Gameblog

  • About
  • Reviews
  • Gaming Year 2023
  • 1825 notes
  • Spring 2025 notes

    Spring 2025 notes

    Thoughts on Innovation Ultimate, Fellowship of the Ring: The Trick-taking Game, Faraway and Black Forest.

    April 14, 2025
    More about games

    Black Forest, Faraway, Fellowship of the Ring: The Trick-taking Game, Innovation, Innovation Ultimate
  • Gaming Year 2024

    Gaming Year 2024

    18XX. This has been a year of 18XX games. Things started slowly in the Spring, but then 18 India hit us by a storm. I ended up playing various 18XX titles over 20 times this year; that’s more than a third of my all-time 18XX plays since 2006. Forest Shuffle. I still played a ton…

    January 9, 2025
    Statistical lunacy

    12 Chip Trick, 18 BosWash, 18 India, 1829 Mainline, 1882: Assiniboia, 18GB: The Railways of Great Britain, 18Ireland, CuBirds, Daybreak, Dune: Imperium, Dune: Imperium – Uprising, First Rat, Fishing, Forest Shuffle, Gimme That!, Go, Hamlet: The Village Building Game, Harmonies, Lucky Numbers, Mahjong, Medical Mysteries, MLEM: Space Agency, Oranienburger Kanal, Ricochet Robot, Schadenfreude, SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Smart10, Taj Mahal, Tea Garden, The Castles of Burgundy, The Gang, The White Castle, Trekking Through History, Troyes, World Wonders
  • New game notes, December 2024

    New game notes, December 2024

    Short comments on the best new games I’ve played in the later half of 2024.

    December 1, 2024
    More about games

    Fishing, Hamlet: The Village Building Game, SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Tea Garden, The Gang
  • 1825 with all Units

    1825 with all Units

    Setting up an 1825 game with all the Units has been an arduous task. I hoped to make it a yearly tradition in 2019, but then Covid-19 happened. After that, every attempt has failed somehow. Today, one of our players got stranded in Berlin, but as we had four players present, we made it. This…

    September 28, 2024
    Session reports

    1825
  • My top 100 list, 2024

    After much work, the 2024 edition of my top 100 list is now available on BoardGameGeek. It takes some time to compile, but I find it interesting and useful, and since this is already the 11th edition of the list, there’s interesting long-term data in there. The top 100 list is long and has some…

    July 27, 2024
    Statistical lunacy

  • Ropecon 2024

    Ropecon 2024

    Ropecon 2024 was a great experience for games. We played lots of good games, demoed Asian games and met nice people.

    July 24, 2024
    Session reports

    1846, Australia, Dia de los Muertos, Earth, Go, Harmonies, Monikers, Notre Dame, Pax Pamir, Porta Nigra, Ropecon, Schadenfreude, Shogi, The Castles of Burgundy, Trollius’n Roll, Xiangqi
  • Best years of games, updated

    Best years of games, updated

    Mikko updated his “best years of games” geeklist. The top spots remain unchanged with significant years being 2015 and 2016. Changes in methodology significantly impacted the ranks, with 2017 leaping forward.

    March 3, 2024
    Statistical lunacy

  • Railroads in the UK: 1829 Mainline

    Railroads in the UK: 1829 Mainline

    A decade after buying 1829 Mainline to support its creator, I played the game. It offers unique features in the 18xx genre, like an open tile selection from the start and trains that don’t rust. The game concluded with close final scores and a victory for me!

    February 29, 2024
    Session reports

    1829 Mainline, 18xx
  • Gaming Year 2023

    Gaming Year 2023

    A review of my gaming year 2023: the best, the worst, the long-standing favourites and the missing games.

    January 7, 2024
    Statistical lunacy

  • Forest Shuffle and new games

    Forest Shuffle and new games

    The post provides reviews of multiple games. I enjoy Forest Shuffle, particularly when played with two players, and find All Roads to be a compact, minimalist game with cooperative elements. The urban tactical combat game Invasion: Free State is also noted. Other games mentioned include The Quest for El Dorado: Dragons, Treasures & Mysteries, One…

    November 16, 2023
    More about games

    All Roads, Beyond the Sun, Beyond the Sun: Leaders of the New Dawn, Forest Shuffle, Invasion: Free State, One Page War, The Quest for El Dorado, The Quest for El Dorado: Dragons Treasures & Mysteries
1 2 3 … 153
Next Page→

Rating scale

Here’s the rating scale I use, and how it corresponds to BGG ratings:

  • Enthusiastic: I love the game and want to play it. (9, 10)
  • Suggest: Good game, I want to play it and will usually suggest it. (7, 8)
  • Indifferent: I’ll play the game, if necessary, but won’t suggest it. (5, 6)
  • Avoid: I don’t want to play this game. (1-4)

(Thanks to Brian Bankler)


Search

Of green

The green colour of the sidebar is the Brunswick Green used by Nationalised British Railways – Western Region:

“A different color, also called “Brunswick green”, was the colour for passenger locomotives of the Grouping and then the nationalized British Railways. There were three shades of these colours and they are defined under British Standard BS381C – 225, BS381C – 226, and BS381C – 227 (ordered from lightest to darkest). The Brunswick Green used by the Nationalised British Railways – Western Region for passenger Locomotives was BS381C – 227 (rgb(30:62:46)). RAL6005 is a close substitute to BS381C – 227. A characteristic of these colours was the ease for various railway locations to mix them by using whole pots of primary colours – hence the ability to get reasonably consistent colours with manual mixing half a century and more ago.”

Wikipedia: Shades of green


There is a difference from play with dice, because the latter is open, whereas play with cards takes place from ambush, because they are concealed.

– Girolamo Cardano: Liber de ludo aleae (1564), translated by Sydney Gould as The Book on Games of Chance (Princeton University, 1953)

Gameblog

Copyright 2022 Mikko Saari

Proudly powered by WordPress

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok