I decided that during 2024, I'd reinvent one game every month. This month, I decided to fix Monopoly.
I can't think of a board game as famous, or as reviled, than Monopoly. Nobody's ever accused Monopoly of good design, and while probably some people enjoy the game it's usually because they've...
I love lore. It's one of the reasons I play games. Having read through Mantic Games's Warpath Sourcebook, I've been thinking a lot about the quirky cyberpunk / hard sci fi / comedy-of-errors / war-ravaged universe that is the Warpath setting. On the surface, it's just kind of general wargame scie...
At the time of this writing, Mantic Games is finishing up a Kickstarter campaign for a 10mm or 12mm mass warfare game called Epic Warpath. I'm a backer for several reasons. I can use the assets for the intended Warpath game, but also as auxiliary troops for some Mech games. I could, obviously, d...
Mansions of Madness by Fantasy Flight is an investigative RPG with a scripted Game Master. In fact, game play is guided by an app you can run on Steam or on a mobile device. The app tells you what tiles of the board to set out, what tokens to mark the board with, and helps you through exploration...
I'm reading the Stardrifter series by David Collins-Rivera, and reviewing each book as I finish it. The short story The Proposal is a story about a special-ops mission performed for a mysterious client. That's the same elevator pitch I used for the previous story but, believe me, the two are not...
I'm re-reading the Horus Heresy, and this is my review of the second book in the series, False Gods by Graham McNeill. There are minor spoilers in this review.
This is it. This is the book where it all happens. The previous book introduced us to Horus himsulf, and managed to make him pretty en...
A battle mat is useful in both wargames and roleplaying games, and there are lots of different options for what to use. Like many players, I use a mix of them, including Paizo's dry-erase grid boards and flipmaps, BattleTech map packs, and boards that come packaged with games like Zombicide and...
I'm a fan of the Fallout New Vegas and Fallout New Vegas, as well as the Wasteland series. When I found out there was a Fallout board game called, appropriately, Fallout the Board Game, I bought the last copy available in New Zealand (or at least at Mighty Ape, but I couldn't find it anywhere...
Some people have the impression that solo games, or playing multiplayer games by yourself, are consolation for people with no friends. The assumption is that it's "normal" to buy a game for your family or your game group, and that you'd only resort to a solo game when there's something wrong. Maybe...
In 2009, Pathfinder became the successor of D&D. It literally took the existing rules and re-published them with a bunch of improvements as Pathfinder. It was so successful with RPG players that it's spawned a video game, a board game, and a card game. I've played several rounds of the card...
Like a lot of (or all? is this a defining trait?) geeks, I'm pretty obsessive by nature. I focus on things intensely, and work in sprints so I can concentrate my current obsession into productivity (by some definition of "productive"). I work in the tech industry, which also works in sprints, so I'v...
I'm reading the Stardrifter series by David Collins-Rivera, and reviewing each book as I finish it. The short story Hunter's Moon is a story about a special-ops mission performed for a mysterious client. This review contains spoilers.
Here's a question. How do you make paperwork exciting? One...
Interested in playing a wargame that isn't Warhammer 40,000? Wargaming is a complex landscape of gaming possibility, and it can be a little confusing to navigate at first, especially if you venture too far away from firmly established franchises. I do think that Games Workshop, the creator of Warh...
Interested in playing Warhammer 40,000? Don't make the mistakes I did! Whether you're playing Warhammer or something else, wargaming requires preparation before you can actually play the game. This is different than what you're probably used to, if you play other tabletop games. You don't just go...
My partner and I love a good "couch co-op" game, a video game where you and a friend can play together on the same computer rather than over a network. We recently played through Quest Hunter and its Strangewood DLC, and this my review of it. This review contains minor spoilers.
Cutting to the...
Last year, shortly after the 10th edition of the game was released, I played my first game of Warhammer 40,000 and recorded my process, the battle, and my thoughts. I have no fancy White Dwarf style photos to go with this post, but I think it's interesting to see a game through a new player's ey...