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 Twisty Tracks
Twisty Tracks is a light railway puzzle with a little Village Rails charm and Tsuro clarity. It looks inviting, plays smoothly, and gives new conductors a very pleasant place to start.
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Review Last Will
Last Will turns bankruptcy into a polite ambition, then backs the joke up with a light, neatly joined worker-placement and hand-management game. Its real advantage is that it plays well with five without taking the whole evening hostage.
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Review Trepanation
Trepanation is a compact worker-placement game with an honestly macabre theme and a hint of Trickerion’s stagecraft, without anything like that game’s weight. It is a welcome, well-priced addition to DLP’s lighter range.
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Review Ierusalem: Anno Domini
An unusually reverent eurogame that finds mechanisms worthy of its very odd premise. As its designer’s first game, it stands among the year’s stronger releases.
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Review Union Stockyards
Union Stockyards is a luck-free economic game about turning the family firm into a slaughterhouse empire. It is not trying to redraw the map of the hobby, but it makes for a pleasingly smooth evening at the table — and yes, there is bacon.
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Review Clank!: Catacombs
Clank!: Catacombs is a light, breezy deck-builder that gives the game a proper board on which things can happen. It looks like the clearest starting point for newcomers to the series, though veterans may not find a pressing reason to add it to the shelf.
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Review Cape May
Cape May is a light action-selection and area-majority game in which property development sits alongside photographing rare birds, and somehow the odd pairing holds together. It is well produced and nicely balanced, though it never became a game our regular group would ask for.
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Review Aeroplanes: Aviation Ascendant
Aeroplanes: Aviation Ascendant may be the least imposing game in its trilogy, but it remains an unfairly overlooked aviation game that handles five players remarkably well.
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Review Star Realms: Deluxe Nova Collection
The Deluxe Nova Collection finally gives Star Realms a handsome permanent home on the shelf. The delivery delay was hard to excuse, but the finished box is beautifully made and its card mix keeps the game light on its feet.
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Review Mosaic: A Story of Civilization
Mosaic: A Story of Civilization arrives as a lavish table presence, with careful production and a rather needless amount of cardboard along for the ride. Beneath the spectacle is a sound light-medium civilisation game that asks players to watch one another properly.
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Review Skymines
Skymines takes the core of Mombasa, gives it a theme one can actually read, and adds a second map distinct enough to earn its place. I still prefer the original map, but the package comes recommended without reservation.
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Review Endless Winter: Paleoamericans
Endless Winter: Paleoamericans is a lavish, welcoming euro that makes a very comfortable introduction to the genre. Its handsome surface and gentle scoring systems, however, do not quite deliver the sharper tension its reputation suggests.
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Review Atiwa
Atiwa is a brisk, honest Uwe Rosenberg engine builder, but its “advanced” label oversells both its weight and its finish. It has a useful place as a bridge to heavier euros, though it does not quite arrive as the polished Lookout release one expects.
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Review Charioteer
Charioteer is an easy, brisk chariot race with just enough thought to keep an end-of-night table engaged. Its small scale suits that role well, though it feels rather slight for a GMT game at its price.
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Review Marvel: Crisis Protocol Core Set
Marvel: Crisis Protocol is a brisk, showy skirmish full of proper Marvel fan service, with enough variety to keep drawing you back. It is not trying to model every hero’s power level perfectly; it is trying to make a good fight happen on the table.
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Review D.E.I.: Divide et Impera
D.E.I.: Divide et Impera looks like a properly complete area-conflict game: carefully produced, easy on the eye, and happily free of dice. It is not reinventing anything, but it appears to know exactly what sort of fight it wants to offer.
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Review War of the Triple Alliance
War of the Triple Alliance makes a grim South American conflict approachable, with asymmetric sides and manoeuvre rather than dice at its centre. It is not trying to be the deepest wargame in the cupboard, and that is rather the point.
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Review Catherine: The Cities of the Tsarina
A welcoming tableau builder with clear iconography and more than one way to chase points. It is lighter than Furnace without feeling like a bowl of points salad.
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Review Kingdom Builder
Kingdom Builder is an older, slightly odd game that settles into an honest, undemanding puzzle. Its Big Box supplies plenty of variety and solid value, even if it does not always arrange its expansions with much grace.
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Review La Belle Époque
La Belle Époque is a lean, historically asymmetric area-control game that plays far more smoothly than its rather rough production suggests. It asks for patience with its running time, but Quartermaster General groups should find plenty to like.
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Review Car Wars (Sixth Edition)
Car Wars (Sixth Edition) trades the old game's heavy lifestyle-game ambition for a fast, noisy vehicular arena. It may not carry a grand campaign, but it makes a fine case for blowing off steam — especially when the miniatures look this good.
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Review Foundations of Rome
Foundations of Rome is a lavish city-building gateway game which, with its Kickstarter expansions, edges towards light euro territory. It is enormous, expensive, and very difficult not to enjoy looking at.
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Review Gaia Project
Gaia Project feels like a more settled Terra Mystica: a satisfyingly demanding puzzle, though a rather dry one at the table.
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Review Legacies
Legacies appears here as the brighter reserve choice for three players when a six-hour campaign was plainly the wrong fit. The account ends before the game itself reaches the table, however.
