Light Speed: Arena

I saved Light Speed: Arena for last today: the game that did to Flip 7 what the Death Star did to Alderaan. The moment it opens up on the table, brains go straight over the rails: little spaceships, a board that quickly looks like a battlefield, and the promise that things are about to get completely out of hand.

The game has you throw your ships onto the board—with a plan, lol—trying to set up your side amid the inevitable confusion. It does not feel like careful, sacred strategy; it feels like the moment everyone leans over the table and tries to work out what exactly just happened.

Then comes the photo: you capture the board and the app takes over to show how the clash played out. That is where the game’s best kind of interaction lives, because you may discover that, in an almost poetically destructive way, you have once again managed to blow up your own base from the other side of the table.

Light Speed: Arena is a tremendous game for Dungeon Derby-level situations, precisely because you should not take it seriously. We are already fired up by the idea of a BLTG holiday expansion: four people play, the photo gets taken, and everyone else at the holiday gathering bets on the result. Carnage—in the best possible sense.