Gameblog

Category: More about games

  • Taj Mahal

    Isn’t it funny, when Brian Bankler describes what he sees as the fundamental flaw in Taj Mahal in his article Worst Poker variant ever, he actually describes the very thing I find so attractive in the game? It’s exactly the mechanic where you lose the cards, whether you win the pot or not that makes…

  • Indie role-playing games

    Iain wrote about role-playing games for boardgamers, looking for a role-playing game that would satisfy the needs of a modern Euro boardgamer. He got some suggestions, but I have some as well. This was originally an e-mail to Iain, but as it grew, it became a blog entry. Whee. Anyway, over two years ago I…

  • Railroad Tycoon

    I’ve been wanting to write this for a long time now, but with three or so jobs and other commitments, I just haven’t had the energy or time. I’ll have a lot to say.. But here’s for now: Railroad Tycoon is officially really cool. I’m a fan. Both of Railroad Tycoon, the computer game (I…

  • Architekton

    I was thinking about getting Architekton (as a companion to another small-box Queen game, Turbo Taxi, which is a must-buy for me), but after I read Mary (sodaklady) write about in Gone Gaming: Techniques to Recruit The Non-gamer in Your Home, I’ve changed my mind. Mary’s entry hit my doubts fairly well — I’ll skip…

  • Antiquity is here!

    Antiquity arrived, finally! It had taken a detour, visiting three Tampere post offices when it should’ve come through just two. That’s why I didn’t get it last week… Well, that’s all behind, now I can enjoy having the game around and that’s all that matters. First thoughts: oh, it’s huge! Oh, it’s full of counters!…

  • FarFalia

    I wrote a review of FarFalia. My session report summarised the game pretty well already, but here goes again: FarFalia is a trick-taking game for five players. It supports two and three with dummies and four with different arrangements, but it’s designed for five and shines that way. The game features a fairly standard deck…

  • Dividends

    I got a review copy of Dividends from Fun Factory Games. For a new company, they’ve certainly got the production values right. Dividends looks very sleek and actually looks more modern than pretty much anything else I have. The game seems interesting enough: it’s a fairly simple stock-market game of buy, sell and earn dividends.…

  • Industrial Waste vs Power Grid

    I was asked a question by Jacob in the comments of an earlier post: Hey, could I trouble you for your opinion of Industrial Waste vs Powergrid? I’ve played neither and I’m intrigued by both. Powergrid is ranked really high on BGG and when I read reviews, I keep feeling that the same negatives (i.e.…

  • Bug Bluff, Doom, Industrial Waste

    I’ve been writing little game reviews recently. When I spend most of my time at the computer writing, that isn’t the most attractive way to spend my free time, right? However, now I just had to get these few games out of my system. Bug Bluff — This must be one of the pretties card…

  • Cosmic Eidex — what a mess!

    Since I now have a Cosmic Eidex deck, I thought perhaps I should take a look at Swiss Jass, the game behind Cosmic Eidex. It turns out Cosmic Eidex is a rather complicated mixture of different Jass games. It’s basically Swiss Jass, alright, but there’s something else, too. The basic structure of avoiding to be…