I feel like I’m really underselling Inis by illustrating it here, to fully understand how gorgeous this game is, you really need to see it for yourself. Matagot also have a few related games of specifically-flavoured historical fantasy area control, each with a different focus. If you want something that’s a bit more about aggression and ruthless combat, maybe check out Kemet, and if you want something with a bit more economic management and an auction mechanic (it’s more exciting than it sounds), take a look at Cyclades.

What’s this? The first actual game recommendation on this blog since April 2019?

Wingspan generated a lot of buzz outside of board game circles when it came out, and y’know what? Good! It’s a good ambassador for the hobby, with its charming, accessible theme and beautiful production, built on top of a solid mechanical core that pushes your brain, but not too hard.

It’s time for your anual bgwf update kids and kiddettes

*emerges from the crypt, groaning with jaw hanging off*

If you - the reader - would like to hear about the indie games that have contacted BGWF, let me know! I’d really like to help everyone here. It happens rarely enough that I can’t really do roundup posts, and I can’t really justify the kind of illustrated reviews that I use for the main coverage, but the odd bump can’t hurt!

now to resume my exile, the board game police are still hunting me down

Are these adequate replacements? Maybe! They’re more fun at any rate. Today’s games are Funemployed, Welcome to the Dungeon and Coup.

For more, here’s our RPG update, and here’s our holiday update (part 1)!

Next time, we try to unseat three of the most popular and accessible card games on the market. That’ll go well.

Part 2! Skull, Spyfall, Sheriff of Nottingham, and Dead Man’s Draw.

In a Board Games With Friends first, it’s a double feature! Rainbow Dash will come back with her recommendations for holiday games that are a little spicier next [unit of time] when I can get around to drawing the update.

Once again this time’s games are:

Timeline, The Mind, Codenames, and Sushi Go.

We love RPGs, but we love them more for the RP than the G. The unique aspect of roleplaying games is the way the players collaborate to steer the story and create situations out of whole cloth, and the mechanics provide a framework - be it more or less rigid - to facilitate the creativity of the players. We don’t mean to dunk on people who love RPGs for the combat puzzles provided by the mechanics, that’s just not what we turn to RPGs for. As such, we don’t really care that much about the minutia of differences between systems. We’ll happily sit down with either.