I was recently lucky enough to get to play Pasion de las Pasiones by Brandon Leon-Gambetta. Pasion is a (currently ashcan-only) PBTA game based on telenovelas. If you haven’t come across telenovelas, my totally uninformed layperson’s summary is: overwrought, over-the-top Latin American soap operas. Now you might be thinking “why would I play a game about that when […]
Category: Reviews
Book Review: Impro by Keith Johnstone
A long time ago I asked on Story Games for people to recommend their top books about role-playing… which were not actually books about role-playing. Simply any books which had rich ideas which could enhance the hobby. I asked the question because at the time I was doing an MBA and my major area […]
Reward rules
I’m currently wading my way through Tenra Bansho Zero (the English translation thereof), which I received as a Christmas gift from the ‘rents. TBZ appears at first glance to be a very trad game indeed. The things that are normally regarded as core mechanics – conflict resolution – are based around a tediously bog-standard attribute […]
Microscope
Rating: *** Type: RPG / world creation # Players: 3-5 Recommended # Players: 4-5 Time to play: 2 hours or more Summary: Microscope is a collaborative world-building game. More accurately, it’s a history-building game (in the sense of building a fictional history of a fictional world). Players take turns to create elements of the game […]
Qwirkle (Mindware)
Rating: *** Type: Strategy # Players: 2-4 Recommended # Players: 3-4 Time to play: Up to 1 hour Summary: Qwirkle is a spatial strategy game. Players take turns to try and make rows and columns of tiles that either match colours or match symbols. It’s sort of like Scrabble but without any vocabulary requirements or […]
Mwahahaha! (White Wolf)
Rating: * * Type: Resource building/card game #Players: 2-5 Recommended # players: 3+ Play time: 3-4 hours Summary: Mwahahaha! puts the players in the role of super-villains attempting to build a secret weapon with which to threaten the world. The players collect four kinds of resource to construct their weapon, and to deploy various supporting […]
Small World (Days of Wonder)
Rating: **** Type: Strategy/warfare/resource management # Players: 2-5 Recommended # players: 2-5 Play time: 1-2 hours Summary: Small world is a game of conquering empires, but with a twist; every empire must eventually fall and be replaced. Players choose from a set of races and a separate set of special powers to create a unique […]
Blokus (Mattel)
Rating: ***** Type: Strategy # Players: 2-4 Recommended # Players: 2-4 Time To Play: Up to 1 hour Summary: Blokus is a simple strategy game that resembles a sort of competitive jigsaw puzzle. Players take turn to place pieces on a grid according to simple rules, with the key mechanic being that the pieces can […]
Condottiere (Fantasy Flight Games)
Rating: * * * * * Type: Card game/strategy/bluffing # Players: 2-5 Recommended # players: 3+ Play time: 1-2 hours Summary: Condottiere is a strategic card game. Players fight battles to capture provinces in renaissance Italy. Condottiere is fast-paced, easy to pick up, and plays well. Games don’t usually take too long (provided careful players […]