mansion and the monsters therein. This second edition introduces an app which does the job for you.

Whether you like app-driven games or not, being able to play the game truly co-op with your group is great. As you explore the mansions of Arkham and Innsmouth you’ll need to work together to choose where to go, find weapons and items, solve puzzles, and do your best to avoid insanity – and death!

It’s scenario-based, which is good, but means you’ll end up buying expansions if you really get into it. Good news for the game, bad news for your wallet. A true horror classic.

Buy it now at Kienda and don’t forget to sign-up with this link for a potential 5% off (see top of page)

Party games

So you’re having a party for Halloween, but the folks coming aren’t gamers. Maybe they’re lifelong friends, people from work, or just those people you lured into your van with ‘FREE CANDY’ written on the side. Whatever the situation, you want to keep them entertained (or from trying to escape), and what better than a decent party game or two?

One Night Ultimate Werewolf

There are a buttload of different variants on the classic ‘Werewolf’ game, and this is the best place to start. 3-10 of you (the more the better) randomly take roles of people in a village. Some of you are werewolves, trying to eliminate the rest of the villagers, while the villagers aim to expose the werewolves for the lupine gits that they are.

All the different roles on offer give players different abilities, and if you choose to use the companion app (which I recommend, it’s really well done), it ‘wakes’ each player during the night to carry out their tasks, before day breaks and the accusations start flying.

Quick, chaotic fun. If werewolves aren’t your thing there’s a vampire version, one with aliens, and even superhero and villain varieties.

Buy it now at Kienda and don’t forget to sign-up with this link for a potential 5% off (see top of page)

Medium

You knew I was including Medium, right? Because you’re psychic?

If so, Medium is the game you’re after. It’s a quick, light game, perfect for after-dinner games, and hysterical after a drink or two, if that’s your thing.

Everyone has a hand of cards, each card with a word on it. In pairs, you reveal a card each, and then the mind-reading happens. You both have to come up with a single word or sentence that links the two cards. There’s this brilliant “Three, two, one…” before you both blurt out your answer.

It’s great if you’re in sync and get it right, but the wrong answers can be straight-up hilarious. I love Medium.

Buy it now at Kienda and don’t forget to sign-up with this link for a potential 5% off (see top of page)

Blood on the Clocktower

Blood on the Clocktower is a recent phenomenon. I’ve seen people go to Expos just to play it. At this year’s UKGE (and last years for that matter) the group giving playthroughs had a queue for the whole show.

It’s a big social deduction game that plays up to 20 players, and does the whole ‘guess who the demons are before they kill too many of the townsfolk’ thing similar to Werewolf. The storyteller role is what really sets the game apart, with the way they run what’s happening, controlling pieces, and letting players concentrate on… playing. Players can even turn up late and join in. Every role (of the 200 or so available across different versions) is unique, and you can even win if you’re dead!

It’s not easy to get over here in the UK yet, but if you can get hold of it, I suggest you do so, it’s magnificent.

Summary

No two Halloween gatherings are the same, which means it’s impossible to put together a list that everyone will get something from. I’ve covered most of the bases here though, meaning whether you’re just with one other person, or another 19 people, you’ll find something to play, regardless of age.

If you enjoyed this guide and would like to read more of this kind of thing, consider supporting the site by joining my monthly membership over at Kofi. It starts from £1 per month and lets me know you’re enjoying what I’m doing, which is the most important thing to me.

The post The Halloween Board Game Guide appeared first on Punchboard.

Any of the links in the summaries below will take you to full reviews of each game. So without further ado…

10. Anno 1800 (Kosmos Games, 2020)

If the name seems familiar, it’s because Anno 1800 was first a city-builder video game from Ubisoft. One of my favourite designers – Martin Wallace – is behind the board game version, and he’s done a brilliant job of capturing the feel of the original. The Anno series of games are about taking a small settlement and growing it. Gather resources, convert them into other resources, add roads and housing for the populace, and do your best to keep them happy. There’s usually a little warfare involved, but the reason that I enjoy them so much is watching your village grow and thrive.

Anno 1800 the board game does a remarkable job of capturing nearly everything in the video game. You need to add buildings to generate and convert resources, manage your workers, and even explore new lands. The main board is a market of SO MANY tiles to buy and add to your player board. Honestly, it’s crazy how many there are, so a good insert is the order of the day. But once you’ve sorted your table out, what you’re left with is a game with a ton of ways to play it, a very addictive gameplay loop, and the best cardboard representation of a video game I’ve ever played. Full review to come in 2022.

9. Dominion (Rio Grande Games, 2008)

The grand-daddy of deck-building games, and still my favourite. No other game in my collection has seen the play time that Dominion has, and the brilliance of Donald X. Vaccarino’s design still holds up today. Although the game is supposedly about building your city, with the cards representing buildings and people in it, the setting may as well not be there. What makes Dominion sing is the streamlined Action, Buy, Clean-up (ABC) loop the game employs. I couldn’t care less if I’m playing a Village or a Market card, I’m looking at how many extra actions or coins it gives me on that turn.

The sheer variety of game setups with just the base game box means you can play it over, and over again. If you do get bored, there’s around a hundred expansions too. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but there are a lot of them. This year I’ve played my aging copy with real people, and also playing weekly on the excellent implementation at dominion.games. I even got in on the beta testing of the new (and very good) app version of the game. If you’ve never played Dominion, and you’re looking at the 2008 release date, please don’t let it put you off. Deck-builders come and go. Dominion is forever.

8. Anomia (Asmodee, 2010)

I’ve sung the praises of Anomia here plenty of times this year, and I’ll continue to. It’s my favourite party game, and because it’s just a couple of decks of cards, I can (and do) take it everywhere with me. The idea is simple. Flip a card, and if the picture on it matches the picture on the card in front of another player, name an example of the thing written on their card. If you do it first, you win the card. I know that doesn’t very interesting, or much fun, but believe me when I tell you that Anomia will have you laughing and shouting at your friends like no other game does.

There’s an amazing cognitive disconnect that happens when you have to name something. I think it’s something to do with your brain immediately having to switch from matching pictures, to reading and recalling words. Something as simple as naming a bird for example. You could be sat there with a parrot on your shoulder, stroking your pet penguin, bluebirds in the kitchen doing the dishes Disney-style, and you won’t be able to name a single bird. It’s cheap, hilarious, and absolutely brilliant.

7. Lost Ruins of Arnak (Czech Games Edition, 2020)

I’ve not really mentioned Lost Ruins of Arnak here much, and that’s shameful. It was one of the biggest releases last year, and one I picked up as soon as it released. The debutant designers, Min & Elwin, created a fantasy land of ancient mystery and monsters. Players take the roles of archaeologists exploring the lands of Arnak. Researching ancient texts, making expeditions into forgotten lands, and taking on the guardians protecting them. “How?”, you ask. Deck-building and worker-placement!

The deck-building is very light in all honesty, but the way the game plays out is really fun. There’s competition for the various worker spots on the board, and lots of ways to score points, but the game’s mechanisms are nice and simple. The components are really good, and the artwork is incredible. It’s also available on Board Game Arena, and I’ve been playing it asynchronously on there for months. I’m still not tired of it, and it’s going to stay in my collection for a long time, as I think it’s an excellent gateway game.

6. Dune Imperium (Dire Wolf, 2020)

The third of the big ‘Combining deck-building with other things’ game of last year (along with Lost Ruins of Arnak and Viscounts of the West Kingdom), Dune Imperium was destined to be launched alongside the new film. Unfortunately, our friend Covid-19 disrupted the film’s release, but luckily for us, the game came out. It’s a mix of traditional worker-placement with deck-building, vying for favour with the empire and houses of Arrakis. The board is bigger than it needs to be, but the artwork and attention to detail is great throughout.

Unusually for a worker-placement game, there’s a lot of interaction, albeit not direct. As well as taking actions, harvesting water and Spice, and recruiting people and vehicles into your deck of cards, there are battles kicking-off on the lower-right of the board. Players raise their troops, who are cubes, naturally, and compete to see who can dominate the area at the end of the current round, with some hefty bonuses on offer for the victor. There are some neat mechanisms whereby cards and powers can be used right up until the point of conflict, keeping you on your toes. Is there room for all three games in your collection? Absolutely, all three are on my shelves next to me as I write.

5. Ride the Rails (Capstone Games, 2020)

Cube rail games were among my favourite new things in 2020. My first dabblings were with Luzon Rails and Ride the Rails, and I was immediately hooked. Each of them have a subtly different take on the idea of a hex-based railway game, with players competing to lay tracks and invest in the various companies who own them. Ride the Rails is about as a pretty as a board covered in hexes can be, thanks to Punchboard favourite Ian O’Toole in charge of the art. The tiny wooden trains and little wooden passenger tokens are irresistibly cute, it’s a game desperate to be played with.

The simple turns consisting of investing in a company, putting trains on the board, and moving passengers along the tracks are really simple to teach. So much so, there’s no rulebook, just a double-sided rules sheet. It plays out in around an hour, but in that hour there is so much scope for cunning strategy, and each successive play only makes the game better, as players start to learn the ins-and-outs better, and learn where there are opportunities to piggyback someone else’s good work and buy stock in the same companies. Locomotive magic, and I hope to cover the rest of the Iron Rail series next year: Irish Gauge and Iberian Gauge.

4. Too Many Bones (Chip Theory Games, 2017)

Too Many Bones was one of those games that I’d always kept on the edge of my radar. I didn’t like the look of the poker chips moving around a small arena board, I didn’t like the price, but I did like how much people raved about it. Including people who share similar tastes with me. Luckily, earlier in the year Chip Theory sent me a copy to review, and I fell in love with it. It evokes the feeling of playing a Tactical RPG on a computer, but gathered around a table, with a ridiculous number of dice to roll all over the place.

The production values are really high, and I love the neoprene player character mats, with their little cutouts to slot dice into when you learn new abilities. It’s not all just prettiness though, Too Many Bones is a really solid skirmish game, with so much variety available in every game. The monsters you fight, the characters you use, the way you choose to customise them, and work together with your team-mates. It’s extremely satisfying, and one of the few co-op games I genuinely love. I can see myself playing this years from now, which is an honour not too many games have.

3. On Mars (Eagle-Gryphon Games, 2020)

You don’t have to be into board games for too long before you get wind of the combination of publisher Eagle-Gryphon Games, and designer Vital Lacerda. Their partnership is ubiquitous in euro games, with huge boxes of game, lavish presentation and components, and very hefty price tags. While at this year’s UK Games Expo, I sold some games and treated myself to the most-recent of their games – On Mars. It’s a very heavy worker-placement game with a vast array of choices at every step of the way.

The clever use of the planetside and orbit areas, and choosing when to transition between them. The way the resources chain together in a glorious cycle of production, rooted in science. The tiny wooden rockets you put on your double-layered player boards. There’s is so much about this game that I love. It’s a tricky game, and it’s one I won’t get to play too often, just because of the weight of complexity when it comes to choosing what to do. If you’re not scared of a learning game or two though, and if you’re looking for a sci-fi game with a well-integrated setting, you really ought to be looking at On Mars. Its weight and cost, in this instance, more than warrants a place in my collection. It’s a fabulous game.

2. Gandhi (GMT Games, 2019)

The biggest and best surprise I had in 2021 was playing Gandhi: The Decolonization of British India, 1917-1947. I’d been taking a little more interest in traditional war games since playing Root, and ended up choosing Gandhi as my foot in the door. To say I was overwhelmed when I went through the box contents for the first time, would be a big understatement. Despite the really nice wooden components, and pretty board, the two thick rulebooks were so daunting. Even when I sat down and tried to read through them, I came away none-the-wiser.

Patience is a virtue, however, or so they say, and my patience was rewarded in a massive way. After understanding that one of the two books in the box is perhaps the single best play-along tutorial I’ve ever encountered, I came to understand why this genre of game gets so much love. It’s a very heavy game, there’s no denying that, but the strategising and the choices on offer in each round are brilliant. The asymmetry between the four factions, the brilliance of the solo automa decks, the different campaigns, the historical accuracy, and the gameplay, are all things of beauty. It’s not tanks rolling across French countryside in the 1940s, but it’s an area-control game of the highest calibre, and I can’t wait to play it again. Even writing this is making me want to set it up for a game, it’s magnificent.

1. Hadrian’s Wall (Garphill Games, 2021)

Hadrian’s Wall has the biggest disparity between presentation and fun that I’ve ever come across in a game. The chunkiest roll-and-write game so far, it’s an absolute masterclass in how to make a satisfying game. The designer, Garphill newcomer Bobby Hill, might not be well-known just yet, but if he keeps making games like this, he soon will be. Two sheets covered in literally hundreds of small boxes are set before you, some cards flipped, and it’s your job to turn your people and resources into the greatest section of fortification in Roman Britain. Although it’s a game for up to six players, it’s ostensibly a solo game, played at the same time as others, which is good news in these masked days we find ourselves in.

The gameplay loop of scribbling out a box, which lets you scribble in another, and then another, is so addictive it could be categorised as a Class-B drug. There’s an inordinate amount of joy that comes from doing it, and it makes me worry for my free time when I become old enough to comfortably visit the local Bingo hall. There are so many options available that you can try different ideas every time you play it. At first it feels like… well, I can’t see how you can possibly get better at this, it’s so random. But then you realise it isn’t random, and you can do better, and you’ll sit there and play game after game after game.

I knew how much I loved the game when I was playing it in the first half of the year, but I wondered if that new-game lustre would fade as the year went on. It hasn’t. I still love it. I still play it. And that’s not just because after release they released a full, FREE, downloadable solo campaign either (although it didn’t hurt). Yes, it looks a bit blergh, yes, it sounds a bit dull. But please, trust me when I tell you how good this game is, then toddle off and buy yourself a copy, and then write to me. “Hey, Adam, I’m so glad I bought Hadrian’s Wall, it’s great, let’s talk about it lots, new best friend“

Have you played all of my top 10 games? Some? None? Is there anything on there you strongly disagree with, and what have I missed? Let me know in the comments below, or let me know on Twitter.

The post My Top 10 Board Games of 2021 appeared first on Punchboard.

The Dark Imp has a goal. They want to help parents reclaim family time, getting kids’ attention away from screens, and playing physical games around a table, together. It’s an ideal I hold close to my own heart, as the dad to an eight-year-old who would do nothing but play and watch Pokémon and Minecraft if I let him. So, over the course of a few weeks, we all sat down together and played through the games.

Some of the games are lighter, only taking a few minutes to play, with simple rules. Some of them are much more like the sort of thing I’d normally be buying for myself, so I’m going to give you an idea of the games we played, what we thought of them, and the sort of ages each would fit best with. With that preamble out of the way, let’s get onto the games. It’s a lengthy post, as there’s a lot to cover, so here’s a handy little index to jump to whatever you want to read.

Coaster Games

Beach Life + Castaway (placemat games)

Cracker Games

Don’t Count Your Chickens

Top Cake

Doughnut Dash

Gnome Grown

Summary

Coaster Games

For whatever reason, my son immediately grabbed these out of the box. Something about the size and shape appealed, so before I’d even unpacked the rest of the games, we got started. All you need are some pens and some paper. The rules are on one side of the coaster, the game on the other side. A couple of the games were a bit too complicated for him, but we had three in particular that were big hits.

Alien Farm is a game of doodling aliens in a grid, taking turns to decide what you can place next. Points are awarded for certain placement rules. While I just added initials for the aliens, mini-me had to draw every single alien, and loved it.

Free The Frog is a cutesy thing where one player (the frog) thinks of a thing, then the others choose categories of clues to try to guess the word. It’s a nice, light work game that we had fun with.

Treasure Split is a game where each step of the way along the path each player secretly decides whether to split the money you find, or keep it for themselves. If everyone splits, they get a share. If one persons keeps it, they keep it alone. However, if more than one person tries to steal the lot, no-one wins. I liked the way the Prisoner’s Dilemma has been turned into a game, but no-one was interested in listening to me explaining the theory!

Beach Life + Castaway (placemat games)

These games make up opposite sides of a big A3 sheet, and that gave me a nice bit of leverage: “Shall we play this? It’s pretty big, so turn the TV off, we’ll go set it up on the kltchen table”. Beach life is what you’d get if you took Ganz Schon Clever and gave it a theme. It’s got a nice seaside feel, and the big boxes and clear instructions made it easy for everyone. You roll dice, use one of them to pick an area on the sheet, and the other to cross something off in that area. It’s cute and easy to explain, and everyone understood what to do within two turns.

My favourite of the two is Castaway however. You’re castaways on an island which is divided up into a grid. Roll a couple of dice, use the numbers as co-ordinates, then either harvest resources or build something. You do that by crossing things out or doodling structures and items. It reminds me of a cross between Cartographers and a brilliant little web game called Tiny Islands (check it out, it’s great). The strategy and options in Castaway would work better with older kids I think, but Beach Life was a hit for all ages here.

Cracker Games

We played this one back at Christmas, and I still have a draft of the review I never got around to publishing back then. Cracker games comes in a big cardboard Christmas cracker, but instead of a terrible (I secretly love them) joke and a paper hat, it’s stuffed full of wooden pieces to play games with.

The games themselves are fully-fledged mini-games, and I was really pleased to see a lot of mechanisms included in some of my bigger box games. IMPetuous and IMPrudent – speed and matching games, respectively – were the biggest hits with my son, while I really like IMPassive, because point manipulation is always fun. Due to there only being three of us we didn’t get to play the voting or racing games, but a scan of the rules showed me I’d have enjoyed them.

The real value for me came after we played the games. Along with the games there’s a booklet full of family game design challenges. I won’t pretend that we got through them all, as my son had a ton of new toys to play with, but what I really liked was what happened straight after our games around the dinner table. He took the cubes, imps and player screens (I told you it was proper game bits) and started making up his own games. The rules were… organic, let’s put it that way, and usually involved him ultimately winning, but that’s not the point. The seed was sown, and the spark ignited, and that’s where Cracker Games did what I hoped it would. It gave us a few of hours of good fun, and it engaged my son’s brain without the use of a screen of some kind. That in itself was worth far more than the few pounds the cracker cost me.

Don’t Count Your Chickens

When I pulled Don’t Count Your Chickens out of the box, I expected something light. It’s a game that comes in one of those little tins that you get mints or travel sweets in, and when you open it there’s a little rule book, some cards, and some cubes. The game you get to play with those bits is something you’d expect in a much bigger box.

It’s a game that’s half worker-placement, half hidden information, and it’s really good. You’re trying to collect chickens, roosters and turkeys, and collecting information which tells you how much each is worth at the end of the game. Each player has a rule in front of them, which only they know. It might say ‘Animal A will be worth two times Animal B’, or something like that. When you place your character card on an action, you might swap your rule for another, or to discover which animal Animal A is, for instance.

It’s a really clever little game, and although you’re perfectly entitled to make notes, I loved exercising my little grey cells and trying to remember everything. At first you’re just trying to figure out what animal is worth what, but then you’ll see someone read a rule and start collecting roosters like they’re toilet rolls in a pandemic, and you think “hmmm, roosters eh?”. But hang on, don’t go all-in on the rooster market just yet, because you might read another rule which says at the end of the game the person with the fewest gets to swap with the person with the most!

It’s a great game, and it’s probably better played with older kids and family members. My son played it, but was more interested in collecting as many yellow chickens as he could, because he likes chickens best. Don’t Count Your Chickens looks like the sort of game you’d pick up at the counter in Waterstones, but there’s much more to it. Hobby gamers will really enjoy it.

Top Cake

Top Cake is an auction game. In each round a variety of cake pieces (cards) are laid on the table. Each cake is worth different amounts, and can support a certain number of other cake pieces on top. Each player has a set of bidding cards, and place bids – face-down – for each piece. When all the bids are in, duplicates are removed, and the highest score wins the piece.

It’s a game of being cunning and bluffing, trying to second-guess your opponents. You each have Snatch and Reversal cards too. Snatch is an automatic win, while Reversal means the lowest score wins. Those are the most satisfying rounds to win, when you drop a ‘1’ card and a reversal and win a card everyone else has used their high value cards on. Impish indeed!

I love the way the artwork is implemented in the game. It’s not as abstract as just collecting some cards, each cake layer is stacked on top of the one before it, making a towering cake of cards on the table in front of you – even with a cherry on top!

I didn’t get to play Top Cake properly, thanks mainly to lockdown. I managed to get through half a game, but my boy lost interest. It’s a shame, because what I played I really enjoyed, and I can’t wait to meet up with others and watch their surprise when they see how much is packed into the tin. Much like Don’t Count Your Chickens above, I think it’ll work great with kids even just a couple of years older. In fact, I think with a group of adults and a couple of bottles of wine on the table, it could get downright hysterical.

Doughnut Dash

Onto the first of the two ‘big box’ games Ellie sent me. Doughnut Dash is a game where players are rival thieves, trying to steal the best doughnuts from a world-famous factory. The factory is littered with the sweet treats (and some ketchup ones too…), and on a turn you’ll each be planning movement, by playing movement cards. Movement cards, once unveiled, make your thieves walk in the direction on your played card, until they land on a doughnut or bump into a rival thief.

It’s an unusual factory, and in the tried-and-tested physics of classic arcade games like Pac-man and Asteroids, if you move off one side of the floor, you’ll appear on the opposite. Things are trickier than they seem though, as there are portals that open up, teleporting the thieves around the factory floor, and Sugar Rush cards which you can play to do things like change the direction of the card you’ve played. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, you’re moving two thieves at once. Both of them move in the same direction, so careful planning, making compromises, and choosing least-worst options is a must.

Doughnut Dash is a lot of fun. Kids will get fun from it just by moving in the obvious directions and hoovering up the colours they like best, but if you’ve ever played a programmed movement game before, like Robo Rally, you’ll really enjoy the nuances offered-up. You can often guess what other players might be doing next, based on which directions they’ve already used, and where things are in relation to them. So with some careful planning, you can predict where they’ll end up, and make sure that your movement ends on them, meaning it’s their tower of doughnuts you’re stealing from, not the board. This is especially good if you have a particularly competitive parent (cough, cough), because it means the others can gang-up and make sure they don’t build an unassailable lead.

Despite the saccharine sweet theme and colours, Doughnut Dash is anything but a ‘kids game’. True, kids will play it and enjoy it – mine loved it and demanded a second game immediately after the first. But again, and it’s something I find myself repeating in these reviews, this is a proper game, with proper mechanisms, and something that a regular game group of seasoned players will enjoy too. It’s a fantastic way of exposing families to the mechanisms and strategies that good, modern board games are built on.

Gnome Grown

Gnome Grown is the second big box game, and it’s my favourite. It’s my favourite because it’s a worker-placement game, and anyone who knows me knows that worker-placement is easily my favourite mechanism in a board game. Along with worker placement, it’s a game of tile-placement. Now we’re into Uwe Rosenberg territory, and I love Uwe Rosenberg games.

The setting of Gnome Grown sees the players competing to make the nicest gardens in their neighbouring plots. Players have objective cards with icons which will score them points if they manage to meet certain criteria, like ‘Have an owl, a fountain and some flowers in one section of your garden board’. To get those tiles, you need to put your markers on the action board, and this is the worker-placement part of the game. It’s great, there are loads of choices and lots of ways to either further your plans, or start playing catch-up if you feel like you’re lagging behind.

After planning actions, everyone takes their actions, buying up tiles and following the placement rules to add them to their plots. This is the tile-laying and polyomino-style placements come in. The shapes are simpler than in more complex games, which is good, given the intended audience of first-time gamers.

Like the other Dark Imp games, there’s plenty of interaction between players in Gnome Grown. One of my favourite things is the turn order bidding. In each round players have a tile which has a number on it, and shows in which order they’ll claim and take actions. At the end of the round, players take bid a hidden number of ladybirds, and all reveal at the same time. The highest total is the first player for the next round, and so on.

The twist comes in that you can also add your player order token to the total. So the player in third place this round only has to add two ladybirds to make a total of five, whereas the first player would need to add five ladybirds, as four ladybirds would tie (five each) and ties are broken by highest numbered turn order tile. That mechanism is really neat, I’m a big fan, it keeps the playing field level.

The theme might be more cutesy than my usual choice of dry, geographic Euro, but make no mistake, Gnome Grown is a great game. Not a great game for a family game, or pretty good with any other conditions. It stands up on its own as a great worker placement game. It’s not heavy, it’s pretty lightweight in terms of depth of strategy, but that’s perfect for what it is. You’re not going to get many ten-year-olds – or their parents – to sit down and take on A Feast For Odin or Bonfire without them having a terrible experience and swearing off hobby board games for life.

I’ll happily play Gnome Grown with you any day of the week. It won’t break my brain or leave me with strategies whirling around my head like the lyrics to some god-awful pop song, but I’ll have fun, and more importantly, so will everyone else around the table. Plus there’s a little gnome in the box. If that hasn’t sold you, I honestly don’t know what will now.

Summary

The Dark Imp make great games, and you can tell there’s passion behind everything Ellie Dix has touched. Ellie is clearly a hobby gamer, and I can see flashes of inspiration from other games and designers all over her work. Nothing is ripped-off, and there’s plenty there that feels fresh.

What I love about the lighter stuff like the placemat and coaster games, is that all you need is a bit of space and some dice and pens. What I couldn’t escape while I played all of the games, is just how well they’d fit in with holidays. You could throw a whole load of games in a bag and take them to a cottage or caravan, or even camping, and guarantee fun. The themes can, and do, appeal to anyone and everyone.

There’s a couple of games in here where I think you really need older kids if you’re going to try to lure them away from Minecraft and Youtube, because their exposure to board games up until now may well have been limited to Monopoly or some franchise tie-in cash-cow-milking travesty of a board game. But if they try these, and like some of them, they’ll have experience of mechanisms baked into the vast majority of modern board games. Worker-placement, hand-management, movement programming, auctions, roll-and-write, hidden information, polyomino laying – they’re all here, and they’re all good examples of them

If you’re the parent of a young family, or if you know a young family and you’re a hobby gamer yourself, I’d really recommend picking up a game or two and seeing how they go. Ellie’s mission is an important one, and one I feel a connection with. Screen time is okay, but we all need to get our kids back to social interactions with their immediate family, and what better way to do it, than with board games?

Games kindly provided by The Dark Imp. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

The post Feature: The Dark Imp appeared first on Punchboard.