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by @blendedfamilygamers Our family has always been a fan of board games. Growing up, I played a lot of classics, like Monopoly, Clue, and Scrabble. My husband’s family exposed me to the world of modern board gaming through Catan and Villainous, and a mutual friend of ours shared Carcassonne. When the pandemic hit, we found ourselves unexpectedly homeschooling my first-grade stepson through the end of first grade and all of second. Curriculum design wasn’t new to me, but through the wonderful world of Pinterest, I discovered gameschooling. Gameschooling was a massive blessing for our family, and allowed Monkey (stepson) to learn through play rather than screen time and worksheets. We invested in games specifically meant for education, like Sum Swamp and Ecosystem, but also in games that met Monkey’s interests, like Organ Attack (anatomy), Engineering Ants, Robot Turtles (coding), and Minecraft Builders & Biomes. Game nights became huge for us, both educationally and for fun, and I learned that the entire family loved board games! Throughout the pandemic, our collection grew from maybe 15-20 games to nearly 250. Narrowing it down to three games was pretty difficult, but these three games are games I find myself returning to time and time again. Arch Ravels I originally bought this with my mother-in-law in mind. Not only is she a board game fan, but she’s big into knitting. We played this one and were both incredibly impressed! I love the yarn and the wooden bowls. Additionally, I geek out every time we play over the nerdy projects to complete, like House Scarves, Dragons, and Snugglesaurus. This one makes it to our table at least once a month! Isle of Cats This game surprised me by being not at all what I expected. I avoided this one previously without much interest because the name seemed silly. However, when the most recent KS came out, I decided to see if someone local had a copy for me to borrow. One play and I fell in love. I discovered the polyomino mechanic is one of my favorites. I love the many different ways to win and that this is competitive but not in a take that way. I will gladly play this one any time anyone asks! Dice Throne Adventures I purchased Dice Throne second hand for a huge discount thinking it would be a nice break from Monkey’s obsession with Dungeon Mayhem. Little did I know, this would become a family and friend favorite. Dice Throne is probably the most popular game we own and it sees table time multiple times per week. I’m not a huge take that fan, which is pretty much the entire purpose of Dice Throne. I’ll play because everyone enjoys it and I love family time, but when I found DTA, which turns Dice Throne cooperative instead of competitive, I had to invest. This dungeon crawler doesn’t see as much table time simply because of the play time, but it’s such a huge hit every time we play. And those are some of my favorites! I started my Instagram to gain more exposure to games that our family would love and to share my love of gaming with the gaming community. Thanks for joining our journey!

Sandwich Masters WBG Score: 6.5/10 Player Count: 2-4 You’ll like this if you like: Unstable Unicorns, Plotalot, Dungeon Mayhem Published by: Big Punch Studios Designed by: Nich Angell Coming from first time designer Nich Angell, Sandwich Masters is a delightful little card game that takes two large slices of hand management and set collection and fills it with a large spreading of humour and some juicy slithers of take-that. This is all served up on a large plate of family-friendly fun. Sandwich Masters is simple to learn and play and can be adapted easily for any ages from four up. If you are looking for a straightforward card game to enjoy with your loved ones, then this could be for you! But watch out for the Special Sauce! In the vicious and overly competitive world of the lunch time sandwich market, there is only one way to outlast the competition. Make Sandwiches the quickest! Although, if you get some rotten ingredients like a defaced chicken breast into your products and someone calls the health inspector on you, it might be time to find a new job! Fulfil your orders whilst those around you fall to the law, and maybe you will stand victorious. The game works very simply. Each player is given seven ingredients cards. These could be things you actually want, such as some tasty bacon, juicy tomatoes or freshly made eggs. Or things that are somewhat less desirable, perhaps destined for your competitors. There are order cards in the game which will show specific sandwiches with certain ingredients. These are the Sandwiches currently required by the customers and the sarnies you need to make to win the game. Players must then make these sarnies to collect the points in the game, ‘Nosh bucks’. ‘Evil ingredients’ can be played into your opponent’s sandwiches, which may not be the worst thing, but if a health inspector card is later played and someone is caught with a hairy egg in their sandwich then its curtains! Event cards can cause chaos too, such as the fridge fuse blowing, forcing all players to discard their dairy products from their hand. You can make up to four sandwiches at a time, and the first to certain amount of money, or most money in a certain amount of time wins. You can play however you like. We like having a time limit. But the game rules officially are based on either a time or money goal of your choice, it’s up to you! The game plays very quickly and turns will fly round at a frantic pace. You will make grand plans and have them dashed multiple times. Perhaps by fate, maybe from your opponent’s fulfilling orders that you are desperately working on, before you get the chance to add the final ingredient. Or it could be all ruined by the multiple take-that attacks from the other players in the kitchen. The orders you could be working on vary a great deal. Some are simple one or two ingredient sandwiches which offer simple £5 rewards. Others, like the ‘Chefs Special’ offer £5 per filling and could be a towering pile of ingredients and ‘Nosh bucks’! Although of course, the bigger orders take longer to make and so will be open to more attacks. Due to their time on the kitchen preparation table and their juicy points that are on offer to you, other players will find it hard not to want to destroy it all! On your turn, you may either play one type of ingredient from your hand, move a top ingredient already laid on one of your sandwiches to another, or discard as many cards as you like from your hand and replace them with new cards from the draw deck. You will always refill your hand back to seven at the end of your turn, so you can cycle through the deck and get the ingredients you want quite quickly. The health inspector cards come in three main varieties. There is the ‘Lazy’ inspector who just focuses on the top ingredients of the target player, forcing them to discard any sandwich with a bad top layer. The ‘Jobsworth’ inspector forces the targeted player to discard all sandwiches with bad fillings anywhere in them, not just the top layer. And then the rare but feared ‘Strict” inspector forces the targeted player to discard all open sandwiches if just one of them has one single bad ingredient within it! But fear not! Like all good government employees, all inspectors can be bribed for a small sum of £5, £10 or £20 ‘Nosh dosh’ depending on which one it is. Players do have the option to keep particularly profitable sandwiches on the go if they chose to follow a life of crime! But this money sacrifice, in what can sometimes be a low scoring game can be tough to take. Especially if you are playing to time or a low money target. It can be tough to make this money back sometimes. Having one of these Health Inspector cards in your hand at the same time as an ‘Attack Condiment’ which can only be played on your opponent’s sandwiches is a joyful thing to behold in a game like this. Seeing the grin on my children’s faces when this is the case and I know I am about to be attacked is quite hilarious! The game comes with two mini expansions, offering extra cards to keep the game fresh. The ‘Attack Pack’ adds new attack condiments and extra Health inspectors to increase the likelihood of these cards coming up and being used, for a more aggressive style game. And ‘Order Up!’ includes new orders and blank order cards so that players can create their own perfect, or horror Sandwich. All expansion cards are clearly labelled with their own symbol, so they can be added or removed with ease. Taking these out also of course opens the opportunity to remove all the health inspector and bad ingredient cards, if you don’t want any take that in the game, If you don’t enjoy this mechanic, then it is easy to remove these from the game if you so choose. The art in this game is bright, vibrant and easily recognisable for young players. There is a bit of frivolity too with a personal favourite being the ‘Defaced Chicken’ card, which has a chicken breast covered in graffiti including an angry stick man saying “poop” in a speech bubble, a mobile number, and the word “Arse!” Sadly, the mobile number is a digit short and doesn’t call through to an angry restaurant owner wondering why they keep getting prank calls from people playing a card game. But it’s a great card none-the-less. My only minor gripes are that the stock isn’t the best and it makes it hard to shuffle the deck without damaging the cards, and I do feel a few extra things could have been added to make this game more unique. But a recent Kickstarter expansion has just fulfilled. I have backed this and I am excited to see what this brings to the kitchen table. Oh, and the cards don’t quite fit in the box. I assume because of the expansions. But they slide about on the top as there are around 10 too many cards for the box. But these are small things, and I only mention them for transparency. It doesn’t affect the enjoyment of the game, and I think we will enjoy many more games of this. Although it does tend to make me hungry for rotten eggs for some reason?

WBG Score: 7/10 Player Count: 4-8 You'll like this if you like: The Chameleon, One Night Werewolf, The Resistance Published by Big Potato Designed by Phil Walker-Harding I went to Australia a couple of times, and you know what I saw everywhere? Snakes. They were in the bush. In the garden. In the sea! Even serving at the local pub one time, although that was Nimbin?? Since then, snakes have been seen on a plane, rakes and once on the canal near where I live! (That last one is the only one with any truth). But now, they are entering the wonderful world of board games. The lovely folks over at Big Potato Games have decided to grow their ever expanding collection of fantastic family-friendly party games with 2021 release Snakesss. A new contender for the throne of Top Dog… err, I mean, Snake! The idea is simple. Every player is given a character tile. They will either be a ordinary human, a snake, or the Mongoose of Truth. Identities are kept secret unless you are the Mongoose, or Mongo as my daughter calls it. In which case you claim the Mongoose character piece and place it in front of you so everyone knows that at least you, amongst all the other potential snakes, can be trusted. Question cards are then revealed and everyone closes their eyes. One player then asks for the snakes and only the snakes to open their eyes as they rotate the card to reveal the answer to the snake players. All questions are multiple choice with three potential answers. None are questions anyone would usually know off the top of their head, but are more good fun things to debate. The snakes will now know the answer but no one else will. Everyone then closes their eyes, the card is flipped back over before everyone then opens their eyes. You then have two minutes to debate the answer. The snakes are looking to influence the other players to guess the wrong one. But they don't want to be too obvious as otherwise no one will trust them! The other players are all trying to identify the snakes so they know who not to trust and of course, determine the right answer. Once everyone is ready or the time is up, players then use their voting tiles to reveal their answer. Either A, B, or C. If you are the snake you must chose the snake tile to reveal their identify. Snakes don't get to guess becasue of course they know the answer. Players reveal their tiles simultaneously and the card is flipped to show the correct answer. If you were a human or the mongoose you get a point for every correct answer on the table, not just your own. If you are the snake, you score a point for everyone who got it wrong. The idea is to play six rounds and see who gets the most points. But like most party games, you can play for as long as you like or however you like. The tools are here to have a lot of fun. It's up to you how you want to police that! Or not, as the case may be. We found the fun is in the debate and that can sometimes last a lot longer than two minutes! Just make sure everyone is still enjoying themselves! This game works in a four up to an eight. The rules give you the recommended number of snakes and humans to have for each player count. There is always one Mongoose. In a four player they recommend two snakes and one human. This does make it easy for everyone to work out who is what though as one is obviously the mongoose and if you are not the snake you know the other two non-identifed players are. And if you are the snake, you know who the other one is from when you open your eyes, and therefore, who the ordinary human is. This is still fun, but sometimes a little difficult to play the game. I reccomend to shuffle in an extra human tile before you deal one out to each player, and always have one unidentified tile not used. This may be a bit of an oversite in the rules. But it is easy to fix. But this game shines with more players. I found it best in an eight. Which I only got to try on a few occasions, but on both of those times, we played for hours! It was with people who don’t play many games and I tentatively suggested a game... well, left a brightly covered box in plain site and waited for someone to ask about it! But that seemed to do the trick, and the game was a huge hit each time. This game has similar vibes to The Chameleon but has less pressure if you are a specific character. Being the Chameleon can be hard for younger players. But I have played Snakesss with people from six to mid-seventies, and everyone was equally happy no matter what character they were. Obviously, some people are better at playing the snake than others. But it is not always about hard-line arguments or lies. Sometimes it’s the quiet ones you have to be careful of! If this sounds fun to you, this game is sure to be a hit at your next game night and is the perfect party game for families. It perhaps doesn’t have quite the same highs as games like The Chameleon, but it also doesn’t have the potential flat rounds. And is also a lot more accessible. This is not a general knowledge party game. This is not a performance based party game. This is a game of bluffing and deduction and fun. But maybe I’m the snake. Perhaps you cannot trussst a word I am saying!

By @cogitoergomeeple Playing a board game is definitely one of the best ways to spend an evening (in my opinion anyway!). I started playing modern board games several years back and I now design games with the team at Cogito ergo Meeple. The latest being Philosophia: Floating World which is a simultaneous deck-builder for 1-6 players set in Feudal Japan. I love the experiences that board games offer and, as you may be able to tell from my top 3, I particularly appreciate games that have a strong theme which connects seamlessly with the mechanics. Needless to say I really enjoy many other games too, but these three are the ones that make regular appearances on my tabletop and, in my opinion, could never outstay their welcome! Viticulture One of the first modern board games I ever played and a perfect fit for wine-lovers like myself! The artwork in the game is excellent and the game itself includes quality components (my personal favourites are the glass wine beads!). The game is also very thematic which is something that’s important to me. Many games I’ve come across use the artwork as one of the main ways to represent the theme, but in Viticulture it is embedded into the mechanics; the act of planting your vines, harvesting them, ageing them… it really makes the whole game come together which I find very satisfying! I also love how replayable it is and the fact that it works well at different player counts. An all-round great game! I highly recommend a crisp white New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc for the perfect pairing! Raiders of the North Sea I love all the interesting decisions that can be made on your turn, I always feel there is something I can do to help me progress. I also really enjoy the player interaction aspect of this game. When taking the ‘work’ action, you have to place one of your workers in an available building that corresponds to a specific action and then pick up another from a different building which gives you a second action. This makes me want to not only think about the actions I want to take in my next few turns, but to pay attention to what my opponent(s) are doing so I can block them. A thoroughly enjoyable game with tons of interesting decisions! I’ve actually just bought Raiders of Scythia. It hasn’t hit the table yet but I have high expectations as I’ve heard it removes the ‘take that’ element from Raiders of the North Sea which isn’t my favourite. Inis I have no other way to begin but to mention this game’s artwork - what a dream! The territories are absolutely beautiful and you really feel like you’re sucked into the world of Inis as you expand and travel into different territories and build your clan. I really like the card drafting aspect of this game where, in the first phase of a round, players pass the deck of cards around, taking one card each time. This helps you build your strategy and gather ideas about your opponents and what they might be planning to do. I also love that it has multiple paths to victory which adds to the variety from game to game. Overall, a strategic game played across beautiful Celtic lands, I highly recommend! I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about my Top 3 games of all time. I love discussing and hearing other peoples’ thoughts on board games so hit me up if you want to get the conversation started: cogitodesignchannel@gmail.com

Tapestry Plans and Ploys WBG Score: 8.5/10 Player Count: 1-5 You’ll like this if you like: Viscounts of the West Kingdom, Wingspan, Lost Ruins of Arnak Published by: Stonemaier Games Designed by: Jamey Stegmaier If you are looking for a review of Tapestry, then head here. If you are looking for the expanion, Plans and Ploys you are in the right place. But read it quick, you may need to head to the shops afterwards. I am about to get very excited about cardboard! Tapestry is a fantastic game. I love the look, feel and variety in the base box. It’s the type of game that doesn’t need an expansion because it feels quite complete, but it is certainly rife for multiple ones due to the Civilisation cards, like the alien races in Cosmic Encounter, being endlessly expandable. But here we are! The first expansion for this brilliant game. Let’s roll through the main additions and changes. 7 landmark miniatures and Landmark cards. These are the main new additions to the game and are a fantastic development to the game for a number of reasons. The landmark cards work by each player being giving out one card during set-up. The player who is taking the last turn gets the first pick, and this alone is a nice way to balance out the turn order. Each landmark card will have a specific goal on it. Players do not have to complete this task; they can avoid it entirely if they wish. But if they achieve it, they then can add the specific landmark miniature to their capital city. This is a nice way to earn a landmark building compared to the usual way which is often more of a race as to who can get to that part of the game track first. Designer Jamey Stegmaier talks about the cards also offering some direction to new players at the start of the game. With four tracks to move round, and the choice being entirely up to each player as to which one they start with, having some small prod in one tracks direction can be a welcoming guide for your first few turns. The cards ask you to try and have at least two complete districts, at least one complete row or column, or at least three income buildings of the same type in your capital city; or have at least six territory tiles in your supply or at least one science card in your top row. These tasks can encourage players to go down different routes from each other. This helps spread out the play a little which for a four-player game I find can be quite helpful in the first few rounds. I like this addition and will use in every game moving forward. Not all players will fulfil the task early or at all, but I do like the chance to get a building that only I can get and the sense of direction this offers new players. There are only five of these cards so the other two landmarks can be gained via either one of the new Tapestry cards or one of the new Space tiles. 15 new Tapestry cards These bring in a new ‘zest’ to the game. Jamey talks in the rulebook about wanting to reward ‘conquering’ which is my least favourite part of the game. But was based on Jamey’s desire to encourage and reward more ‘sneaky and clever’ play. ‘Manifest Destiny’ allows players to conquer a territory adjacent to your capital city and then gain the benefit on any territory you control. ‘Surprise Party’ is a great card to play when an opponent tries to conquer you. It allows you to topple their outpost instead and gain 15 more points if you are more advanced on the military track than they are. The ‘Double Cross’ allows you to counter a ‘Trap’ card to essentially ‘Nope’ that card and gain an extra five points. There are many others too, and they all add a sneaky twist or extra element or landmark building to the game. Ten new Civilisation mats. This is the most obvious way to expand this game. Playing with new civilisation mats for the first time is exciting for me. And more mats mean’s more ‘first times!’ Here in Plans and Ploys we have Spies, Advisors, Treasure Hunters, Infiltrators, Recyclers, Tinkerers, Aliens, Utilitarians, Islanders and Riverfolk. They all bring their new fresh way to play the game and I think will breathe an air of life into the game for those who have played the base game civilisations multiple times. I like the way the Aliens allow you to explore the space tiles a lot quicker, and the Spies offer a fun way to earn benefits from neighbouring players. But my favourite new civilisation mat is Utilitarians. They allow the player using this mat to start the game with one tier II landmark and gain benefits whenever you gain extra landmark buildings. I love chasing after the buildings in the game. I find the process of filling my capital city enjoyable. Trying to piece everything together in a ‘tetris’ style is a lot of fun. Completing districts, rows and columns is very satisfying. But now getting extra benefits from simply getting the buildings is an extra reason to chase down the buildings. 4 space tiles. These offer the chance to get more benefits when you manage to achieve the feat of space travel. Jamey spoke of the feedback from the base game where players felt that reaching this huge feat should be more richly rewarded . Another simply gives you the Monolith landmark miniature which feels quite exciting in a Space Odyssey sort of way! Scenarios for solo play. This is a fantastic addition to the solo version of this game. I enjoy most Stonemaier solo games. The ‘Automa’ is a brilliant system that is always very clearly explained with options for varying difficulties. I love campaign games and find this an easy way to make solo experiences better so I was delighted to see these five new scenarios in this expansion have this option. They can be played as one offs, or as a series of challenges and I love the second option. They add a bit of story and a focus to each game and work well to make the solo experience more challenging. There is also the addition of a small hessian bag for the territory tiles to be placed in and 12 landmark tokens to lay on the board at set up which help to serve as a reminder to the players when a specific building has gone. When the first player reaches this space, the tile is removed. If you want to see which buildings are left and where they are, this makes assessing the board a lot easier. It's a useful addition. Overall, this is a brilliant little expansion. If you like Tapestry, this will add a lot and keep the game fresh for many more games. If you don’t like the vase game, this wont change that. There are some small tweaks to make the game work better against some small grievances. But it doesn’t drastically change anything as I don’t think that was necessary. The one thing I would like to see in future expansions is more narrartive brought in. I love civilisation games for the story the create as you play. This is lost a little in Tapestry and I would like to see more of this added and something brought in that would encourage players to care more about the specific technologies they are advancing in, and the order they do this. I find this is sadly completely overlooked most games I play. I look forward to more expansions for this game and hope that it continues to be supported with more civilisation and tapestry cards and perhaps a bit of story for many years to come.

by @smallfriesgames I'm one of those people that likes picking favourites. I have a favourite colour (blue), snack (crisps), TV show (The Jetsons)... I could go on. I'm also one of those people that never changes. My favourites have been my favourites since I was very little. Unsurprisingly, there has been very little movement in my top 3 tabletop games for years. In fact, 2 of my top 3 have been there for almost 30 years.... Anyone who follows me will probably know what they are, but for those of you who don't.. and for those of you wondering why...read on... My favourite game of all time is Magic The Gathering. It is the best deckbuilding game out there. I have spent many, many years of my life building all sorts of decks full of vampires, merfolk, werewolves and a plethora of other wonderful, magical creatures. I don't think there is much better in life than a MTG draft with friends and a big packet of crisps. If you love deck building like me and you haven't played MTG you are definitely missing out (though you will certainly be richer for it). The blind boosters get me every time! I vividly remember my brother teaching me magic back when it came out in the 90s, I had no idea what he was going on about... Mana and tapping - I was so confused...but we kept playing and we still play magic together today. THE BEST! (For those who care, I play black.) My second favourite game is Boggle. Like Magic, Boggle has been a solid favourite of mine since I was a kid and I can't see that ever changing. I love the speedy game play, the simple anagrams and the fact that I can pretty much thrash anyone who challenges me. Did I mention that I'm a very competitive gamer? (No Co-ops for me thanks!) My third favourite game is fairly new to the spot, but it certainly deserves to be there - Food Chain Magnate! It's such a me game - The theme, the mechanics, the super competitive gameplay, did I mention the theme? I really enjoy trying to perfect my strategies and love that there's always so much to think about every turn. Oh and I absolutely adore the retro aesthetic. So, those are my top 3 tabletop games. Thanks for reading about them. Do any of them feature in your top 3 too? Nat @smallfriesgames Editors note. Nat is the designer of many amazing games, including Knock Knock! First Words. Her first self published title here. A fantastic game that I would highly reccomend for any new parents or gifts to people with such blessings!

WBG Score: 8.5/10 Player Count: 1-4 You'll like this if you like: Choose Your Own Adventure, Tales of Arabian Nights, Forgotten Waters Published by Big Potato Designed by Ed Naujokas What Next? is a fascinating game. It blends story telling in a ‘choose your own adventure’ style with mini dexterity challenges in a way I have not seen before. I was instantly intrigued when I saw the game being excellently demonstrated by the wonderful @buryboardgames and @nothern_dice at the @Zatu stand at @ukgamesexpo I was hooked and wanted to play again and again! Now, after owning the game for a few weeks, I can safely say, that this feeling hasn’t gone away! The game is a lot of fun, the three story’s are highly entertaining and the process of picking your path through the various narratives is genuinely absorbing. I took the game on a recent camping trip with my family and we started off playing the game each night as a replacement for our usual bedtime story with the little ones. But due to the excitement of the adventures we were on, we quickly started playing in the daytime game sessions as well. The game wraps you up in its coils and grips you until each adventure is done; and then you want to try again right away. People often say a good game is one that you can’t stop thinking about after you play it, which I very much agree with. This game certainly has a lot of those powers of attention and obsession. Coming from the good people at Big Potato Games, the team behind some of my favourite party games of all time; Top of the Pops, The Chameleon, the recent Snakesss and my all-time number one party game, 20 Second Showdown; you know this game is going to have a certain family-friendly party game flavour. But this game has a different style and is quite different to anything the east London publishers have done before. It feels more of a full on experience than a normal party game, with the narrative and card play fuelling a different, bigger game atmosphere. As you play What Next? the usual laughter and frivolity of a party game is certainly present, but not in the same way as the usual Big Potato production. Built alongside the fun, a co-operative adventure awaits, offering a more inclusive experience for younger families. Built within the games core are the gripping and entertaining stories. There are three in the box. But the thing that really sets this game apart from other games of its ilk, are the dexterity games and challenges mixed within the story. There is a clever sense of theme built within within each one, as every mini challenge is linked to what you are currently doing in the story. If you are trying to reach through a hole to grab an item, the challenge then would be to feel inside a bag of multiple random shapes to try and pick out the one that fits the silhouette on a card. Or, if you are hurtling along an old mine shaft in an out of control cart, and you need to hit the junction lever to change direction. Well, then flick a tile along a table to knock off a wooden piece positioned near the edge without letting the tile fall of the table in an old game of shove-ha'penny. Everything is thematically linked, and of course your performance will directly influence your chances of success in the game. But don’t worry, nothing is make or brake! Out of the box there are three different adventures to go on. I won’t go into too much detail here on the stories as I don’t want to spoil any surprises. But suffice to say, they all feel very different, and they are all very much repayable. People often ask in games like this if it is essentially a ‘one-shot’. We have played the first game six times so far and I still want to play again. I know from the Zatu crew who demonstrated the game at the UK Games Expo, that after playing non-stop for three days, they were still seeing different paths chosen and new mini games being attempted. There are multiple paths to go down for each story based on your decisions and the outcomes of the challenges you take. So, most importantly, re-playing the game is a lot of fun! Completing the game is a simple matter of getting to the end of the story. Which would seem easy if it were not for one clever addition to the game. Each time a story card shows a certain symbol, players must add a peril piece to your Tower of Peril. This is a collection of oddly shaped wooden pieces that must be stacked in a separate balance game that runs throughout each story. Delicately placing each piece can be quite tricky, so make sure you have a stable surface and all players know not to knock it! Most games end with the Tower of Peril falling over rather than any other conclusion. Especially on a rickety camping table! I would say that it is very much possible to remove this element from the game if you get frustrated with your adventures ending prematurely and you just want to see the story reach its full conclusion. But this is the genius of What Next? The blend of dexterity and storytelling is more than a clever idea. The sense that the further into the game you go, and the more daring choices you make, the rewards may be greater, but so too will the risk. Climb a tree to chase a pesky Koala and potentially advance your story in a more strategically advantageous fashion; but you are climbing a tree. You have to accept the consequences of that. You could fall! Another part of the game that keeps the story fresh and each adventure unique is the time dial. As you progress along the story you must turn the dial along one rotation. This will then indicate either the time of day, the sate of the New York power grid, or your robot’s current battery life; depending on which game you are playing. Each story card is double sided showing either a light or dark, and the dial’s current location will determine which side you must play. And of course, there are often more dangers and tougher choices on the reverse side. Within the box, outside of the three main stories, there are over 60 different challenges to complete. Each individual game will typically have between 5-15 of these incorporated depending on how well your Tower of Peril goes! ‘Drums of Koala Cave’ is ranked as an easier story with more simple mini games and a shorter story. The ‘Sky Scraper Caper’ is ranked as medium and ‘Blinky’s Great Escape’ is the hardest in the box, rated 2.5/3 stars. This suggests to me that the designer of this game has ideas for further stories, there has to be a 3 at some point right?! This game is rife for expansions. In this box is all you need to play these three awesome stories. But the game is infinitely expandable with new stories. I hope this game develops in the way Arkham Horror the Card game has and keeps pumping out new adventures at regular intervals. Some of the challenges are time based and a little tricky. But the game allows for practices, and with younger players you could always allow more time or more practices. But failure in a task doesn’t mean failure in the game. Just a different path to take. And you could always assign different players different tasks based on their age and abilities. My family and I have thoroughly enjoyed playing this game. I often get asked what my recommendation for a good family game is, and my answer changes regularly! But I think for a long while, this will be my answer. Everyone feels involved throughout. You can take it in turns to do the challenges, make the choices as a team through a vote; and some of the mini games require multiple players. This is a true team game. But it’s the story that holds this together. No matter whose turn it is, in What Next? all players feel constantly involved and thoroughly entertained.

by @adventureswithkaryn What are your top three board games? It seems like a simple question but when you actually have to commit to writing it down & publish it that's a whole other story! I have gone with the three games that I would choose for a game night right now. Ticket to Ride: My first Modern BoardGame love! When my husband and I first started exploring the hobby we headed to Toronto to a board game cafe to try some games before we committed to them. Ticket to Ride was the first game we chose as we had heard so much about it. We LOVED it. The simplicity mixed with some strategic planning, also the player interaction sucked us right in. We bought Ticket to Ride shortly after that trip & it truly started us on our journey of board gaming. This has become a staple at our table for the ease of teaching new players & enjoyment for all player ages. Terraforming Mars: This game has been apart of our collection for a couple years, but this Summer I have discovered a new love for this game. I always saw this game as a super heavy strategy game, until I started seeing others share their plays of it on Instagram. Everyone was saying it had a two hour playtime. I thought this couldn't be right, it's a full day game! Boy was I wrong, we have played a game during naptime! Terraforming Mars gives me the heavy game feeling without the playtime to go with it. DiceForge: This is one of our newer games in our collection, but is our most played game this year. It is a different type of dice rolling game. Yes, you still roll your dice each turn but the dice are forged by you to fit your own personal play style. The customization of the dice adds a layer of strategy that I really enjoy. The simple game mechanics & quick play time make this one of my go to games right now.

Hit The Silk! WBG Score: 8/10 Player Count: 3-6 You’ll like this if you like: Stop The Train! The Chameleon, The Resistance Published by: Escape Plan Board Games Designed by: Escape Plan Board Games “Hit The silk!” My family all shouts these three-simple words. We eagerly look to see around the table. Afraid to make eye contact. Hoping that our team-mates haven’t let us down. How much loot will we have between us? Nervous faces try to suppress our fear as cards are overturned showing we have narrowly made our financial goal. But one of us has no parachute! Will another with a tandem chute offer their salvation? Or will they be forced to try and land this destroyed plane? The finale of Hit The Silk! from Escape Plan Board Games is amazing. In every game without fail, there is a different blend of tension, hilarity and joy. I love games that do this. But often they need a ramping up process to get there. And this is fine. But the thing that takes Hit The Silk! from good to great in this humble reviewer’s opinion is that there are wonderful moments like this throughout the game too. The story certainly ramps up, but there are big moments of delight and despair at multiple moments as you play. At every stage there will be treachery, double crossing, bluffing and lies! All in a day’s work for a bunch of criminals on the run, right? The game is set in the skies above Vegas. You are escaping from a successful heist. All was going according to plan until the pilot jumps ship taking a couple of parachutes with him. The pilot fires a few rounds into the engine as he leaves. The plane is going down and there are not enough parachutes to go around. What do we do? Your job in the game is to try and get to a place where everyone has a parachute or pilots’ licence and there is enough money to meet the mobs demands when you land on terra firma again. This is done by playing cards in turn and a series of votes as the plane quickly descends to the rocky mountains below. The game starts with everyone being dealt a hand of six cards. You discard two and then the game begins. On your turn you can play as many cards from your hand as you wish, trade with other players or change a card by discarding and taking one from the draw pile. The entire game is about cycling through the deck as quickly and efficiently as possible for you to get what you need. You can play to help others, or you can shoot, punch and stab them! The choice is yours! Just be warned that if there is a majority vote to hit the silk, then you need to be ready to jump! Each card you play will lower the altitude of the plane. Thematically speaking, this represents time passing and the plane coming down to land, or crash as the case may be! You will mark this on the beautifully made altimeter, which will show you the points at which you need to vote. If there is a majority decision to stay, the plane plummets 1,000 feet and you carry on. If you vote to jump, then players reveal their cards to determine the rest of the game. Depending on the player count, a certain amount of money cards will be shuffled into the deck at the start of the game and a money target will be set. If you have achieved that target between the group and all of you have means to float gently to earth, than you win. If you don’t have the cash then you lose when the casino comes to collect! If you don’t have a parachute when there is a majority vote to jump then you can try and land the plane. This is done by rolling two dice and choosing one to act as your horizontal movement, and the other as your vertical drop. Sometimes, the dice will show an arrow determining this for you. This is a very difficult end-game scenario to be successful in, so it’s best avoided at all costs! Although, I often aim for it as it’s just so fun! It can be made a little easier if you hold the pilots licence card in your hand at the point of the majority vote, which then allows you to manipulate the dice by reducing the value by one from one of the dice. But even with this, it is still pretty tricky to make a successful landing. So when you do, it is a moment to be celebrated. There is always one less parachute than there are players, so this is often attempted. But there is a tandem parachute that allows the player in possession to offer assistance to a fellow stranded player. It is absolutely their choice though! They don’t have to help. But be warned, the person you leave behind may be able to contribute crucial loot towards your total. However the game pans out, it always feels like a real story has been told. I have never seen a game end that then didn’t turn to a long and enjoyable discussion about what just happened, full of laughs and accusations! Telling stories of the bluffs and double bluffs. And recalling the moment you traded a parachute for a key but were given a bullet instead! The game comes with a version that can be played with just the cards if you are limited by space when travelling, which works very well. The altimeter drop is simply replaced by rounds and the game is all about trading between players. Its quicker but still a lot of fun. There is also an advanced mode which offers the chance to threaten another player by shooting them, (perhaps as a bluff), handcuff yourself to money, throw items from the plane so they are permanently removed from the game, and advanced trading which involve players trying to ascertain if the trade they are involved in is a double cross or not. I would recommend adding them in as soon as everyone is comfortable with the basics. They add more deception to the game which is what makes it so fun! Hit The Silk! is a fantastic party game all about bluffing, hand management, negotiation, and deduction. There are multiple moments of hilarity and true joy throughout the game, and I will always be ready for another flight on this plane.

by @zlaiannah.gameroom With all those numerous games that we've played it is almost impossible to not only choose three but ten out of them! It's been a hard and heartbreaking choice to notify all those games that didn't cut it, but someone had to do it. These are our top favored choices We've separated our choices because although they might align a bit, they are for different reasons. :D Ana: - Why do I love... Dixit (3rd place) - Because it is one of the first ever party games we've played and we really love. Especially because we had initially printed out a Print'n'Play version and adjusted it to be playable for everyone. It reminds me of our beginnings and I really love that for just one card you can think of infinite terms. It is also great because it's very playable with kids. Zlatko - Why do I love... Dixit (3rd place) - Because this game is simply for anyone and can be explained in four sentences: Here, take these cards. Pick one of them, imagining a term for something you see on it. Now put it face down and say your term out loud. Others need to put down one of their cards which mostly resemble of your term and then you shuffle all cards, place them face up, and guess. The artwork is shiny. I just get lost in the cards finding out new cleverly put details. We love to play it with our kid 'V' and hopefully in a few years little 'M' will join us because it goes on a whole different level with kids imagination. Ana: - Why do I love... Race for the Galaxy (2nd place) - Because when you get into the rules it is a perfect intro game. It's excellent for all kinds of players and has really simple components. The art is special and unique pulling you into the thematic story. I really love games with huge decks of various cards just like this. Zlatko - Why do I love... Race for the Galaxy (2nd place) - Because this is the game that I have thought of numerous strategies for, learned the cards, and still Ana beats me to a pulp most of the time! One of the drives for me in any game is to get better at it however many times it takes me to do it. And with this game it's a 'too-easy-to-play' but a bit harder to get into, and most definitely a hard game to master. At times we play it for days, but then we make a long pause, and have to relearn the rules. Luckily there are videos to speed things up and help us remember. The game art is imaginative and each card paints a picture of 1000 words. What I mostly love about this game, which was a wow moment for me when we first played, is that the cards are both assets and currency. So, when you want to get one card, you have a cost for it (which can be modified through the other cards) which you pay with the number of other cards. Such a simple yet magnificent idea. I am not sure if this game introduced the concept, but for me it's the first. Ana: - Why do I love... Scythe (1st place) - Because it is one of the most balanced games we have played and also one of the first that introduced our friends to the world of games. This is the reason that we all love it and play it with special place in our hearts. There is also a lot of replayability because every game is different. Zlatko - Why do I love... Scythe (1st place) - Because whenever I think of a board game Scythe always comes to mind. When I got the game for my birthday years ago it knocked me off my feet, the game just clicked. The theme is right up my alley. The mechanics are great and one of the first things you notice while opening the box for the first time (and mostly all others) is the list of game testers, which is immense. By all standards this game inspires me to make games better and with more passion. It moved the bar pretty high. It also holds a dear place in my heart because it brought us many amazing gatherings and turned some of our friends into boardgamers.

People often ask me, “Why do you love games so much.” I give them various answers about spending time with my family and friends. Switching off from screens. The excitement of immersing myself into another world. I am sure you know the type of thing. But tonight I stumbled upon the deeper truth. The real reason this isn’t a fad for me. Why it has stuck for so long, and won’t ever go away. It's the people who play it and the open attitude this one thing we all have in common brings. Now this may sound small, maybe even trite. But let me just quickly explain what happened this evening. A guy who I barley know and who I have never met, messaged me on instagram asking if I fancied playing a game of Rail Road Ink. With a cool expansion he had made himself, with him, online, via video call. I instantly, and without any second guessing agreed. I opened this up to a woman in New Zealand, again who I have never met, and not even spoken to before on video call as she suggested to me it may be fun to play a game together. The man who made the initial invite then suggested we open it up to a wider group chat of 33 other strangers I have never met, that we have formed due to our common interest in posting pictures of games with a common mechanic theme each Monday. I ended up playing with these two strangers, and another lady from Ohio with whom I have never spoke before and a lady and her husband who again, I had only spoken to once, and that was via a facebook live we both blindly did for a website we blog for. All of this, felt so normal. It was only after it was over, that I stoped to think how unusual it all was. Put me into a situation with literally any other connection other than board games, and I am running away to the hills, finding an excuse as to why I ‘sadly cannot make it tonight.’ The one thing that connected us all tonight, is board games, and our combined enthusiasm for what they bring to our lives. Isn’t that incredible? I love football. Soccer if you are in the US. I have supported the same team for 31 years. I passionately know pretty much everything there is to know about my team. I love watching them play. I love talking about them. I love writing about them. But if 5 strangers had asked me to join a call to talk about them I would have refused, hands down. Fearful of the social awkwardness it would bring. I also think I would not be in anyway at all interested in giving up my time for whatever reason these people wanted to talk, as I would feel instinctivley defensive towards them. I am not sure why. I am a pretty odd guy with the usual insecurities most of us have, and find these sorts of situations personally very difficult. I do it most days for work, but for social reasons, no thank you! But change that common denominator to games, and I am all in! Why is that? These people tonight, I do not know them. I have no idea what their passions in life are outside games. I don’t know their families names. I don’t know there political or religious beliefs. I don’t know their thoughts on the environment. Do they recycle ? Do they like 'This is Us'? Do they find the Amazon browser annoying? What are their thoughts on the Paris treaty? This takes up a lot of my thinking time. But tonight, with these almost perfect strangers, I didn’t care. We barely even said hello when we started the call. We said where in the world we were calling from and starting playing a game. And it was simple. It was natural. It was beautiful. Are there other groups of people that would do this? I honestly don’t know. Do people into cross stitch meet on instagram and then randomly start have video calls where they make patterns together? Are there a group of Turnip enthusiasts right now having a passionate debate with strangers around the world about composting techniques? I really hope there are, that would be amazing! But I guess that it doesn’t happen this way. Maybe I am wrong. I hope I am. But after 41 years on this earth where I have been more than once accused of being into things as a fad, I have dipped my toe into most hobbies and sports. But I have never found a community like the board game one. It opens its arms to you with no judgment. It embraces you like an old friend, when it doesn’t even know your name from your insta handle. To my family I am Jim Cohen. To my insta friends I am Jim.Gamer. Is that weird? I don’t know. But I like it. I talk, EVERY day to my friends on insta. I talk to my best men from my wedding around three times a year. What is that about? Today alone I have had conversations with 23 people on insta. None of whom I have ever met. I last spoke to my sisters a week ago, bar a WhatsApp to say thanks for a birthday gift. How does this happen? Why does this feel normal? We have one thing in common. We all kind of like board games. It seems like such a small thing to connect to so many strangers around the world in this way. Like and commenting on the odd insta post is one thing. But the natural way six people this evening all chatted for over an hour, struck a massive chord with me. There were no awkward silences as people were unsure what to say. There were no strange faces as someone said something weird. No fake attempts at jokes. No small talk to break the ice. Just six perfect strangers enjoying each others company. Joined together by a few dice. Does that not make you want to cry with how amazing that is? Humans are crazy. I mean, come on! Look at history. Look at the news. Look at yourself. Only today I was driving myself crazy at work because a client of mine had bought a product from someone else other than me. I work in an industry where clients do this every day. They have hundred of places to buy from. I am but one. But it drove me nuts. I was second guessing my actions with them. What could I have done better. What could I have changed to have not lost that deal. And I hated every second of it. But I searched my soul as it is my job to not make that mistake again. It's not fun, but it's what I bet, most of us do every day. We have so little acceptance of things outside of our control. We worry about so many trivial small, irrelevant things that we cannot influence. We fight. We argue. We kill. And over what? Land? Religion? Politics? We have created so much that divides us. And for what? We are never all going to agree. We don’t need to agree. But so many people have died as people attempted to make others see their way of thinking. Why? Now this is going to feel like a stretch, but stick with me ok? This doesn’t happen in board games. I have debated the merits of certain games with other people. Joked about certain mechanics, designers and games. Which is the best? Which works in bettwe in certain situations? But there is always time and space for one more game. "I love Dune. Oh you think Root is better? Sure, I would love to try it. Thanks for the recommendation". Change that conversation to any other thing, and see how it goes. "You have a different opinion to me on this political leader? Oh, well maybe I was wrong, lets' talk about?" "You think this reaction from this religious group was extreme? Sure, let's debate that, maybe I was wrong?" Now I know there are bigger things in life! I know it is harder to find common ground in politics and religion than there is in board games. I am not saying we should all agree on these things, far from it. What I am saying is who gives the actual crap if we agree or not? Tonight we played games. I don’t know what the six others who joined the call tonight think about all these things. And I don’t care. I wanted to be their friends. I wanted to hang out with them. I wanted to enjoy their company. And I did. And it was beautiful. I am not like that in any other walk of life and I believe that so many of us are like that. You don’t think the same as me on Brexit/Trump/Israel/Abortion/The environment? Well, we cannot really be friends. How often do we see a side of other people we don’t like. How often have we found the faults in others making us not to want to spend more time with them? I do it all the time. I judge for fun. Quite literally, my wife and I do it at every outside restaurant table we have ever sat at, and in truth, we both love it! But maybe it's time to put that side of my personality away. Maybe I need to stop the judgment. Stop looking for what’s different in others and start looking for the similarities. As when that similarity is that the other person quite likes playing board games, well heck, I seem to be able to do anything for these people. It brings out the best in me, and from what I have seen, so many others too. That is very cool. But this is not a blog about how cool board games are, or a pat on the back to the board game community. No. This is a slap in my own face. A slap to me for not being like this in the rest of my world. Why is Jim.Gamer so much more open than Jim Cohen. Why is Jim.Gamer so much more giving, and kind and patient? I want to see the good in everyone. Not just the ones who like games too. I want to find common ground with the world. I want to take what I have learnt from this amazing community and bring it with me on every step I take. Board games bring us all together. I want to try and bring the part that board games brings to my personality and see if I can accept the world with more gracious eyes. I love board games because they make me a better person. They make be closer to the man I want to be. Thats the actual answer to why I like games so much. Sounds a bit much maybe, But it’s true. But now I want to like games because they have made me a better person, not just because I am a better person when I am playing them or talking with others who also like them. I want to like games because they have taught me how to see the good in others. I want to like games as they have changed my attitude to strangers. I want to like board games as they have made Jim Cohen a bit more like Jim.Gamer. ReplyForward

by @boardgamingwithmyfamily Well my top three was a difficult choice as my boardgame collection is not the largest and some of my most favourite games are owned by friends. So this is my top three of the games I own. Of the ones I play and enjoy that are owned by my game group Alchemists and Orleans would definitely be up there. The three games I have chosen are ones that I can go back to time and again and they still feel fresh and enjoyable. Ganz Schön Clever This is my favourite little lockdown game and also my favourite out and about solo game. On the rare occasions I get to venture out for some me time this game is usually with me. I am also secretly wanting people to ask me about it when I’m out because it’s always good to convert some new people to boardgames. I’m not the best at this game but I enjoy trying to beat my own scores. This was the first roll and write I ever played and it’s definitely a long term love affair. Carcassonne I have played this game many times and it is never the same game. I like a bit of randomness and luck to my games. Who doesn’t enjoy that smug feeling when you pick up a tile and it is exactly the one you want, that fits in that awkward spot. Carcassonne is a great game for people who play a lot of games but also to introduce to new gamers. There are lots of expansions to mix up the game and change the strategy. The base game rules are easy for people to grasp and you can make it even simpler and easy for younger kids to enjoy as well. Sagrada Another lockdown favourite and great solo game. I find this game very calming playing solo but also thinky enough that you can forget your day and just be absorbed into it. Sagrada is also one of the most beautiful games and when you have built your window you can easily imagine the light shining through the dice like a real stained glass window. While I do love to play this game solo it’s a great game to play in groups and it works well as a two player. I will never say no to playing any of these games, if you haven’t tried them before you are definitely missing out.