Posts By Artem Safarov
7 Wonders: Simultaneous Civilization Building
7 Wonders is a smash hit civilization building game from French designer Antoine Bauza. Much like the titular wonders it is truly monumental in its’ achievement – a game that accommodates up to seven players, has substance and still fits within half an hour. Mixing luck of the draw with solid tactical planning and eliminating down time it is a masterfully designed game that is easy to pick up and hard to grow tired.
Deduction, Confusion and Renaissance Masks
Social games often make players try to guess others’ hidden role while hiding or misrepresenting their own agenda. Mascarade, a card game featuring phenomenal art and great potential for laughter-inducing confusion, throws a wrench into this by making it so that you are not even sure what your role is. Bluffing, memory, deduction, luck and renaissance intrigue blend for fun that grows more hectic as the player count increases.
Elder Sign: Omens – Lovecraftian horror for your mobile device
It is not always easy to translate a physical game into digital format, especially in the compact size of a mobile device. Fantasy Flight Games struck gold with their app version of the Elder Sign board game, successfully capturing both the tense horror atmosphere of the original and transposing the exciting dice-rolling into a seamless touch-based experience. Hovering around $4 and available for iOS and Android, this is a great app to add to your phone to itch a board gaming scratch on the go. This will be the perfect game to play alongside the likes of blackout blitz that is becoming increasingly popular amongst people who enjoy playing games for money.
Yggdrasil review: Ragnarok and roll
Yggrdrasil is a barely pronounceable cooperative game set in the rich world of Norse mythology. The theme is well realized and the mechanics are inventive, yet the stuttering flow and over-reliance on chance holds the game back from true greatness. Despite its’ flaws, it is a challenging, compact game that will help you practice pronouncing the name of Thor’s hammer in advance of the next Avengers.
Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small – A big game in a small package
Creating a game that is short and simple, yet complex and rewarding is no easy fit. Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small carries a title that is a bit unwieldy and long but behind this deceptively awkward name hides a gem of a game that is tight, quick, challenging and makes you want to set up again as soon as you are done.
Scoundrels of Skullport: Dark Side of Waterdeep
Following up on the success of Lords of Waterdeep, Scoundrels of Skullport is a two-part expansion that increases the maximum number of players to 6 and offers very different ways to enhance the base game. One expansion, the Undermountain introduces increased use of intrigue cards as well as complex and extremely rewarding quests. The other, Skullport explores the darker side of the game and adds a key new element to the game – Corruption. While the quality of the two expansions is not even, the package as a whole provides a solid addition to the base Lords of Waterdeep making a great game even better.