Before rising to stardom as a game designer, Cohle Wherle was known for being an avid gamer. He could be found on Boardgamegeek, sharing his thoughts on highly combative titles like Dune, wargames or the 18XX series. His first designs, like Pax Pamir and An Infamous Traffic kept that belligerence and added his own sardonic wit.
It should be expected, then, that Root would be about cute animals and the violent struggle for power between them.
If you have been following game reviews for a while, you might have noticed they all tend to release at the same exact time. Moreover, you might have heard this is due to a “review embargo” that prevents critics from talking about a game before a certain date.
In this article I’ll explain what those review embargos are and how they work.
Like many deduction games, Tragedy Looper is enhanced by placing restrictions on communication. The manual recommends limiting the Protagonists’ ability to talk with each other to the small frame between time loops, forcing them to play without the full knowledge of each other’s actions.
This optional rule, thematically called the “Table Talk Off” setting, makes the already great Tragedy Looper even better. In this article, I’ll explain how it improves the player’s experience and why implement it in your game.
Trick-taking, the last frontier. For all my gaming experience, nothing remains as intimidating as four grandpas playing Bridge or Hearts. Hidden behind simple rules and a familiar façade there’s an amount of trickery and depth I’ve never been fully able to understand.
The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine, a cooperative take on the genre, has made me see the possibilities for the first time and all while having fun.
The 18XX series has a reputation of being some of the most difficult board games you can play. Fortunately, it’s not true. Like all games by Francis Tresham, the rules are extremely simple. The difficult lies, not in understanding how to play, but in knowing what to do and how to use the tools provided by the game to your advantage.
In this guide, I’ll explain how to approach the series as a beginner and how to tackle its challenges part by part.
