Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 105 i Tabletop Gaming

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There are a few designers on the board game scene that I would stick my neck on the line and say: You should pay attention to these people, because in a few years, they’ll be massive. If we gave awards for ‘Up and Coming Designers’, Chris Priscott, who runs the publishing company Unfringed, where he designs his own games, would be the recipient of one. We sat down to find out more about Chris, Unfringed, and his brand new upcoming game, Fetching Feathers. SUSHI, DINOSAURS, AND A DREAM The story starts, as so many now do, with the pandemic. A world forced inside, finding new hobbies and ways to fill their time, saw Chris playing a lot of Sushi Go, and Draftosaurus. The difference between Chris and the rest of…

You’re coming in hot - and it’s not just the coffee. You can see the airport in front of you. Air traffic control has cleared the runway. The last pesky British Airways flight is taxiing off somewhere and you’ve got the next space. The plane is nice and level, despite the little bit of turbulence earlier. Altitude is good. But it’s your speed that’s the problem. The co-pilot was too busy chatting to a flight attendant and hasn’t been slowing down enough. The atmosphere in the cockpit is tense. Neither of you is saying a word. Sweat is forming on your brow. It’s now or never. Can you slow down the plane enough before you smash into the air traffic control tower? That, dear reader, is a very typical situation…

According to Arcanopolis - a cafe and ‘boardgamery’ located in Bacolod City - game playing traditions in the Philippines date ‘back to pre-colonial times, with indigenous games that were often played using natural materials.’ Sungka is one such game; a mancala-style, two-player strategy game, utilising seeds or cowrie shells and, typically, a boat shaped wooden board. Demonstrating the game’s cultural significance, the folk at Arcanopolis note that Sungka maintains its popularity today. Similarly, games introduced during the period of Spanish colonisation have become staples too, with chess and checkers being the obvious examples. In the Philippines, checkers is known as dama. In the late 1970s, Jesus Huenda, a teacher in Sorsogon, took the basic mechanics of dama, sprinkled on some mathematical symbols, and created the educational game Damath. The rules…

Of all the games I’ve played over the years for Tabletop Gaming, the one that I’ve hands down talked about the most, taken to the most places, and played with the most people, is Flip 7. Surprised? Only if you haven’t played it, I think. The fact is, with its absolute simplicity, it’s been the most infectious game I’ve ever seen. You can teach it in a few lines, play it again and again, and at least one person in the group will immediately want to buy it. It’s so good, that it’s been nominated for a Spiel des Jahres, which is somewhat unusual for this type of game. We had to sit down with Eric Olsen, the game’s designer, to find out the story behind the success. FREEZE Before…

Looks like it’s a monster mash, and you’ve been drafted in to help. The box art for Vampire Village shows a classic depiction of a Nosferatu-like vampire, standing menacingly over a sleepy Germanic village and by the end of the game, you might want to stand menacingly over your friends too! In Vampire Village, players pick-and-pass draft tiles, which are then assembled into a town, placing villagers within its walls to score points at the end of the game. Each tile placed may spawn several villagers based on simple conditions, or let you add a hero to the town, who moves villagers to places which may be safer from the horrors outside. Tiles also have directional shields, each of which repels a certain kind of monster, and these must be…

Do you feel powerless to cheeky companies looting your hard-earned wages by hoiking up bills? Try Looot, a game that puts you in control of the pillaging – albeit ten centuries back in Viking times. Longships await ready to set sail for vulnerable, hexagon-patterned lands (a central communal board), where you’ll place Viking workers who will steal resources, from castles to gold, sheep to trees. Back home, you will populate your fjord (an individual board), by surrounding objective tiles with the relevant resources, becoming a rich jarl, and eventually racking up victory points. This is by no means a complicated game, but it is definitely an efficient one. Each player has 13 Viking workers in total, and because you can only place them either next to a longship (residing at…

I’ve always had a love for the Disney and PIXAR film Coco. The gorgeous music, the breathtaking visuals, and the mesmerising celebration of a crucial cultural event, all ensured that the animated artwork has been cemented in film history. For many (myself included), it was their first true exposure to Día de los Muertos and those families who are remembering their loved ones by building Ofrendas with portraits of the deceased, accompanied by offerings of their favourite things. So, when Ofrenda came along, it was hard not to make those comparisons and luckily, the title more than lives up to those lofty expectations, and takes you far further into the tradition. Simply put, Ofrenda is a visual feast of colours, characters, and gameplay components. Illustrator Alex Herrerías could not have…

Think you could survive on a deserted island? Fancy yourself as the next Robinson Crusoe? Fate Flip: Washed Ashore is your chance to see how well you’d fare and if you can make the right choices to find all the different endings. Washed Ashore is very much a story-driven experience and one which I have no wish to spoil… particularly since I’m going to end with a positive recommendation, so this review will be cagey about some details, focusing on mechanics and production over the story which is, itself, pretty solid. In Washed Ashore, you play as a newly stranded castaway trying to find safety and a solution to your situation, through collecting items and interacting with the fauna and flora of this unfamiliar landscape you’ve found yourself in. The…

Zoontalis: Battle Royale is a game which absolutely brims with character and ideas. From the moment you see the box, with its off-the-wall anthropomorphic animal warriors, you can see that the developers were having fun with it. This makes it all the more disappointing to say that they missed the mark. At its heart, Zoontalis is meant to be a family-friendly skirmish game in which teams of four ‘Awakened’ duke it out in glorious combat on a squaregridded mat. Normally, I would begin this review by explaining in brief how the game plays. This is made difficult by the fact that I’m still not 100% certain myself. Zoontalis is plagued by typos, inconsistencies, and poorly explained mechanics. To cite one of many - ‘Attacks of Opportunity’ are defined awkwardly enough…

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Welcome back to Tabletop Gaming, diving into all of the fun stuff this hobby of ours has to offer. As we go to print, we’re on the cusp of the Spiel Des Jahres being announced – more on that next issue! – and I’ve got my fingers crossed for my favourites. That aside this month has been a really fun one to put together. We caught up with Unfringed on Fetching Feathers, Warcradle Studios on doing things differently, Sky Team’s designer on the award winning game, Zatu on their new distribution arm (what it means, and their wider approach), and indulging my surprisingly deep dive into the decision making process of what box size a game uses. Add in our usual fabulous games reviews, and you’ve got a jam-packed issue.…

Dexterity Games Definition: A type of party game where playing pieces are physically moved, removed, balanced or intertwined in various gravity-defying ways. Tabletop games are frequently a workout for the mind. You exercise your decision-making skills, your management of cards and resources and try your luck with dice. Now, it’s time to see how you can interact with the real world. In dexterity games, you will be asked to manipulate playing pieces - usually blocks of some kind - into or out of structures. The first rule is usually: don’t let anything touch the table! Most people, even non-gamers, will be familiar with Jenga, the grandparent of dexterity games today. Gravity and other laws of physics are the main stumbling block for players. That and your own ability, or lack…

This time around, it’s an opportunity to celebrate the summer, as the hotter seasons roll around. What’s better for that theme than a holiday? So we’re heading to the beach for a tropical, and altogether different RPG premise that might just slot straight into your party’s current campaign. THE LOCATION We open, naturally, on a beach. Lorensos Beach, to be exact, a particularly prominent space in the tourism industry that has drawn criticism for its recent decline. If, of course, the characters of your RPG know what a tourist is! Nonetheless, with investment and an eco-operation to be marvelled at, the beach has started to gather momentum once more, as a vacation spot to be idolised. What many take away with them isn’t the sudden transformation of a beautiful locale…

Right now, as we approach summer 2025, the Trading Card Game (TCG) community is getting collectively very excited about the impending debut of Riftbound, the new card game based on the phenomenally popular League of Legends video game. Time will tell as to exactly how excited we should be but there’s something more interesting going on which is not what we’ve been led to expect as TCG fans. It’s launching in mainland China first. If you’re in China, you can be very excited about the release this summer, but if you’re in English-speaking territories like the US or here in sunny old Britain, you have to wait until October. Which, to be fair, is still better than other territories that have to wait until 2026 to get a taste. If…

Karen (n): A modern derogatory term used to describe an entitled person who loudly complains about events or items, often with little or no legitimate justification. They expect the world to be moved to accommodate them regardless of cost, effect on other people, and on occasion, the laws of physics. In this ludicrous party game, everyone starts with a five star review, and this is wholly unacceptable. You are aiming to lose four of your star ratings to be the first to reach the ultimate one-star review status. Each point you get makes one of your Karens a little grumpier, five grumpy Karens loses you a star. There are three different types of rounds: What’s Being Reviewed, Fill in the Blanks, and Write the Review. They ask you to guess…

Another video game behemoth has landed on the tabletop. The fantasy role-playing series The Elder Scrolls is known for its freeroam gameplay in an open world, allowing players to inhabit characters of various fantasy races and walks of life, setting off on an adventure across the seemingly endless lands of Tamriel. How do you fit all of that in a board game box? Well, first, it will weigh about 10kg, so hopefully you practiced your squat lifts to get that baby up on the board game shelf! Although the weight is mostly due to the satisfyingly chunky chips that the publisher, Chip Theory Games, is known for. Secondly, you will need a system that has a little bit of everything: offers plenty of variety but manages to streamline elements…

Although becoming an adult comes with great responsibility, getting your own place is one of the highlights. Happy Home finds you finally collecting door keys after months of dull paperwork and solicitor chasing. Now comes the exciting part. Decorating. Each player takes a house board, probably expecting to put their own stamp on it, but sadly unable to, as the boards are all the same. Let’s assume players are neighbours in an identikit 1950s street, as the artwork suggests. The footprint shows four rooms: a lounge, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom – each empty and each with damage that the previous owners neglected to fix. At least they left two, picked-at-random items to make the place less echo-y. Aside from that, this is a doer-upper. Conveniently, the local furniture store is…

Cthulhu: Death May Die has been one of CMON Games’ most successful product lines. Originally launched in 2019, this cooperative game has spawned numerous expansions and has yet to satiate the unending hunger of its fans. It has returned once again with a standalone box that serves as a new entry point into the series, or alternatively, a solid extension to an already existing collection. Fear of the Unknown is an ample offering. As it’s not an expansion, it includes all of the necessary bits to play the game, such as investigators, tokens, dice, and scenarios. All of this is swappable with existing material due to the modular nature of the design. The framework of Death May Die is that players select an episode box, Elder One, and a set…

Wargames are pushing the boundaries of narrative gaming. I, Napoleon, War Story: Occupied France, and Undaunted: Stalingrad are a few recent revelatory titles with a story-driven framing of conflict. Purple Haze is the most well rounded and ambitious, leaning into a paragraph driven encounter system that bounces between map-based travel, narrative passages, and tactical grid-based combat. This is a big game in terms of design and vision, and it’s one that finds success by navigating a war that was anything but successful. The United States military operation in Vietnam is a conflict uniquely suited to a story-focused approach. It was an asymmetric war characterised as much by local operations of reconnaissance and nation-building as it was by intense and messy firefights. It was also one fraught with moral failings. Purple…

Birdwatching-themed game Wingspan has been a staple of the board gaming world since its release in 2019. Players draft bird cards and place them on their board to score points, as well as make a light engine to reap more benefits and points. It wasn’t the first game to use nature as a theme, but at the time, it offered something noticeably different to casual gamers and perhaps those not coming from a traditionally nerdy sci-fi angle. Wingspan’s commercial success may be one of the reasons nature-themed games are fairly common now. Its components are outstanding: beautifully illustrated cards, 3D eggs, a silky rulebook and its own dice tower. If you’ve enjoyed Wingspan (birds) you can try its sister games Wyrmspan (dragons) and Finspan (fish). Alongside that, here are some…

MONEY! Designer: Reiner Knizia Publisher: Allplay Artists: Anne Heidsieck Unless it’s your first day here (or you have no interest in facts and figures) you’ve probably heard of Dr Reiner Knizia before. He’s the most prolific board game designer, who’s been designing full-time since 1997 but was already releasing games long before that. Money! is a set collection auction game first published in 1999. Its rerelease by Allplay this year includes all new artwork to appeal to a new audience. It’s a quick, changeable strategic game where you have to be brave and adaptable. The game on Kickstarter comes in a box set of quick-play games, including Ruins, Vegas Strip and Oddland. The choice to illustrate the game with quirky animals in top hats and other attire has divided opinion…

BARBECUBES Like its fellow tiny tin game Tinderblox, Barbecubes packs an awful lot in to a small space. Here, the tin becomes the play area with two grill pieces that slot on top of the box to turn it into the barbeque itself. Use tiny tweezers to move tinier pixelated chunks of food onto the barbecue as dictated by the card you’ve drawn. Sometimes with your non-dominant hand, sometimes balancing on only one bar. It’s nonsense and it’s hilarious. CATCH THE MOON This is ridiculous simplicity. You have a collection of ladders, two of which are securely installed on a cloud. From this foundation, try to catch the moon! At the behest of a die roll you must balance your ladder so that it is connected to one or two…

Winning the best miniatures range award at UK Games Expo is an accolade not to be sniffed at, but when you hear the inner workings of the studio that created it, it feels almost inevitable. We sat down with Chris Pond, Studio Manager at Warcradle Studios, to find out where the studio started, what it means to manufacture your own minis, and what goes on behind the scenes. Warcradle Studios began life within Wayland Games, who, if you’re not already familiar with them, pride themselves on being the largest independent retailer for tabletop products in Europe. The team, made up of passionate hobbyists, decided to diversify into manufacturing and creating their own products. “At first we thought we would design our own IP and we would build a studio around…

To mark their tenth birthday, we’ve picked out some of their best titles, all of which have the signature Saashi & Saashi combo of a cosy theme, straightforward rules, and gameplay that periodically feels like being pursued through rain-soaked fields at midnight by a pack of baying hounds. COFFEE ROASTER It’s often said that you go bankrupt in two ways: gradually and then suddenly. That’s also how you lose at Coffee Roaster, an early Saashi & Saashi title that remains one of the best solo games ever made. Pull tokens representing coffee beans from a bag, advancing their level each time as you slowly roast them. Your goal is to get an even roast, with no burnt beans or bitter smoky aftertaste. The game does a fantastic job of capturing…

Did you know that cacti can live for more than 200 years? What about the fact that the Incas used them for medicine? How about the news that the biggest cactus ever grew to 78ft but blew down in 1986! Imagine how amazed your friends and family will be when you start wheeling out these amazing facts. Think of the shock on their faces and the spontaneous rounds of applause. Why all these cactus facts? Well, Ouch! is all about these prickly customers. The game plops you in the desert with one task: picking flowers. Unfortunately, these flowers grow on cactus, so you’ve got to be careful not to get pricked - otherwise you can’t collect the beautiful specimens. The winner is the person with the most flowers when someone…

Do you know the average penguin’s balancing ability? No, me neither. But High-Rise Penguins could give you a bit of an idea. This is a quick, simple, family-friendly game about piling up penguins in a tower of icebergs (as you do), until the tower topples or your cards run out. The game is comprised of a deck of circular cards that are dealt out to each player, and the rest make up the sea encircling the ever-growing ice tower in the centre of your table. Also scattered in the sea are several ice crystals and a small colony of penguins ready to ascend the structure as it grows. Players take it in turns to play a card from their hand onto the tower. They are played uno-style, so either the…

Quorum is a game of two halves set in ancient Rome. No, that doesn’t mean it’s about Romans playing football. We’re talking about the fact that although it may be mechanically easy to play, the scoring is something else entirely. With that in mind then, let’s start with the easy bit: the mechanics of a turn. In the centre of the players is a small but beautifully illustrated map of Rome and six different provinces (Macedonia, Africa, Gallia, Germania, Hispania and Asia), which each have their own score track. Along with that, you’ve got a central market of available Rome or God cards. Again, these cards are very nicely illustrated, and the Rome cards are split into four differently coloured categories: Military (green), Trade (blue), Architecture (brown) and Intrigue (yellow).…

In Console Wars: The Card Game, you and up to four other players represent competing console companies trying to amass a stellar lineup of games for your system while cutting your rivals’ legs out from under them. Gameplay is very simple – draw cards, play up to three from your hand, then pass. You’re trying to collect coloured sets of games, representing different genres, like strategy, horror, shooter and so on. The first person to collect four complete sets, wins. Aside from playing game cards directly into your tableau, you can also play fanbase cards, each representing x million fans, which act as a sort of health bar/currency, cushioning you from the shocks of the market and your opponents’ efforts to undermine you. Action cards are take-that style cards that…

If I’ve learnt one thing whilst reviewing Pukeapocalypse, it’s this: some people just can’t stand vomit. I’ve tried to explain the game to several individuals who have just held up a hand and said “Nope”, before I can get past the introduction. If you have a squeamish nature, turn away now. For those still in the room, Pukeapocalypse is a bile-soaked game set in a world where all the water has been poisoned by radiation and grime. The only drinkable stuff left is inside people; it’s your main resource and weapon. Your job is to vomit on each other, swallowing enough of the stuff for ammunition without accidentally imbibing too much and bursting. Repulsive enough for you yet? Underneath the layers of gore, Pukeapocalpypse is an absolutely unique, fast-playing, miniatures-agnostic…

If you’ve ever spent a hot summer battling through Streets of Rage on the MegaDrive, you’ll have known the joy of button-mashing your way between an absolute shower of grunts on your way to taking out an impossibly tough boss. In the same way, if you ever had a Bruce Lee film phase, or even just dabbled with some Jackie Chan comedies, you’ll know a little of what Steamforged Games are targeting with this latest release of Street Masters: Tide of the Dragon. This is a tactical fighting game where you and your companions will take down an enemy gang; hopefully defeating them before their nefarious plans come to completion. The game takes place around a scenario map, with your Fighters represented by figurines, surrounded by cardboard standees of the…

How do games get made? If you play enough, at some point you start to ask yourself this. You ponder if maybe you could make a game. Across the world, there are organisations that can help you in this endeavour, but few have the permanent location and resources being poured into the Ancient Robot Workshop in Edinburgh. Dougal Freir opened Ancient Robot Games in 2023. It has quickly established itself as a welcoming, inclusive, and community-focused local games shop. It hosts events from miniature painting to exploring the weird worlds of RPGs. It has an extensive range of stock across miniatures games, board and card games, and RPGs. The staff are welcoming, friendly, and keen to show folk the wonderful world of tabletop games. Of course, this is the story…