This is a board game blog. Board games are a medium which can help us understand – for example, they can provide a uniquely active perspective on history. Yet which other medium can provide a fresh perspective on board games? – This is where novels come in handy. Today, we’re going to look at The Third Reich (Roberto Bolaño), a study in obsession as well as gaming and history.
Spain in the 1980s. Udo Berger, a young German, has just arrived in a small seaside town for a vacation with his girlfriend Ingeborg. Yet Udo’s mind is not on the beach. He has just won the national championship at the wargame The Third Reich (clearly based on Rise and Decline of the Third Reich (Don Greenwood/John Prados, Avalon Hill)) and plans to use his vacation to write an article on his new strategy for the Axis. Ingeborg, however, has more traditional vacation activities in mind, and so they spend some of their swimming, tanning, and partying, through which they befriend another German couple, some locals, and the enigmatic paddleboat renter who is only known as El Quemado (The Burned One) for the burn marks which cover his body. When the vacation comes to an end, Udo remains in Spain, supposedly to help in the case of an acquaintance lost at sea windsurfing… yet the real reason is the game of Third Reich which he plays against El Quemado.
Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño wrote the novel in 1989. Since he turned his hand-written first draft into a typoscript (and later typed the first 20% into his first computer), it is assumed that he wanted to eventually publish it, but he didn’t do so before his death in 2003. When the novel was found among his papers, it was posthumously published in 2010. In addition to the original Spanish (El Tercer Reich), the book has been widely translated. I read the German translation.
Warning: Spoilers for the plot of The Third Reich ahead – but frankly, this is not a book you read for plot, you read it for the vibes.
Obsession: Conquest, Validation, Control
Udo Berger is wargame-obsessed, but the book is not a study of how an outsider has outsider fixations. On the one hand, Berger’s obsession with conquest and domination sets him by no means apart from his peers – just that they usually direct their respective urges to amorous exploits. On the other, our protagonist does not only want to conquer in the game either. In addition to his girlfriend, he also pursues the hotel manager Frau Else (who has been his crush when he was vacationing in Spain as a teen), and the underage chambermaid Clarita. And maybe most of all, Berger is fixated on being respected by his wargame peers, which he can only imagine obtaining by finding strategies (and publishing articles about them) which will obliterate all conventional wisdoms about the game.
As Berger is acutely aware of his lack of linguistic sophistication, he decides to practice by writing a diary during his vacation (which is what we read in the novel). The development of this diary reflects the changes in the writer: Originally, his daily entries are very structured (one per day, headlined by the date), and mostly concerned with banal reports on what he did, what he ate, and what he has in mind for the game/article). As Berger is drawn more and more into his duel with El Quemado, the diary gets more confused: He jumps from one level of narration to another within the same paragraph, extensive passages are solely dedicated to what’s happening in the game (down to which counters are placed on which individual hex numbers on the board), and the chapters are not only named after the dates, but also entitled “With El Lobo and El Cordero [his Spanish acquaintances]”, “Spring 1942” or “My Favorite Generals”.
Berger’s inability to focus also dooms his conquests (ludic and erotic): He sets out to prove that opening a second front early is not a liability, but an asset, and enthusiastically reports early in the game to a friend at home that it’s “Blitzkrieg on all fronts”. Yet as he conducts an amphibious assault of Britain at the same time as he invades the Soviet Union, his forces are overstretched and his Axis collapses before the historical date. And broadcasting his erotic attention over Ingeborg, Frau Else, and Clarita, does not further his relationship with either of them.
As things slide out of his grip, his attitude to control changes: Initially, Berger is fixated on the superior strategy. He notes down the exact moves – which corps need to occupy which hex in which turn to win. This chess-like approach collapses after the turning point of the game: Once El Quemado begins his counter-attack, Berger mentions for the first times that there are die rolls in the game (and how they favor his opponent) – not unlike many board gamers I have seen.
Gaming and History
Besides the main theme of obsession, the novel also offers many glimpses on gaming, history, and the relation between the two.
Berger arrives in Spain with his life compartmentalized between the gaming and the “normal” part – his girlfriend and the office job. This compartmentalization is already eroding with his plan to write the strategy article (which immediately chafes against the confines of a conventional vacation – the hotel employees are bewildered by his request for a large table to be set up in his room, and Ingeborg demands he come to the beach) and fully collapses over the course of the book, when he even unilaterally extends his vacation to play the game (and gets fired for it).
The shadow of history hangs over Berger. Our protagonist does not only play games about World War II, he also reads “patriotic” literature of the era, knows about the lives and deeds of the German generals (especially those of the SS), and the only of his wargamer friends for whom he has a certain reverence is a veteran of World War II. Despite this clear fascination for the history of Nazi Germany, Berger twice disavows being a Nazi himself (having been asked by El Quemado and Clarita). Once he even calls himself an “opponent of the Nazis”, but does not expound on it. His personal politics do not factor into the novel – Berger, having been born around 1960 in democratic, liberal, prosperous post-war Germany enjoys the luxury of only engaging with history at his leisure. He thus remains at the surface of it…
…unlike his gaming opponent. El Quemado comes from South America, and it is rumored among his Spanish acquaintances that the scars he bears are the result of torture (by one of the many right-wing regimes which took power in the 1970s). History has thus seeped into his body and gives him the strength to withstand the ludic assault of the experienced player Berger.
Bolaño himself was arrested after the 1973 coup in Chile and, to his own wonder, was released after eight days without having been tortured (he ascribed it to two of the detectives having attended school with him). He then emigrated to Spain where he worked odd jobs in the tourism industry like El Quemado.
Another allusion to Chile is made in a much-misunderstood scene: On September 11, everyone is out at the beach to celebrate the Catalan national holiday. Yet when a plane flies overhead, an eerie sense of dread overcomes the spectators. Many reviewers see this as a revision which Bolaño must have made after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks (or, as an odd coincidence) – but I think the likeliest reason for the scene is that the coup in Chile began on September 11, 1973 with the rebelling air force bombarding the presidential palace in Santiago.
Verdict
Roberto Bolaño’s The Third Reich starts with the innocent concept of a beach vacation. As it grows darker, the novel develops a hypnotic pull. The author’s own deep knowledge of wargames allows him to paint a vivid picture of the game itself – and of the hold it can have over its players.
In Baseball Card GM, players use the baseball cards they already own to simulate a real game. They draft their team from real baseball cards in their collections, use the stats on the back of the cards (batter and pitcher) to weigh the odds of each 2d6 roll, and play out each plate appearance over a 9-inning game. The “GM” stands for “General Manager” - in real baseball that is the person who picks the players that make up the team - which here indicates the real “game” is in how well you build/draft your team around those stats/probabilities of each player.
Below is a designer diary for this game, however it is not mine - I did not invent BCGM, my 8yr old son Garrett did and I am just the publisher.
IDENTIFYING A PAIN POINT The story goes that Richard Garfield had several ideas for games, but it was not until Wizards of the Coast CEO Peter Adkison mentioned what people needed was a quick portable D&D themed game, which could be played during their downtime between longer role-playing sessions, that Magic: the Gathering was born. What they had identified, so coined in the startup space (usually in tech), was a “pain point” - ie an underlying problem/behavior people need solving that they otherwise fix in unsatisfactory ways.
Garrett not only identified our first target pain point, he felt it himself - he could not actually PLAY with his baseball cards. He was constantly sorting and resorting his cards into various teams and lineups, but there was no way to test out how that roster might actually perform. This was not just HIS behavior either - we knew so many kids who did this, and frankly as a kid I did it too!
“How can I actually play with my baseball cards?” was his question. The problem was that nothing existed - and we looked all throughout the spring of 2024 for anything that did it. In fact that is how we even learned about Board Game Geek in the first place, searching for games that use your real baseball cards, and do it in the way Garrett knew each stat SHOULD be used: players with more homeruns or doubles or walks ON-CARD should get more homeruns or doubles or walks IN-GAME (and in roughly the same proportion). It seemed so obvious, how could it not exist?
In the summer of 2024, Garrett decided he would make one himself.
JUST A DINING-ROOM TABLE PROJECT So Baseball Card GM started with a designer with no design experience (Garrett), a publisher with no deep game knowledge (me), a play-tester who was just learning to read (Garrett’s 5yr old brother Simon) and none of us intending to actually create a game to sell. It was just supposed to be something to do at our dining-room table with the baseball cards Garrett had collected from what I had bought him at Philadelphia Phillies games and card shops and my old collection from the 80’s and 90’s (called the “junk wax” era because of their over-production and under-value) which I was slowly parceling out to him.
If we were going to use cards that already existed, we first needed to figure out what stats are on as many brands and years of cards as possible. The more all-inclusive of cards that can be used the more joy! Baseball cards have been around for over 100 years, but they are far from consistent. In fact we discovered it was in 1981, through a Topps vs Fleer lawsuit that broke the monopoly with MLB, that the stats became standard on all Topps and Fleer (shortly followed by Donruss, Upper Deck, Leaf, Bowman, etc.) cards: the SEVEN key stats for batters being HR, 3B, 2B, Avg, Hits, BB, and RBI. Though of course you can use other or older cards for BCGM, just occasionally you need to look up a stat or two.
We then needed the nature of the dice roll mechanic, for which he chose the simplest - a 2d6 of the same color because it results in 21-unique combinations. As we had seven stats, each stat could be a column in a 3x7 grid (though the number of rows would eventually change, more on that below). While those were the inputs at our disposal, we needed to match them to every possible output of a plate appearance. The initial thinking was that a higher number in each stat would lead to a better outcome (homerun, triple, double, single, walk) whereas a lower number would generally lead to a worse one (strikeout, ground-out, pop-out, and fly-out).
That grid was essentially the entire game for six months - and it went through 15-18 different iterations as we play-tested ideas out. Garrett and I and Simon would try out an idea, I would amend the grid, print out the new version, and try it again.
Some cases were obvious (HR stats dictate homeruns, 3B dictate triples, 2B dictate doubles, BB dictate walks) whereas others were not (ex there are no singles stats on cards, strikeouts stopped being a stat on cards in 2014, and you cannot roll an RBI you need to do some other outcome to cause a score). So Garrett fiddled to come up with some clever narratives to pair the stats and outcomes - ex walks and pop-outs are paired implying batters don’t walk because they swing at pitches outside of the zone which results in pop-ups, or to make RBIs important he made them a proxy for hitting fly-outs (which over time will result in sac flies that bring in runners whereas a ground-out may lead to an inning ending double play and no RBI). Rolling for batting average is not an outcome either, so we linked it to singles that would in fact increase your batting average IN-GAME, and as there are no strikeouts on all cards we paired them as the negative of fewer hits, and eventually as the negative against triples as well because as strikeouts in MLB have increased in the last 45yrs triples have greatly decreased.
PLAY-TESTING UNTIL THE BOX SCORES LOOKED RIGHT When inventing a new game with entirely new rules, it is (I imagine) tough to know if the end-result is coming out “right” - but we had it easy because we already knew if the game mechanic was working properly it would result in a typical box score for a real baseball game. Garrett would often go to his room and play out a game while keeping the entire score card for both sides, come back and show that there were say too many runs being scored or too many strikeouts happening or too many triples, etc.
That led to our big breakthrough, that admittedly even a novice tabletop sports simulator player would recognize right away, that the odds inherent in the 21-dice combos actually mattered. Each dice roll was a plate appearance, and ON-CARD a full season (which you would want to have the best chance to max out on the stats) was say 630-720 plate appearances. So each instance of that 2d6 was really 18-20 (1/36 with a double roll) or 35-40 (1/18 if a non-double roll) of each stat happening IN-GAME over a like season of rolls. If we wanted realistic results, we needed to reweigh the grid to match those - home runs could only appear in two cells as historically 60 would be the most we might ever have to meet, whereas triples could only appear in one cell, doubles in two, walks in just four (as 120 walks is historically very tops), singles in six cells, etc.
So our grid would not be a 3x7 rectangle at all, rather something with the same seven columns but different numbers of rows in each. And as we set the cut-offs right… eureka! By November 2024 the box scores Garrett was keeping for his solo-games started to look very real!
The other additions to the MVP (“minimum viable product” – the essentials to make it playable and testable) were also discovered by Garrett while play-testing:
(1) The cards ARE the pieces - As the cards were moving around the bases, we needed to codify what happens to those runners in certain instances of hits or ground-balls or fly-outs or pop-ups. Turns out we only needed three rules to ensure all situations were covered (Garrett was on his local Little Leagues 8u travel team at that point and things like running on contact with two outs to score from second on a single were exactly what was already being drilled into him).
(2) The pitchers needed to matter too - This was also just Garrett being a baseball nerd. He had seen enough baseball in his life to know the lefty-lefty or righty-righty match-ups are worse for the batter, so he decided to build that into the game. If we were using an above-below stat check to determine a plate appearance outcome, then it was logical for the tougher pitcher match-ups to move that stat line up (ie make it harder for some batters to meet the threshold). And if you have pitchers matter, well how much they can pitch in the game matters too, so we limited them to their actual innings pitched on their card.
All these nuances, along with stealing bases and the ever-changing main mechanic, became part of a new hand-drawn board Garrett drew to contain the game and the two line-ups (along with benches and bull-pens). We had our first working proto-type of BCGM by December 2024.
WAIT, DID WE ACCIDENTALLY MAKE SOMETHING KINDA GOOD? When you invite friends and family to play your game, you expect praise. They are going to be polite and uncritical, probably not the best play-testers. At the time we did not have access to, nor would we have even known to seek, genuine board game enthusiast play-testers that we have now learned can be found in clubs just about anywhere. And yet, even with that caveat, as Garrett’s school friends or baseball teammates tried the game (and their parents watched on), even on our rapidly deteriorating paper prototype, we started to think we had something here.
There was enough positivity at least for me (dad, now publisher) to step back in and get a graphic designer who I have worked with for years to put together all the pieces into a visually simple product. And of course give it a name. By January we had a design of newly minted Baseball Card GM to print out at our local print shop.
It looked great, but immediately Garrett knew CARDBOARD was not what his game wanted to be - though he did not play Pokemon, his friends did and they had a playmat for their cards. The cards would not slide, the surface made it easier to pick them up, and most importantly a playmat went where the cards went (in a backpack, folded into a binder, etc.). In feel, BCGM wanted to be more like a TCG and that meant a NEOPRENE surface. It also meant we could avoid many of the things I (as a parent, not yet a board game publisher) really struggled with for games in our home - bulky boxes that take up room and get destroyed, excessive pieces that get lost, instructions that get torn or frankly largely ignored. OUR USE CASE was keep everything (ie all mechanics, all rules, etc.) on one playmat so that it could go to a school, youth baseball tournament, friend’s house, or restaurant/bar with no box/pieces/instructions needed.
By February 2025 we had our first neoprene prototype and March-April our first true samples from the eventual manufacturer overseas.
THEN THE SECOND GUESSING KICKS IN I was always prepared to order at least 50, just to give away to friends and family and schoolmates and teammates, but if we were going to take this further (and order an additional 500 say, enough to get a good sample set of users to validate our assumptions that anyone would like this idea other than us) I started to bring up to Garrett the OTHER things we could be doing with it. There were MANY ways to add to the “baseball-ness of the game” or “game-ness of the baseball,” and as we had time and all could be easily done to a neoprene design all options came up.
Ultimately, though never written down explicitly, we had an agreed upon criteria for addressing new ideas for the game:
(1) Does it relate to a specific stat on a card? There were many fielding components that are fun, like errors or wild pitches or plays at the plate, but those are not stats on cards. (2) Does it involve an actual baseball type action? There were ways to disrupt an opponent’s turn by forcing re-rolls or changing their roll, and those are a board game mechanic but not a justified baseball one. (3) Does it have potential for overuse that slows down gameplay? There were ways to make more pitcher’s stats impactful and more often, but those would take constant checking against cards and make games take far longer. (4) Does it “blow-up” the board with too much text or new pieces? Many new ideas involved longer explanations or additional cards, but those did not “fit” in our playmat only mission and “the cards are the only pieces” focus.
As a side note, what I have really come to appreciate about the BGG community is that many have taken it upon themselves to add these nuances to satisfy what more they want from the game: new rules suggested in forums, additional cards designed and left in files, etc. Garrett loves hearing the new ways people play and we both welcome and celebrate them all – the fact that BCGM can be so modular is a plus in our minds!
The big internal debate was deciding between laying out the dice combos SEQUENTIALLY across that dice grid (starts 1&1, 1&2, going across to 5&6, 6&6) or placing the doubles (1&1, 6&6, etc.) in more particular spots that breaks that flow but hits the necessary cells correctly. You will see right now some hitting outcomes are statistically overrepresented (in the 630-720 plate appearance rule-of-thumb) compared to historic outcomes because when in order a few of the rolls land on the wrong stat cells.
But this was a publisher’s worry - designer Garrett decided that fast and easy play was more important, so chose the speed of finding your roll in the grid (which is a bottleneck) over the stat "precision" because he was still got very normal "baseball looking" box scores in his solo-play. Besides, we had created a system even a 5yr old (Simon) could follow so why break it?
With that decided, I pulled the trigger on the additional 500 units - it of course took MONTHS of painful waiting for them to arrive from overseas, so it was not until October/November 2025 that we could really introduce it to the world. We had always driven by PAXU every year (the Philadelphia Convention Center was on Garrett’s way to school) but never knew what it was. I signed us up for UnPub and we did play-testing with folks we could arrange through BGG - the response was largely “I can’t believe no one has ever thought of this before!”
DESIGN IS MORE THAN JUST THE PRODUCT, IT IS POSITIONING Coming from the outside of the gaming world, we were new to all the terminology and categories (“What is a meeple? What is a heavy Euro?”). But I knew that if this game was going to be a thing, it had to pass the smell test of the most discerning noses. We would take our lumps on BGG and with reviewers, learn what the game is, and what it isn’t, and really lean into the parts that are unique and special.
Baseball Card GM will never be Strat-o-Matic Baseball or APBA Pro Baseball to true tabletop simulator fanatics. But that is ok, some very respected people in that space called it a “gateway-simulator” that can get kids introduced to that hobby. Baseball Card GM will never be as delightfully gamified as Baseball Highlight: 2045 for true board game aficionados. But that is fine, as it was Dan King (The [user=dkingnu]Game Boy Geek[/user]) who first gave BCGM a label of “deck-construction auto-battler” (not terms we knew) and really placed it in context: the GAME is in knowing the cards and building the rosters, while playing it out is thus a quick - and to be often re-iterated - process. And isn’t that exactly the itch that Garrett was trying to scratch in the first place?
It was also Dan King who showed us that HOW you teach someone the game ends up influencing WHAT they ultimately appreciate about it. Our rules sheet taught the main mechanic, the rest was just baseball, but by including a short sheet walking players through steps to learn over a few games - progressively more complicated stats picking, progressively more strategic drafting methods, and progressively more complex gameplay - we could help accelerate the realization of what is so fun about BCGM.
IN CONCLUSION: “INNOVATION ALWAYS LOOKS OBVIOUS IN HINDSIGHT”
At least that is how the saying goes. Replicating the game of baseball is by no means innovative, but using already existing and traditionally non-gaming items which many already own and treasure may just be exactly BECAUSE it looks so obvious a solution when you actually see the end product done. And yes, it took the mind of 8yr old Garrett to ask the question “How can I actually play with my baseball cards?” and the persistence to not take “You cannot” for an answer.
Our vision for the future is to impact the sports card space more than the gaming one – with wide ranging value propositions. For baseball fans like Garrett, they get to play with their cards like they always wanted to. For adults who used to be collectors, they get to experience the nostalgia of their youth by re-engaging with their old cards. And for the industry in general, it is creating NEW value from the bulk common cards that are otherwise monetarily worthless (this is a TCG “democratized” as the best cards in the game are in fact NOT the most rare or expensive at all, often just the opposite).
Sports cards and Pokemon/MTG are so often sold in the same places, with the sports folks in the front never understanding the TCG folks in the back (and vice-versa). Wouldn’t it be cool if those two worlds could find more common ground in your LGS/LCS?
From the rulebook: “Shadera is no ordinary world. A great cataclysm has shattered the world of the fairy creatures. Where once there were no borders, an impenetrable veil now divides the home of the gnomes, wolper-squirrels and mermaids into many different Shard Worlds. In order to be able to continue to exchange raw materials, make trade agreements, and visit old friends, the Portal Guild was created — an association of all those magicians who can use their magic to open portals between the worlds.
You are part of this guild: adepts who, after long and thorough training, have come together today to prove their skills. Your master has decided that you will compete against each other in a duel to show that you can gather enough energy to open portals through the veil to the Shard Worlds. The first person to complete 20 tasks will be awarded Shadera’s highest honor, the title of Portal Guard.”
If, having just read all that, you’re crossing your eyes trying to make sense of it, you’re not alone. The story is nonsensical. Somehow, though, it seems appropriate because Portals is a game that defies easy explanation, especially if you try to attach a story to it.
How It Works
Published in 2024, Uwe Rosenberg’s Portals puts the players in the roles of Portal…
In Aces & Armor from PKB Games players take the role of a general (United States, Russia or Germany) in this complex (but easy to learn) strategy game. In addition to attack strength and armor of your troops, their tactical setup, combat experience, damage and terrain have a decisive influence on the outcome of the battle. Since each unit brings its own strengths, you must cleverly assemble your army to win the victory over your opponents. The game can be played either cooperatively or competitively and has a dedicated solitaire mode. The game uses detailed miniatures with many different unit types and has a high re-playability due to the variable start setup. The combat system is involved and a bit complex and depends on type of unit, combat damage, experience, strategic formation, terrain and armor (known from highly rated game Trench Club).
EGO (Extraterrestrial Greeting Organization) Designer: Reiner Knizia Publisher: Bitewing Games Players: 2-5 Age: 14+ Time: 40-80 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4nnnGgn Played with review copy provided by publisher We are not alone! It is the 23rd century, and … Continue reading →
Hi everyone! How’s it going? Nico here, co-creator of Guanteo along with Flor.
The starting point for Guanteo was: “I want a board where the cards fight each other.” Initially, they were going to be Yokais with superpowers, but as much as I love them, Japanese narratives are quite common. Since I train boxing, at some point, the planets just aligned in my head. (I’m not ruling out future games with Japanese narratives, though!)
The boxing theme allowed us to unify everything we had in mind: a board made of cards (our ring) and the presence of players on that ring, each with a deck of their own color. We had a ring and we were standing on equal ground, with 8 cards each—just like the minutes before a fight begins.
The Cognitive Challenge: Thinking Under Pressure Just like when you're in the ring, where "thinking" is hard because everything happens fast, in real-time, and you have to be able to respond. That’s how the idea of face-down cards came about—both yours and your opponent's. If you don’t remember them, if you’re not fully engaged in the match, your mistakes will most likely have consequences.
In the first prototypes, the activation mechanic was "Oxygen." The game asked you to discard an amount of oxygen from your hand equal to what the board card required to execute a punch—like saying, "you need air to keep fighting." Later, we changed this to Power, as it was more intuitive iconographically and rationally. Thinking about oxygen makes sense, but it’s less adaptable to a game than thinking, "I'm hitting you with power." So, the activation cost shifted to Power while keeping the same logic.
The Dance of Boxing and the Science of Memory There was some back-and-forth in early playtesting to make it work. As we balanced the idea, extra elements emerged, like moving your own cards or your rival's. While this costs a turn (and consequently some board control), it allows for different positioning. The "dance of boxing" appeared with these movements; it wasn’t just about punching anymore—it was about moving and distributing ourselves differently across the space.
Memory is a key point: to win, you must dominate 12 of the 16 ring cards with your own cards. This means you’ll have at least 10 cards on the board before the final blow. In terms of memory, that’s a lot.
Without boring you with technicalities, Working Memory has a limited retention capacity. For many years, it was set at the "Magic Number" of 7 ± 2 chunks of information. However, more recent studies indicate this was overestimated and the real number is closer to 4 ± 1. This is why the probable number of cards to remember in the game ranges between 5 and 9; you will always be forgetting one, and it’s up to your strategy to plan around that lack of information.
Rewards vs. Frustration After several tests—and I must confess many losses to Flor—it became necessary to incorporate a way to recover information. We didn't want an extremely frustrating experience; we wanted something that required focus but remained achievable. This is how Rewards were born. By successfully hitting your opponent, you not only eliminate their card and take that space, but the game rewards you by letting you check a number of your face-down cards again. This gives the Working Memory the "nudge" it needs to retain the info. We also added card drawing to rewards; the one who hits takes the advantage—just like in boxing.
What Happens When Memory Fails? When we accidentally execute a hit against ourselves, our own card is eliminated, and we hand that board space to the opponent, losing out on rewards. This is the penalty for not remembering our cards. Because of this, this isn't a game to play at a crowded event while chatting; it requires focus, memory, and strategic planning.
Aesthetics and the K.O. Octopus The game's aesthetic is simple; we focused on card values so players don't have to spend too many cognitive resources understanding them. To activate a card, you discard the same value from your hand—which is the most eye-catching part—and we used real boxing punch names to go with it.
The K.O. card features an octopus. Why an octopus? I don't know, really; I just imagined that an angry octopus with boxing gloves would be quite a hostile sight. A kangaroo just didn't have that charm—it's been done before.
We tried to take care of every detail, both in the cards and the box. We know perfection is impossible—my apologies for that—but please know we truly tried. In this regard, Lu from Macuco.art gave us a hand, as always, and her eye as an artist and designer helped everything look a bit better—thanks, Lu!
The Journey This is our first game. Every step we took had its bumps, and we navigated them while learning. As I write this, we are about to publish our second one, and the progress is noticeable. We don’t necessarily know much more than before, but we’ve stopped making the same mistakes. Since this is our first, I have to say that, personally, it has been a beautiful journey. Being able to think, have things not work, rethink, test, play, break everything with new ideas, and then break it all again—it's incredibly fun. I insist on this a lot—you might read it elsewhere too—but in this digital age, where everything is immediate and being bored means scrolling through short videos on a platform, allowing ourselves to get bored and get creative is the best medicine.
Not to mention the satisfaction of bringing a game we invented and worked so hard on to a community that gives us great feedback and appreciates it. It is heartening to find people on the other side who enjoy sitting at a table, sharing a moment, and hitting "pause" on the noise we live in.
These are just some personal reflections. My outlook on everything I do is the same: to share, to play, to bring people closer, to become better friends, and, above all, to generate a positive impact on others. I found this in the world of board games; I am quite new to it and have a lot to learn, but it is definitely a world I want to stay in.
Anyway, if you want to know more about Guanteo, you can visit our website, check out the manual there, and find it in shops across Argentina (hopefully the world some day!).
Flor and I hope you liked it and enjoy it. We wish you many great matches and, above all, keep playing—it makes us better.
Thanks for reading! We really appreciate your time and would love to hear your thoughts
There was a point after my first lap around the South Africa track, one of the two new tracks in Heat: Rocky Roads, when I realized that it might be my favorite track in all of Heat. Nothing else in the extended Heataverse feels quite as rewarding of great play. South Africa isn’t as punishing of poor play or bad luck as España, nor is it a source of the same adrenalized fun that comes with ripping down the straightaways in Italia or Nederlands, but a skilled player in South Africa can do some incredible things. And for the record, I came to this realization while I was getting absolutely walloped.
What is it that makes the track so good? It isn’t the gimmick. The only special rule is that any player who finishes their move on a gravel space has to pay a heat if they have one. If you’re on gravel and you don’t have any heat, it don’t hurt you none. This is a perfectly fine addition to the game, one that will occasionally make you second-guess taking advantage of an opportunity to slipstream, but it doesn’t add so much to the game that it would change the feel of an entire track.
It’s the corners. South Africa is jam-packed with delicious, surprisingly slow corners, and…
The American Civil War was the bloodiest conflict and a defining event in the history of the United States. The tragedy of the conflict was amplified by the fact the battles were brutally fought with Napoleonic tactics while using new and more lethal weaponry. As a result, over the course of nearly four full years of war, roughly 700,000 Americans were wounded or killed in battle along with another 400,000 soldiers dying from disease.
Blue & Gray Deluxe Edition consists of the original eight games from the SPI Blue & Gray I & II Quadrigames. The battles depicted are among the most important of the American Civil War: Shiloh, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville (Hooker & Lee), Gettysburg (Cemetery Hill), Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and The Battle of the Wilderness.
The game mechanics used in this series are based on the well-received Borodino/Napoleon at Waterloo system. Terrain is a significant factor, with everything from rolling farmland to untracked wilderness represented. Battles will often see a back-and-forth struggle for control of critical terrain. Rules for night turns are also provided. A standard set of rules are used, common to all eight games, while each game also has its own set of exclusive rules, historical set-ups, and player and design notes—all from the original SPI games.
Blue & Gray Deluxe Edition features new artwork, double-sided mounted game boards, enlarged counters, player aid cards, numerous optional rules gleaned from other game editions, and new variant counters and markers for use with several variants from Moves and Strategy & Tactics magazines. Reintroduce yourself to these classic games from SPI’s golden era and refight some of the best-known battles of the American Civil War which decided the fate of a nation at war with itself.
The inner courtyard goes completely quiet as dusk falls. Lantern light flickers softly against white walls and dark timbers. Servants move soundlessly like a gentle breeze, tending to gravel paths and manicured trees. Deeper inside the fortress, careful whispers of politics and ambition drift through the great halls. Everything feels deliberate, and every offering is carefully chosen to seek favour in a world where position is everything. Beneath that calm surface lies quiet competition, subtle manoeuvring, and the constant need to prove one's own worth within The White Castle by Isra C.and Shei S. from Devir with art by Joan Guardiet.
Level 10 Designer: Hisashi Hayashi Publisher: Grail Games Players: 1-5 Ages: 14+ Time: 15-30 minutes (box says 16-32) Times played: 4, with review copy provided by Matagot/Grail In the co-operative card game Level 10 — which was … Continue reading →
Skara Brae brings us to the Orkney Islands in prehistoric
Scotland. You manage a growing settlement. As more and more people flock to
your settlement, you need to make sure you gather enough resources, build
shelter, and cook enough food to feed everyone. At the same time you need to
manage the waste generated by the settlement. There is a message about
sustainability here
In S. J. Simon’s book, “Why you lose at Bridge” he invents a character “Futile Willy.” Futile Willy isn’t bad (per se) but his defining feature is making bidding decisions that have limited rewards, but huge risks. Playing in a two session event with Roxie, our opponents are mostly what I deem “experienced novices” (playing for years, know a bit of bidding, but have not progressed far) mixed with intermediates. Perhaps two pairs are of similar caliber.
There are many ways to judge experience; one is knowing when to compete. And when not to compete.
Experts love …. LOVE … to get in the bidding, but also know when to shut up.
Example #1
I pick up something like xx AJxx Kxx JTxx and it goes 1D by Partner and 1S on my right.
I make a (negative) double, LHO passes, Partner bids 2C and RHO rebids two spades.
My negative double only guaranteed hearts, not clubs (I have five hearts with a hand too weak to bid); I actually have four clubs. So (despite having no extra values) a raise is reasonable because a) you never want to let them play at the two level unless they are in a misfit1 and b) my hand is mostly “working”. The King of diamonds is probably golden given that partner has 8 or more minor cards, aces are always nice. (If I had points in spades, I’d be much more content to defend).
LHO hems and haws and then bids 3 Spades. Roxie and I are done, and I am happy to have an easy safe lead of the jack of clubs. (I could lead a diamond, to be sure, but it’s matchpoints).
The final auction
LHO CHO RHO Me
1D 1S X
P 2C 2S 3C
3S All Pass
Dummy is a massive surprise. Sure she has two spades, but also five clubs (Q9xxx)! Passing gets her an above average board, doubling gets a likely top and her actual bid gives her a terrible board. Afterwards neither partner and I could believe it.
Example #2
Later on I pick up a regular 1NT opening with something like S: Qx H: KJx D: KJxx C: AJxx.
Roxie responds 2 Hearts (a Jacoby Transfer, indicating spades) but before I bid RHO doubles (showing good hearts).
Roxie and I haven’t discussed it (at least — I’m not sure we have) but typically I play that accepting the transfer over a double confirms three (or more) in that suit. With only two spades I can pass, and partner can redouble to “re-transfer” or bid spades herself. (It probably doesn’t matter on this hand, but if she had the king of hearts instead of me…).
So I pass. Roxie then bids …. 4NT.
This is a quantitative slam try. I am at a minimum, so normally I’d pass … but my hearts are well placed. If RHO has AQxxx of hearts, I have two heart tricks, so my KJx of hearts is worth closer to six or seven points instead of four2. Therefore, I bid six NT.
I get a surprise when Roxie shows up with Ax of Hearts. Was RHO doubling on Queen – sixth? Nope, just Qxxxx.
But in any case there is nothing to the play3 because LHO did not find the killing lead and instead led the suit partner had asked him to lead. Doubling on AQxxx and out is reasonable … you tell your partner what to lead. There’s a risk of getting redoubled (with KJTx or so behind you). but its an acceptable risk.
But with just a queen empty suit, the odds of a redouble (or other “bad luck” as in this hand) are high and do you really want partner to go out of his way to lead a heart?
Example #3
The most egregious example.
I pick up a strong NT, but I’m third to bid. Partner opens one club.
My hand is flat (4324) so the only issues are: A) do we have a major fit and B), does partner have extras.
I bid 1 Spade and partner rebids 1 NT. So the answers are A) No and B) No, therefore I’m bidding 3NT.
Except my RHO (who couldn’t bid over 1 Club) has doubled. They are vulnerable, we are not. 3NT is probably +400 to +460. We can get much, much more by defending. So, redouble.
Despite a slip up on our part, we get +500 easily for what should be a top (except that someone bid a hopeless slam and was allowed to make it). Without the slipup we easily beat the mere +990 for the non-vulnerable slam. What was RHO’s double? A semi-balanced ten count, after opener had fully described her hand. It would be one thing to double if I passed 1NT … then there would be an expectation points were (roughly) evenly divided.
In this case the double did nothing but offer me a fielder’s choice.
With us encountering three Futile Willys (or Wilhelminas), our mistakes merely turn tops into “almost tops”, so it’s a highly successful day.
And while they might be, nothing about my hand suggests so. Even if dummy has no spades, RHO’s spades are probably fine playing opposite a stiff, and partner’s spades and underneath them. ︎
KJx opposite xx is averages 1 trick (if honors are split) and gets 2 tricks 24% of the time and 0 tricks 24% of the time (when honors aren’t). So if KJx with no knowledge is one 4 points, KJx expecting both honors onside is worth more. (And 24% instead of 25% due to the Law of Vacant Spaces, which Wikipedia calls “Vacant Places” but OK) ︎
In fact, I missed a small risk-free line to make the overtrick; but it didn’t matter, because everyone else passed 4NT (assuming their partners even bid it). ︎
Flip 7took the world by storm in 2023, touting itself as the “World’s Greatest Card Game.” It backed up that claim in 2024, taking home a slew of awards, including Origins Best Party Game, Golden Geek Best Party Game, and even a nomination for the 2025 Spiel des Jahres award.
It’s also gaining recognition outside the gaming bubble. I recently had an interaction with coworkers in my office who wanted to play Uno, and I asked if they’d heard of Flip 7. To my surprise, more than one of them said yes with immediate excitement. Whether you love it or hate it, Flip 7 is almost a household name now.
It’s only natural that a game in this format would spawn variations to keep the cash coming. Last year, we saw the Dr. Seuss’s Grinch variant, and I have an inside scoop that more reskins are on the way.
Following on the heels of the Uno: No Mercy madness from a few years back, Flip 7 now has its own “mean” version, packed with ruthless cards and more stabbing. But how does it hold up against the original? Let’s flip the next card and find out.
Indie Board & Card Games took their foot off the gas just a little with The New Age, by which I mean it isn’t nearly as punishing as War Eternal. The New Age introduced Aeon’s End’s campaign system, which would become de rigueur for their future releases, and those of us who’ve played Aeon’s End before will know that that’s a mixed blessing. The constant injection of new cards and powers is great, but the writing…well. Nobody plays Aeon’s End for the quality of the writing. You win some and you lose some. If you play Aeon’s End enough, you’ll lose quite a bit, in fact.
Ease of entry? ★★★★☆ - The odd bump or two Would I play it again? ★★★★☆ - Would like to play it again
Cities USA Designer: Phil Walker-Harding and Steve Finn Publisher: DEVIR Players: 1-4 Age: 10+ Time: 45 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4uTmiWZ Played with review copy provided by publisher A great American city awaits your vision! Step into the … Continue reading →
Continuing along in this series devoted to the best looking boards found in the wargaming world where I will highlight the art and layout of a different board in a wargame that we have played to show you the various talents of the artists and graphic designers involved. In my humble opinion, a well designed and attractive board can make all the difference in the world to me enjoying a wargame. Don’t get me wrong, the game has to be good, but if it’s also good looking it always is a better experience. A board can draw me in. Can make me feel that I’m there. Can set the stage for the thematic immersion that we all crave. And I have found many of these type of boards and I want to make sure that I share them with you.
In this entry in the series, we will be taking a look at the fantastic looking board for Phantom Fury: Iraq, November 9, 2004 The Second Battle for Fallujah 2nd Edition from Nuts! Publishing. Now you might be looking at the board and thinking that is is just a jumbled mess of various colored squares and blocks but there is some hidden and obscured beauty in these squares but also a lot of great photo realistic depictions of city blocks, streets and dark alleys that were present in the city of Fallujah during this pivotal battle of the Iraq War in 2004. Nicolas Roblin is an emerging artist who has five or six game boards to his credit to date and we have played and really enjoyed then including This War Without an Enemy (2020) from Nuts! Publishing, 300: Earth and Water from Nuts! Publishing (2018), Saladin (2022) from Shakos and Border States (2022) from Shakos. But he also is starting to branch out more and has done the board for the very interesting solitaire wargame called Phantom Fury: Iraq, November 9, 2004 The Second Battle for Fallujah 2nd Edition. I would say that he has a very easy style that is focused on showing key locations in a light that emphasizes their importance to the historical story that the game designer is attempting to tell. What I mean by that will be evident as we take a look at the board for Phantom Fury, but one thing I would point out is the focus on the boundaries of the various districts inside the city. He gives these areas a very interesting treatment as well as a focus on the aesthetic elements of the setting. When you look at the board, you get the feeling that you are inside the city itself with a look at small buildings, walls, streets and even key locations such as the mosque.
Phantom Fury 2nd Edition is a solitaire wargame that simulates at a tactical level the operations carried out by United States Marines (USMC) to secure the town of Fallujah, Iraq in November 2004 and to attempt to suppress all armed resistance by the insurgents. The game focuses specifically on the fighting carried out by the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines on the morning of the 9th of November 2004, in the district of Jolan in the north-west portion of the town. The player will control the USMC forces and the game system manages the actions of the insurgents. The Marines will have to move block by block and house by house clearing out resistance all while trying to minimize casualties and trying not to allow insurgents to infiltrate their lines and reappear in the rear to wreak havoc. This is very much easier said than done though as the first priority is to identify suspected insurgents as the Marines enter new areas that are enemy controlled.
The board for the game measures 22″ x 34″ and represents a part of the Jolan District of the city of Fallujah, divided into 61 Zones of about 50 x 50 meters and into Street Sections of equivalent size. The Zones are marked on the map by dotted lines or continuous lines and are identified by a number in a black or white circle in the Control Box. A target symbol in a Zone indicates that there is a Line of Fire between that Zone and the Zones whose numbers are printed below the symbol. The Target Zones are considered to be Neighboring a particular Zone for the purpose of Fire Combat only.
As you look at the Zones shown below from the upper left hand corner of the board, you will see that various boxes are printed in each of these Zones. These represent buildings and these buildings are multi-storied so they start at the bottom with the red entry areas, that have a nice little door shaped icon in the bottom right hand corner of the box, and then you see stylistic arrows that point up and down at the bottom of each of the above stories. There are also arrows that go to the right and left which mean they enter an adjacent building. At the top of the Zones you will see a black box, that has a neat little roof peak symbol in the upper right hand corner of the box, that represents the roof of the building. These are areas of entry from one building to the next and if used by the Marines or the Insurgents, will grant them a bonus DRM in combat. I remember when I first set eyes on the board, I was a bit discombobulated and confused but once I get into the rules I quickly realized that this graphical depiction of the stories and the means of ingress/egress was a stroke of genius and worked really well to quickly be able to identify what you are entering.
Certain Zones are considered to be Fortified and this means that they are tougher to break into. Some of the zones, such as Zone 26 (Mosque) identified by a red box around the area is a Fortified Zone by default. No unit may carry out movement called Flooding in a Fortified Zone. The Mosque area is a really interesting graphical representation as the background, as is the case with all of the areas, has the overhead satellite images of the Mosque shown on the board. In the game, this area cannot be entered by Marines but can be searched and entered by Iraqi Intervention Force (IIF) troops. I think that the red box really highlights this entry prohibition and is a key reminder to the player of the need for them to bring on the IIF troops although they might want to get more Marines on the board.
The IIF Troops holding box at the bottom of the board. There are 3 units stored here that can be brought onto the board at a later time. Notice the nice flag to the right and the id of the counter to the left using NATO symbols.
Each Zone on the board consists of several Locations in the form of boxes, which are used mostly to regulate movement. There are 5 types of Locations identified on the board including Open Ground, Courtyard, 1st Story with one of 3 notations including either l, 1′ or 1″), 2nd Story (2 and 2′) and Rooftop. Each Location is marked with one of these letters including OG, C, 1 or 2 and is a really well done part of the board which clearly identifies the type of Location. Locations are used for the placement of Suspect markers and certain Zones may have several Locations of the same type or no Locations at all of a particular type. Upon first glance, you might think that the color of the Suspect Markers, which are all tan with various shaded areas of brown and white, is a wrong choice and doesn’t necessarily work well visually with the sandy, tan colored board. But, because the Suspect Markers cover up the small boxes when placed, they still retain the thick brown outline on the outer edge of the board and these act as a visual highlighting of the unit. To me, this is a fantastic graphical design choice to highlight these important boxes and Zones as all of the action and most of the player’s focus will be on these areas as they move around the board block by block.
As in the case of these games, the on-board player aids and tracks need to be large, clear and have the pertinent information that the player will need to play the game. This is very well done on the board as they have created a circular Turn Track and Victory Point Track that are large and in the upper right hand corner of the board. This positioning really keeps the time deadline at the forefront of the players mind as they have to clear and control all 61 Zones for a victory. I say control but players must also eliminate resistance there as well and prevent the Suspect Markers from popping up in areas where they are adjacent to that have already been cleared and controlled.
One of the other really interesting parts of the game that causes a lot of tough decisions is the use of the military assets located on the bottom left hand side of the board. Here are tracked the player’s available Hornet Strikes, Super Cobra Support and UAV’s. All of these provide various benefits including DRM’s and direct attacks against fortified blocks to try to eliminate Suspect Markers without Marines having to put their life on the line in those areas.
I think that the graphic design for this board is truly excellent. I am not sure that it is beautiful but how it was done and how it works together is a stroke of genius and really took some thought and understanding of the game and its systems to be able to put together. These choices were reinforced with the color accents, use of lines and borders as well as with color choices for the most important Zones. Just a very well done and aesthetically pleasing package put together by Nicolas Roblin.
This game is just so very good and I love the decisions that the player has to make about how they go about clearing the areas with limited resources and under a time limit. Just a very good game design that shows how difficult this task was that was asked of the Marines.
If you are interested, I shot a short RAW video on the game during my first play and you can watch that at the following link:
We also did an unboxing video showing off the components and you can watch at the following:
If you are interested in Phantom Fury: Iraq, November 9, 2004 The Second Battle for Fallujah 2nd Edition, you can order a copy for 50.00 € ($58.37 in US Dollars) from the Nuts! Publishing website at the following link: https://www.nutspublishing.com/eshop/our-games/phantom-fury-v2-en
The next board that we will take a look at in the series is Almost a Miracle!: The Revolutionary War in the North in Against the Odds Magazine #51 from LPS, Inc.
Here are links to the previous entries in the series:
Welcome to our 13th annual Board Game Quest Board Game Awards. Each year, we take some time to honor the best and most creative new tabletop games from the previous year. For those wondering, why we wait until the following year to announce our winners, it’s to give us a chance to check out the […]
When I play Inkwell, I think about other games. That isn’t a slight on Inkwell’s quality, necessarily, nor a reflection on my fidelity to whichever title happens to be on the table at the moment. It’s just the sort of game that sets the mind to wandering. I have yet to play it without somebody mentioning Azul, for instance, and Sagrada isn’t a distant touchstone either.
The big one, though, is Alf Seegert’s Illumination, an overlooked quip from five years back that also dressed up its players as monks illuminating manuscripts under the stern eye of a passing abbot. And while it might seem like the parallel is entirely in the setting, it’s really the gentleness that does it, the warmth, the do-no-harm-ness of the whole thing. As a game, Inkwell isn’t only about monks; it’s downright monkish.
Ah, many pots of pigment. A monk’s dream.
It begins with a page. Not quite a blank page, although one imagines the parchment fresh. For the sake of gameplay, the page is scrawled with the outlines of what will soon become vibrant illustrations: saints and angels, wreaths and knots, lions penned by someone who has clearly never seen a lion, scenes of Eden, holy babes that appear twice of age of the Lord at his crucifixion. Touching these illustrations are squares, each the size of a small wooden cube. Sometimes these squares appear in other spots, too, free of any illustration, but still ready to accept daubs and brush-strokes.
Your goal is to fill that page with color. Reds, blues, yellows, greens, deep charcoal blacks. Maybe some gold leaf. Gold is wild, capable of making up a shortfall elsewhere — because it’s gold, obviously — but it’s also sometimes required in special circumstances. Some spaces are blank, beckoning for leftovers. That or scoring multipliers.
These cubes must be drafted from the central mat, itself represented as a swirl of ink-pots. There are three types to draw from. Circular pots hold the most ink, three cubes at the beginning. Star spaces hold gold, but usually only a single cube’s worth, marking them as a tradeoff between quality and quantity. Diamonds are the most interesting, offering a meager two cubes, but also technique cards, special abilities that gradually hone your monk’s abilities.
Creepy adult baby Jesus and all.
One turn at a time, players go around and select which inkwells to draw from. There’s some potential for blocking, but it’s a relatively remote concept here, especially in the page’s early moments when any color will serve. The effect is trancelike, meditative, as close to multiplayer solitaire as design collective Jasper Beatrix has gotten thus far. The most burdensome restriction is that you aren’t permitted to draw from an inkwell unless you can actually use every last drop and employ every technique card. This makes blocking even less likely, instead reinforcing the game’s gentle proceedings. It’s possible to grab as many cubes as possible, but that might make the page difficult to fill. Better to proceed steadily, like the proverbial tortoise.
There is some pressure, however light. Whenever one of those varieties of inkwell is depleted — circle, star, or diamond — the abbot marches one step across the mat. He’s here to oversee your work, and at various points he may force the table to turn the page. This scores all those illustrations and color cubes, potentially leaving some work undone. It’s better to turn the page of your own volition, at the time of your choosing, but it’s hard to say exactly when the abbot will peek into the scriptorium to ensure the commissions are being fulfilled.
Over time, your accumulated techniques produce little engines, to use a game-word that would have meant something very different to our monks. But there’s some spark of the Latin gignere to these flashes of talent, reflected in the way they speak to an artistry now long displaced. Some techniques bestow extra cubes, perhaps when a specific color is drawn or the abbot marches down the hall, evoking the scribe, bent over his masterwork and taskmaster at once, carefully measuring every drop to its uttermost potential. Others let you claim cubes as a one- or two-time bonus, the medieval equivalent of double-dipping. Others still let you store a few cubes to the side, or rearrange them on the page, saving your palimpsest scrapings for reuse elsewhere.
With the right techniques, the third page can be a breeze.
In some ways, Inkwell is also itself a palimpsest. There are traces of other games here, possibly better or more interesting games. The most pronounced is Azul; it’s impossible to look at the circular inkwells and not see that game’s rounded factories and Starburst-sized ceramics. There are other traces, too, impressions on the parchment that can still be made out despite the game’s clean presentation. Playing Inkwell, it’s hard to escape the feeling that we’ve gone through these motions before.
Of course we have, if only because nothing under the sun is new. None these actions are wholly novel. But Inkwell feels a little closer to its peers than some games. Especially Jasper Beatrix games, with their penchant for novelty and mechanical introspection. Inkwell is no Pacts, with its dissection of I-split-you-choose gameplay, no Here Lies with its decoupling of detective games from rigid logic, no Signal and communication, no Scream Park and tableau-building.
But for all its similarity to other games, there are still reasons to recommend it. For example, I appreciate the open-ended nature of its conundrum, one where each selection feels like another window into a broad decision-space, rather than a binary best or worst pick. It’s rare that a single inkwell feels like the answer to a puzzle so much as one more question. Another brushstroke, perhaps, another inlay of gold. Those other games use artistry as their backdrop; Inkwell, by contrast, feels like artistry. More specifically, it feels like that slender space between commercial reality — deadlines and managers, limited resources, coworkers who sometimes take the pigments you need without meaning any harm — and the aspiration to fashion something that will endure the centuries.
The foolish monk Dicelius, also known as SOLOBOT, offers a nice diversion.
Where does that put Inkwell, in the end? It’s hard to say. As a game, it occupies a peculiar middle ground. It lacks the brain-tickling nature of its heavier inspirations, the emphasis on puzzling and position, but ventures a little closer to its source material than those games have ever managed.
More than that, Inkwell is reassuring. It feels like a weighted blanket, the game equivalent of a movie like The Taste of Things, all soft sensation and creamy sunlight and lulled senses. The outcome is neither the strongest nor the weakest of Jasper Beatrix’s collective output, but offers a lovely and gentle visit to a faraway time and place nonetheless.
A complimentary copy of Inkwell was provided by the publisher.
(If what I’m doing at Space-Biff! is valuable to you in some way, please consider dropping by my Patreon campaign or Ko-fi. Right now, supporters can read about which films I watched in 2025, including some brief thoughts on each. That’s 44 movies! That’s a lot, unless you see, like, 45 or more movies in a year!)
So uh, what’s it like, having such a short life cycle?
Peter and Will play Epic Warpath over some really incredible Gale Force Nine terrain!
My mini-season of battle reports from Will’s recent visit continues, and this time it’s an incredible game on probably the most spectacular tabletop of terrain I’ve ever had the good fortune to play on. That’s mostly thanks to Gale Force Nine, who sent me several boxes of their amazing pre-painted Gothic Sector epic scale terrain. You can see my unboxing of it all in this video.
The game is Epic Warpath by Mantic Games, and I’ve got to say I’m really impressed with this pretty streamlined, easy-to-use, and fun system for epic-scale scifi wargaming. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on some different factions and painting them up too! While panting epic armies can be a bit of a chore, the results, as you can see, are undeniably stunning, and the scale makes for big, beautiful games. So enjoy this session, where we show off Epic Warpath at its absolute best, and have a lot of laughs at the same time!
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Anmelden
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Meeple Mountain | The summit of board gaming
The Players' Aid
