Contributor
WhiteColarGamer
Suave, flamboyant, and unrepentant about it. Drawn to deluxe editions, upgraded components and a table that looks as good as it plays.
🎁 2 kudos from readers
164 reviews
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Review EPOS: A Gentes Game
EPOS: A Gentes Game gives the much-loved Gentes a modest polish and a campaign of scenarios that seems ready to pull it in fresh directions. Its one serious demand is a properly organised box.
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Review Cold War: CIA vs KGB
Cold War: CIA vs KGB is not the last word in games about its subject. But for a child trying to understand a war with no famous battlefield attached, it is a gentle and useful place to begin.
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Review Propolis
Propolis is a fresh, light city builder with pleasing resource management and the good sense to finish in under an hour. It offers enough shape to feel satisfying without asking for an entire evening.
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Review Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion
Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion is a carefully produced co-op boss battler that comes alive in combat and loses momentum in the campaign between fights. Nine sessions and roughly 80% of the main story later, our group is unlikely to see it through.
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Review Abalone
Abalone still has the simple pull of an old challenge waiting on the shelf, and it has found a new opponent at home. Take away the nostalgia, though, and it now feels somewhat dated.
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Review The First Tsar: Ivan the Terrible
The First Tsar: Ivan the Terrible is a light, satisfying euro that takes familiar ideas and wears them more comfortably than Rurik did. It leaves the table pleased rather than dazzled: a very good evening, if not the automatic final pick.
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Review Cthulhu: Dark Providence
Cthulhu: Dark Providence won me over on a first play, despite the understandable fatigue around the Mythos theme. It has a smooth pace, a sense of depth, and more than enough reason to return.
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Review Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game – Clone Wars Edition
Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game – Clone Wars Edition is a pleasant, approachable way into a beloved Star Wars era for a younger fan. But for someone already rather full of deck-builders, it does not quite deliver the spark its reputation suggests.
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Review West Story: A Town Building Game
West Story: A Town Building Game is a tight tableau builder with an appealing dice mechanism, but its scoring and pacing never quite settle into place. It is a middling experience, though one I would still happily play again.
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Review Ronin
Ronin is Queen Games doing a lean, thematic area-control game with enough substance to fill an hour, but not enough rules to make an evening of it. It needs a crowded table, though: below four players, its case becomes much harder to make.
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Review Fromage
Fromage and Formaggio are two versions of an ambitious design that can be mixed together for near-endless variety. Their rotating cheese board and simultaneous play deliver strategy without the drag of downtime.
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Review Nippon: Zaibatsu
Nippon: Zaibatsu brings fresh warmth to a clever, carefully judged economic euro that had quietly slipped to the back of the cupboard. The ships are a meaningful improvement, rather than a shiny extra for its own sake.
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Review Galaxy Trucker
Galaxy Trucker failed to win over either the younger recruit or me on its second outing. I can still imagine a four-player table finding the laughter we missed, but it has not earned another launch yet.
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Review Skybridge
Skybridge is a modular resource-management game with no grand claim to novelty, but it makes for a pleasant, honest evening at the table. It will not set your brain on fire, and sometimes that is precisely the point.
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Review Puerto Rico 1897: Special Edition
Puerto Rico 1897: Special Edition finally gave me a first look at a landmark game I had somehow missed. I found more to admire in the lavish object on the table than in the game it contains.
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Review Covenant
Covenant is a hefty, generously stuffed Devir Euro that brings no fresh fantasy premise or mechanical revelation. What it does bring is a satisfying tableau builder with enough progression and shape to make the clutter worthwhile.
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Review Port Royal: Big Box
Port Royal: Big Box is a light push-your-luck game with pirate salt, small risks, and gloriously bad judgement. The base game is no great revelation, but it gets laughs and makes another play feel like an easy decision.
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Review Imperial Stars II: Legacy
Imperial Stars II: Legacy is an old-school hex-and-counter space wargame in the most honest sense: two empires, fleets on a map, and no interest in peaceful coexistence. Its deluxe edition looks the part, while its streamlined rules keep the conflict comfortably close to an hour.
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Review Luthier
Luthier is a lavish euro with a handsome table presence and a satisfyingly busy engine of decisions. Its first play can feel unfair, though, until everyone understands where the real choices begin.
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Review Unconscious Mind
Unconscious Mind is a substantial, beautifully produced game with plenty going on. I simply never found the feeling at its centre.
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Review Moon Colony Bloodbath
Moon Colony Bloodbath is a silly beer-and-pretzels game with blood, laughs, and a modest little engine ticking underneath. It never pretends to be more substantial than it is.
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Review Atlantis Exodus
Atlantis Exodus is an ambitious, abundant heavy euro from Greek designers, with fresh ideas and end-game scoring worth watching. It needs time, and probably a second play, before it earns a final judgement.
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Review Cascadero
Cascadero is the fuller of the two siblings: a light Knizia route-builder that readily supports a second play. It is not a grand event, but it has enough gentle bite to suit a great many groups.
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Review Everdell Duo
Everdell Duo makes a convincing case for a condensed Everdell built properly for two players. It sits a small step above gateway territory, but it is a sound and welcoming next move with a little help at the table.
