A party of adventurers delves into the dungeon for riches and glory. The classic (or tired as less generous gamers might say) premise gets a unique treatment in Dungeon Roll – a wonderfully compact dice game from Tasty Minstrel Games. They aren’t exactly reinventing the wheel — there are thousands of card games and RPGs that require a dice roller or custom dice, but the dice were a major selling point for this game and the cool factor of the custom dice fails to translate into anything substantial, however, the game seems to be perfectly content with that.
Form and function rarely go hand in hand. One is always stronger that the other – brilliance of Carcassonne hiding behind simplistic graphics, gorgeous FFG components masking gameplay that is sometimes unwieldy. But in no game is the discrepancy is as glaring as in the imaginative, lovable but ultimately disappointing Mice and Mystics.
Everyone likes trains. The old-timey charm of the whistles, the rhythm of the wheels, the chugging of the engine harkens back to a simpler time. It is no coincidence then, that simplicity is the most salient feature of a board game that takes an exceedingly plain concept of set collection and crafts it into one of the most broadly appealing games you’ll find – Ticket to Ride.
In space no one can hear you scream. Not that the Space Marines scream, you understand. Genetically engineered and unquestionably loyal to the Emperor of the Warhammer 40K universe, these fighting machines fight and die with zeal and fervor – no regrets, no remorse type of an affair. A small squad of these heavily armoured warriors armed with chainswords, flamethrowers and psionic powers is deployed to a Space Hulk – a remnant of a ship floating through space. Heavy infestation of alien zerg-like Genestealers is reported.
In 2011, Fantasy Flight Games, the champion of superior components and incomprehensible rulebooks have released Elder Sign. In that cooperative game, players took on the roles of fedora-wearing investigators in 1920’s, sneaking around old museums.The purpose of their investigation is to uncover clues that can prevent an immense extraterrestrial entity, a Great Old One (shortened anticlimactically to a GOO) from awakening and annihilating existence as we know it.