Contributor
TheCuttlefish
Cares about the box, the insert and the rulebook as much as the game. Has a particular weakness for tidy rules and gleeful take-that.
🎁 2 kudos from readers
238 reviews
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Review Magnificent Flying Machines
Magnificent Flying Machines is straight beer-and-pretzels fare: loud laughs, petty attacks, and plenty of Take That. Its scoring has a mind of its own, though, so it makes more sense as a second-hand purchase.
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Review Winner's Circle
Winner's Circle is not much to look at, but it is an unusually good party game once the racing starts: laughter, needling, and just enough trackside foolishness.
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Review Cataclysm: A Second World War
Cataclysm: A Second World War begins not with gunfire, but with flags, glances, and great powers eyeing neutral countries like the last slice of pizza. Germany has the wheel at the start.
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Review Master of the Galaxy
Master of the Galaxy has a genuinely fresh central idea and insists that players fight over the win, but its rulebook and a few clumsy production choices make it far more fiddly than it needs to be. As it stands, it feels like a game waiting for a serious revision.
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Review Blackout: Hong Kong
Blackout: Hong Kong is a dry, German-style sandbox euro with no interest in easing you into its world. Beneath that brisk welcome sits a small gem for players who want the machinery first.
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Review Pocket Imperium
Pocket Imperium is a lean 3.5X king-of-the-hill filler whose action selection turns your neighbours into the important part of every decision. At two players, much of that bite goes missing.
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Review Conquest of Paradise
Conquest of Paradise is a light, interesting GMT mini-4X with a strong theme and a fifteen-minute teach. Its relaxed nature, though, means the players must be willing to do the policing themselves.
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Review Imperial 2030
Imperial 2030 produced another epic, close and entirely merciless game. Alliances are not a safety net here; they are the knife handed to the player beside you.
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Review Power Struggle
Power Struggle is a brisk, noisy blend of area control and negotiation for five players, with tightly joined systems and a scoring structure that does not quite keep pace.
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Review The Flow of History
The Flow of History is a compact card-driven civilisation game with a clever economic model and virtually no waiting around. It never quite became exciting for me, but it delivers neatly on its promise as a civ snack.
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Review Feudum
Feudum is a dense, psychedelic heavy euro that keeps the table moving with almost no downtime. It has a little too much procedural clutter, though, and some balance questions linger.
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Review Corporate America
Corporate America looks like a throwaway joke game until the right group gets hold of it. With enough people and no one treating it like a board meeting, it becomes a splendid little engine for lies, favours and glorious fines.
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Review Sidereal Confluence
Sidereal Confluence looks like a table-wide disaster at first, then reveals itself as one of the liveliest negotiation games around. Bring enough people, a little nerve, and a group willing to trade without choking the clock.
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Review Paranoia Games Masters Screen
The recent Kickstarter version of Paranoia keeps the beloved RPG’s malicious streak, only with a lighter and more contemporary rhythm. Give it a group willing to plot against one another and it pays back in laughter and a small mountain of dead characters.
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Review Sword & Sorcery: Immortal Souls
Sword & Sorcery: Immortal Souls is, for me, the best dungeon crawler of its generation: a notably solid system that does not drown in cooperative niceness. It deserved far more support and visibility than it has received.
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Review Hexpanse
Hexpanse is an honest, brisk area-control game with more depth than its spare rules initially suggest. It will not suit every group, but the right table can get a great deal out of it.
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Review Traveller Customizable Card Game: Two Player Starter Set
Traveller Customizable Card Game: Two Player Starter Set has real space-exploration promise, along with a learning curve that does not greet newcomers gently. It works well head-to-head, provided everyone accepts that the first couple of games are survival training.
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Review Unfair
Unfair is an easy-going engine-builder with a distinctly nasty pack of cards hidden up its sleeve. It shines with two or three players; add more, and the table may decide to demolish one person together.
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Review A Handful of Stars
A Handful of Stars is more abstract and less richly themed than the other two games in its trilogy, yet it is plainly the stronger design. Its rulebook is a dreadful first obstacle, but repeat plays make the payoff clear.
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Review Days of Ire: Budapest 1956
Days of Ire: Budapest 1956 finds its proper tension with three players: two rebels facing one Russian player. I liked it as a two-player game; this was a much better fit.
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Review Altiplano
Altiplano produced a game full of resource grabs, score-related mischief, and ambitious attempts to locate a crack in the system. Wood and alpacas: the essentials.
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Review Battle for Rokugan
Battle for Rokugan is not A Game of Thrones wearing a different badge. It is a sharp area-control game full of fights and betrayals, and it deserves better than that lazy comparison.
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Review Mini Rails
Mini Rails shows its shape with three players. At five, it turns that shape into a compact family argument, and does it in half an hour.
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Review Mistborn: House War
Mistborn: House War has plenty of setting flavour and a handsome production, and it comes alive with five people at the table. Its negotiation is lively, but its timing can turn the whole thing into a muddle.
