-
Portobello Market
Review of Portobello Market in Finnish. Portobello Market won the Hippodice game design competition as East India Railways. Schmidt picked it up, switched the theme and here we have a game set in the London’s famous market street. Lautapelit.fi was quick to publish this in Finnish. Portobello Market seems to be designed for Spiel des…
-
Caylus Magna Carta
Caylus Magna Carta reviewed in Finnish. Caylus Magna Carta is the card game version of Caylus, the big hit from 2005. Caylus is a good game, but for some reasons it just didn’t work for me that well. One thing is definitely the length: 30 minutes per player is just too long. Magna Carta definitely…
-
Yspahan
Yspahan reviewed in Finnish. Yspahan is a game of camels and trading from Ystari Games. The initial buzz over this one wasn’t that big, and I would’ve missed the game altogether based on that. However, Westpark Gamers did a brilliant Windows version of the game (see Yspahan for Windows website), which caused a lot more…
-
Zooloretto
Review of Zooloretto in Finnish. Zooloretto is the latest game in the Coloretto family. This zoo-themed family game is based on a familiar mechanism that works so well in the small card game. This big box board game turned out be another success for Michael Schacht. A simple idea The basic idea is the same:…
-
Himalaya
Review of Himalaya in Finnish. Himalaya appeared on many radars when it was nominated for Spiel des Jahres in 2005. The game was formerly known as Marchands d’Empire and available as print-and-play. The new edition, published by Tilsit and by Marektoy in Finland, is rethemed: medieval traders became yak caravans in Himalaya. The new theme…
-
Quackle! (Snorta!)
Review of Quackle! in Finnish. Snorta! — or Quackle!, as it’s known in Finland — is a light party game. The rules are very simple, the components attractive, the game works for up to eight players and it’s easy enough for kids yet interesting enough for adults to enjoy it as well. The components are…
-
Combat Commander: Europe
Review of Combat Commander: Europe in Finnish. I’m definitely an eurogamer — fond of fairly simple games that manage to create complex gameplay from a small ruleset. Yet sometimes I want more. This has been particularly true for war games: Memoir ’44 is fun, but ultimately not enough. In the other hand, Advanced Squad Leader…
-
Struggle for Rome (Kampf um Rom)
Here’s a review of the latest historical Catan game. The same review in Finnish. Struggle for Rome is based on real-life history: it covers the time when the Roman empire was in decline and the eastern barbarian tribes came to loot and pillage Roman cities and then settled down and started their own kingdoms on…
-
Crystal Code
Review of Crystal Code in Finnish. Crystal Code is designed by Grzegorz Rejchtman, the designer of Ubongo. The two games are similar: in both games, players race against time and each other to solve pattern recognition problems for rewards. What’s most important, both games manage to avoid the most common pitfall of speed games. Often…