In the broadest possible strokes, games are created out of three or four things: what you can do, what you can’t do, what you want, and, occasionally, what you don’t want. Not every game includes something you don’t want as a category unto itself. You don’t want to end up with few resources in Catan, sure, but that’s just the inversion of what you want: resources with which to build things. I’m talking about things like running out of food in Agricola, where there is a specific punishment meted out by the rules.

In High Society, a fabulous auction game for three-to-five players by designer Reiner Knizia and recently out in a new edition from publisher Allplay, those four categories are crystal clear. That’s never a bad thing. Many of the best games provide clear, succinct definitions for each of them. High Society is a masterpiece not only because it provides ready definitions, but they work, delightfully, at cross-purposes.

The goal of High Society is, of course, to have the most points at the end of the game. There we have our first definition:

What do you want? To have the most points.

Points are accrued through the purchase of various cards, revealed from the…

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Polyomino Play

I’m a fan of polyomino tile-laying, and it always amazes me to see new ways the mechanic is used in board games. Some of my personal favorites include A Feast for Odin, Caverna: The Cave Farmers, and Planet Unknown. Here, we have a cooperative spin on polyomino tile-laying with a push-your-luck element to boot. Count me in!

I had a chance to meet the folks from WWBG at a couple of different conventions last year. They’re a small but mighty publisher out of Taiwan whose passion for their games is unlike anything I’ve seen in the industry.

Their goal is to bring more Asian designs to the Western market, and some of their releases so far, such as Lone Wolves and Castle Raisers, are already a solid testament to that mission.

Learning the Lantern

Last Lantern plays out over seven to nine rounds, with players working together to place tiles in their canopy in an effort to cross the goal line.

Each round, players silently and independently select a location on their lantern wheel, which determines the familiar token and tile they’ll take. However, if multiple players choose the same location, they’ll have to discuss and decide who gets what. Familiars are collected into sets and can…

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The Best Gaming Experience With My Kids - Andy Matthews

When my 4 children were younger I played games with them all the time, easily several times a week, and sometimes every day. In addition to time together, it was a chance for me to instill important values like fair play, good sportsmanship, and how to win (and lose) gracefully. Early on I came across a game called Zombie Kidz, a small box cooperative game about preventing zombies from escaping a cemetery. It featured cartoony artwork and a simple game loop: roll a die, put a zombie out on one of the corresponding 9 spaces on the board. Then, you could move your character to a nearby space and potentially eliminate a zombie there. The goal was to put locks on all 4 corners of the board and win the game. My kids loved it, and it gave me a chance to teach them about teamwork and the consequences of choice. Eventually, they grew out of the game, and we stopped playing it.

That is until I heard that the publisher was releasing a sequel called Zombie Kidz Evolution, targeted at a slightly older audience, exactly where my kids were at the…

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Whoever walked away from a hand of trick-taking and thought, “Hey, you know what would make this better, is if we had to guess how many tricks we would win beforehand,” has my eternal gratitude. I like to think bidding came about as a party trick. “Françoise is really good at tarot, I bet he can guess exactly how many tricks he’ll win. Guess, Françoise, guess.”

However bidding started, it has long been a cornerstone of trick-taking, and is reliably my favorite way to engage with the mechanic. Card games are inherently subject to tremendous amounts of luck, of course, but bidding shifts the balance a bit closer to skill. More skill means more agency. More agency means more investment. More investment means more fun for everyone.

Torchlit is, above all, a bidding game, though it’s a strange one. The deck is dealt out, and every player chooses a card from their hand to put face-down on the table in front of them. The numbers on those cards, which run from 0-7, correspond to a series of dungeon door tiles placed out in the center of the table in numerical order. Whichever card you put down, the matching door is where you want to end up by the end of the hand.

Torchlit Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Oh, there is something deliciously slimy—smarmy, even—about the game Pax Illuminaten, designed by Oliver Kiley. (BGG says that Pax Illuminaten is based on Kiley’s earlier title Emissary, a game I have not played.)

One pass of the rulebook for Pax Illuminaten had me very excited. I’m not a dedicated scholar of Pax games, having only played Pax Pamir Second Edition (although Pax Hispanica, Pax Emancipation and Pax Porfiriana are currently on deck here at Casa de Bell). I HAVE played Pax Viking Junior, although I am sure a purist would not count that one.

But the core Pax system of historical, card-driven play with multiple end-game conditions and a closed economy is on full display with Pax Illuminaten, and I was further excited by the relatively straightforward rules and a playtime listed as 20-30 minutes per player.

A Pax game, in about 90 minutes? Sold, I said out loud to no one after that rules readthrough.

Then I got the game to the table…and I was mostly impressed. Pax Illuminaten is for a certain kind of player, especially one who likes to understand what is mostly possible in a strategy game, with ample space for a few surprises and a boatload of secondary actions.

Sorry, When…

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At this year's GAMA Expo I had the opportunity to play Symbiosis with some industry folks. I was charmed by it's artwork and card size, and delighted by the simple decision space and speedy game play. I brought home a copy and reviewed it for you. Check it out!

What is Symbiosis?

In Symbiosis players are growing and improving their pond in an attempt to earn the most points. They start with a 4 x 2 grid of face down cards, 1 of which is turned over at the beginning of the game. An additional 4 cards are turned face up in the center of the table, and serve as the market.

On your turn you select a card from the market and do one of two things:

Replace one of your face down pond cards with the card you selected from the market. Your pond card is placed face up into the market and becomes available for other players to select.

Alternatively you can take one of your face up cards and swap it with a face up market card. If you do this, you must flip one of your remaining face down cards face up.

“Why”,…

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Threaded is a game about sewing Bargello-patterned tapestries. Well, sort of. You are using cubes as thread, after all. You may not come out of this game with a new afghan, but you will come out of it with your brain slightly aching from the puzzle you must solve. 

I grew up in the 1970's, seeing these groovy geometric patterns everywhere. My grandmother was a whiz with a needle and made all kinds of textiles featuring these stripy, blazing patterns, but I just figured it was a trend of the times. Little did I know that they were called Bargello, or that their origin dates back to the 17th century in the Bargello Palace in Florence, Italy. Right out of the gate, Threaded taught me something. 

[caption id="attachment_331060" align="aligncenter" width="1125"] My Bargello baby blanket, made by my grandmother[/caption]

Between having a strong nostalgic pull toward Bargello patterns and enjoying all kinds of needlecraft myself, it was a no-brainer for me to agree to review Threaded. It doesn't hurt that other needlecraft-themed games like Patchwork, Knitting Circle, and Calico have been big hits in my house. So does Threaded compete? Let's see. 

As I was reading the instructions, Threaded reminded me of Istanbul, and not in a…

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Tabling Tableaus

I once asked W. Eric Martin at GAMA Expo, “What’s your favorite game?” He replied instantly: Innovation. I hadn’t heard of it at the time, but I quickly tracked down a copy and have since played that wild tableau-building civilization card game many, many times. It has shot up to become one of my favorite games, so keep an eye out for my review of Innovation Ultimate in the near future.

But this isn’t Innovation—though it’s close in some very interesting ways. I was handed this review copy by fellow mountaineer Justin Bell at Gen Con last year, and I went in with absolutely no context for what to expect.

To my surprise, there’s a lot here that feels reminiscent of Innovation (and even Dominion), but with enough twists to make Citizens of the Spark one of my favorite new-to-me games of 2026.

Regular readers may know that tableau building is one of my favorite mechanisms, so when a game is built around that idea, I’m already interested.

Spark Plugs

Citizens of the Spark includes 30 different citizen sets, with 7 to 10 used in a given game depending on player count. Players collect sparks, which serve as points, and the game…

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The Crew: Mission Deep Sea - Joseph Buszek

Despite my aversion to both cooperative and limited communication games, I really enjoyed The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine when it was released, mostly because I love new innovations on the trick-taking mechanic, and it definitely delivered in that aspect. However, I didn’t get it to the table that much because, despite the clever gameplay, I found it worked best when you could play through several missions with the same group of players, following the recommended mission difficulty progression. For me, trick-taking games are usually more enjoyable as a quick filler game. Once you pass a half an hour, most at the table have had their fun and are ready to move on. This is where The Crew sequel, Mission Deep Sea, comes in.

While The Crew: Mission Deep Sea still has a mission-based logbook and follows the same standard rules as its predecessor, it’s the task cards for each round that are, literally, game-changing. In the original, the task cards were all the same difficulty­: some combination of color and number, which you had to win in a trick. The difficulty was ramped up by the number of tasks and task tokens (which changes the order to win…

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An unpopular war. Protests in the streets. An authoritarian US leader sending troops to a major American city, employing violence against its own citizens. Obviously, I’m talking about the events of 1968 in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention, which happens to be the theme of Chicago ’68, a game from designer Yoni Goldstein and published by The Dietz Foundation.

Running south on Lake Shore Drive, Heading into town

I hope you’ll spare some time for a little personal context before I get into my review. When I moved to Chicago in the summer of 1998 to attend film school, the only thing I knew about the city was that the Bulls had just won their 6th NBA Championship in the last 8 years (side note: they haven’t been to finals in the 28 years since). It was in one of my classes that we watched Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool, a movie that takes place (and was partly shot) during the 1968 DNC riots. The film had an enormous impact on me and, along with the book Boss by legendary columnist Mike Royko, was my introduction to the modern history of the city I have called home for nearly 30 years.

Boss is the unauthorized biography of the late…

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This is the first part of a three-part series on getting back into board gaming after an extended absence. (If you want to skip ahead, you can go to Part Two to read about rebuilding your gaming groups, and Part Three to see the games that brought me back to gaming.) Today we're looking at ways to re-build your gaming muscles (thinking strategically and logically, understanding mechanisms and how they interact, puzzle solving, etc.) that may have atrophied during a long hiatus from gaming.

My long hiatus began with Covid cancelling all in-person gaming and then swan-dived into three years of caregiving for my parents. When the storm abated, I looked around and realized that I had barely touched a board game in five years. Between having no time or mental bandwidth for games, my game shelf was covered in dust and, even more worrying, my gaming skills had atrophied.

I first tried to play Trollhalla, one of my favorite games. I felt stupid and slow. The game isn't difficult, but my ability to remember the rules and work through a strategy was shot. Five years of too much doomscrolling, constant stress, and lack of sleep did a number on my ability to think clearly. I tried other games with much the same results. It was depressing and…

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The Need

If there's one thing all boardgamers can agree on, it's this: boardgames and their accoutrement take up a lot of room. Space is at a premium. And, if you're like me and you live in tight quarters to begin with, the idea of ever owning a nice boardgame table such as the Bandpass Firefly Board Game Table is nothing more than fantasy. In my home, we have three surfaces on which we can game: the dining room table which measures roughly 40 inches in width and 80 inches in length, a folding 4' x 4' card table, or a folding 6' x 4' picnic table which takes up the entire living room once it's been deployed. None of these are designed with modern boardgaming in mind. The largest of the three, the picnic table, struggles to contain large, sprawling megaliths such as Frosthaven or any Vital Lacerda game.

This is why I got excited when I saw the Relic Gaming Tabletop Table pop up in my social media feeds one day not too long ago. On paper, it seemed to be the answer to all my prayers, utilizing the airspace above the game table to relieve the pressure on the game table. But, how functional is it in…

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I picked up a copy of the new trick-taker Movie Tricks during my visit to SPIEL Essen 2025. It has a box cover that made at least one person in my circles wonder if the cover was generated by AI…not because of the illustrations by credited artist Eirik Belaska, but because the title, characters, explosion and car bursting out of the middle of the cover image feel so generic.

This is also to say: expectations were low for Movie Tricks. My 12-year-old thought that the game’s title was terrible, even if we all agreed that the title was pretty accurate: Movie Tricks is a trick-taking game where players take turns playing cards to the table, with each trick’s winner getting first pick of market cards that get added to their personal movie tableau.

The trick-taking is standard fare—Movie Tricks is a “must follow” game with a trump suit that may or may not change after each trick. Over the course of 10-13 tricks, players will build up their tableau to score points using a set collection mechanic (Props), a majority mechanic (Soundtracks), a simple scoring multiplier (CGI), and a slightly different set collection scoring tool with a balance component (Roles). In addition, players score based on their “Best Movie”—aligned with the highest scoring row of cards across…

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For the past several years, the last weekend of March meant one thing: I was in Anaheim for WonderCon. San Diego Comic-Con’s slightly smaller, slightly more relaxed sibling. The routine was comfortable. Fly in, badge around my neck, wander the floor, admire the cosplay, sit in on a panel or two, and eat something from a food truck that probably violated at least three municipal codes.

This year I broke the pattern. Instead of Anaheim, I booked a week in Milwaukee for AdeptiCon,  the annual gathering of the tabletop miniatures faithful, recently relocated from Chicago to the Baird Center. About 12,000 attendees. Wall-to-wall wargames. And me, showing up without a painted army to my name.

That last part turned out to matter more than I expected.

A Convention That Knows Exactly What It Is

AdeptiCon is not trying to be everything, and it makes no apologies for that. It is a miniatures wargaming convention, full stop. If you love tabletop miniatures, building them, painting them, deploying them in anger across a felt-covered battlefield, this is your Super Bowl. If you don’t, you may find yourself wondering where the panels, cosplay contests, and celebrity signings wandered off to.

The big systems dominate the floor: Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, Star Wars: Shatterpoint,…

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While “cozy” may not be a formally recognized game genre, at least according to BGG, there’s no denying the appeal of games that fall into this unofficial label. Regardless of being an official category or not, Flamecraft Duals makes a strong case for being king of the cozy crusade.

Designer Manny Vega, artist Sandara Tang, and publisher Cardboard Alchemy are all back in this follow-up to the massive 2022 hit, Flamecraft. While there’s certainly some shared DNA between Flamecraft Duals and Flamecraft, new mechanics, reduced player count, and a significantly smaller game lead to a fresh, rewarding experience.

Teaching an Old Dragon New Tricks

While Flamecraft is designed for 1-4 players and mostly revolves around worker placement, Flamecraft Duals is built for 1-2 players and focuses on tile placement and pattern building/matching.

Gameplay consists of players taking turns pulling one dragon token out of a bag and placing it onto a shared gameboard. Placement rules are simple: You can place your dragon token onto an empty space or onto a space with no more than two dragons (stacks can’t go above three).

After placing a token, players can ‘fire up’ the dragon they placed and attempt to complete one of the patterns on their two available shop cards, which grant end game points.

The game end is triggered when…

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Enemies & Lovers: The Crown of Elfhame - Justin Bell

I ran into AJ Porfirio of Van Ryder Games at SPIEL Essen 2025. During our catch-up, he handed me a copy of Enemies & Lovers, a game based on the Folk of the Air series written by Holly Black, who also designed this card game. The cover art, not to mention the illustrations on the handsome tarot-sized cards, is beautiful, and when I did a play with my family (wife, two kids, ages 12 and 9), everyone loved the look and feel of the cards.

The game was a mixed bag. Enemies & Lovers comes with a deck of 51 cards, a mix of action cards, court character cards, and a single crown card. The goal is to play cards from hand face-down into a tableau (known as your “Court’), with a winner named as soon as anyone can get a Prince, Coercion, and Conspirator to join that Crown in their personal Court. Of course, every action card in the deck makes that a challenge, with players regularly attacking everyone else…Enemies & Lovers becomes pure chaos quickly.

The second you play even a second card into your Court, someone will swoop in to assassinate one of…

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Maybe it's my old age catching up with me, but I don't have time for 3-hour marathons unless it's something truly special, like Hegemony. A Familiar Find caught my eye with wonderful artwork and stellar graphic design, with the box promising a fun family experience in under an hour. So when Darrington Press offered a review copy, I said yes.

You play as a fantasy familiar gathering ingredients for an adventurer. The game is apparently set in a fictional campaign world from Critical Role, although my connection to that entire media empire is a glowing 404 error. The core mechanic has you claiming one of three available card piles per turn, with players seeding those piles from their hand to set themselves up for a future turn or nudge an opponent toward something they don't want. Not every card is a gift or even face up, making the game feel like a "pick your poison" for a good portion of the time.

Familiar Territory

Winning is as straightforward as the premise. You're collecting ingredients into sets, either 2 sets of 4 or 4 sets of 2, for example. There's also an instant win condition where collecting 3 Astral Essence cards ends the game in your favor. The flip side…

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Disney Lorcana Master Token Set and Token Set for Pokémon TCG - Andrew Holmes

I’m not much of a player of collectable card games, living or otherwise. I like the boards of board games too much, I guess. Recently, however, this has been changing thanks to the interests of two of my frequent gaming partners: my wife enjoys basking in the nostalgic art of Disney Lorcana, whilst my 8 year old son keeps evolving his creatures to defeat me in Pokémon TCG. Both are fun, I can see the appeal even if I can’t always see the card text.

For our first forays into the two games, we got the starter sets: Disney Lorcana: Gateway and Pokémon TCG: Battle Academy. They’re both well put together, easing us as a family into the bottomless waters of duelling card games. I doubt we’ll swim all that much deeper but these are enjoyable boxes with everything you might need to get started, including tokens for tracking health.

The tokens are a mixed bag though, especially for a board gamer who enjoys the luxury of a wooden resource or a stack of Iron Clays. Tabletop games tickle the senses, and tactility is important. In fairness the Lorcana tokens from the Gateway box are perfectly fine, but the Battle Academy ones are little more…

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The toughest games to review are the ones that are right on the line. They are generally not bad, maybe even a hair better than that, and don’t really stand out. Often, games like this end with one or more players being asked what they thought, and those players doing an exaggerated shoulder shrug, as if to say “yeah, it was…good? Well, I mean, it was…alright? I’d play it again, but only if you wanted to. What are we playing next?”

Cytress, designed by Sean Lee and published in 2025 by Good Games, broadly fits this description. Cytress is a cyberpunk-themed, engine-building worker placement game. You’ll build an engine using cards that can be purchased at one of four locations to increase your income or make trading deals progressively sexier. You’ll place a worker—either a Leader token or one of your three cute, futuristic-looking cardboard car tokens—on a space to trigger an effect. With the car spaces, any other player can also use the action, so there’s no worry or tension tied to opponents blocking the space you want.

When players buy cards and add those to the engine, they also place a crew member on a mini-map, representing the area below the great city of Stratos. This placement…

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The history of 20th century music is full of rivalries, be they real, manufactured, or imaginary. As much as they can get in the way, they also serve an important function within the culture of popular music for both artists and audiences. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, to say nothing of The Beatles and The Beach Boys, were pushed to ever-greater artistic heights as a result of trying to outdo one another. Blur and Oasis sold way more singles as a result of their mutual distaste than they would have otherwise.

As for the audience, rivalries can produce better music, but they also serve a social function. A rivalry makes room for partisans. “N*SYNC rules, Backstreet Boys drool”—an insane position given that the Backstreet Boys are obviously better singers and could do both party songs and ballads with equal aplomb, while N*SYNC couldn’t sing a ballad if their lives depended on it—gave identity-hungry teenagers something to cling to.

This is hardly restrained to the world of pop. Before the boy bands, before Britpop, and even before The Beatles and The Stones, there was the rivalry between Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi, two of the great operatic divas of the 20th century. From our contemporary perspective, it’s easy to see how that played out. Ask anyone over the age…

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