tabletoppingboardgames 
Recent posts
Sixto – What Are You Willing to Skip?
Some roll-and-writes shower you with bonuses, combos, special powers and enough chain reactions to make you forget which box you originally crossed. Sixto goes in a very different direction. It…
Keep reading
Brushwood – Berries, Birds and a Walk in the Woods
There are worse ways to spend an afternoon than walking through a forest looking for berries, mushrooms and the occasional hedgehog. That’s more or less what Brushwood asks us to…
Keep reading
Tolleno – Every Canal Leads to Another Decision
Some board games are easy to understand after watching a single turn. Tolleno isn’t really one of them. It looks straightforward enough. Place a tile, build a few houses, score…
Keep reading
Azure – An Engine Built on Position
Across the land run the Lung Mei, invisible dragon paths connected to the Four Auspicious Beasts: the Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, White Tiger and Black Tortoise. Energy builds when these…
Keep reading
Under the Leaves – Making Every Tile Count
If you’ve ever stopped to look a little closer at a garden, you’ll know there’s far more going on than flowers and grass. Under the Leaves takes that idea and…
Keep reading
Parks & Potions – Every Potion Counts
Alchemy in board games usually involves wizards, ancient laboratories, and a suspicious amount of bubbling liquid. Parks & Potions takes a friendlier approach. Here, we’re park rangers using botanical alchemy…
Keep reading
Quagmire – More Than Just Hopping Frogs
A pond full of frogs probably doesn’t sound like the setting for a game that makes you stop and think. That was certainly our first impression. Quagmire looks cheerful, colourful…
Keep reading
Tatsumi – More Puzzle Than Dragon
The islands of Tatsumi have fallen out of balance. Elemental rifts have appeared across the land, and the people are relying on their guardian dragons, known as Tatsu, to put…
Keep reading
Gingham – The Sweetest Things Rarely Stay Yours
A picnic blanket has been abandoned with cookies, cupcakes, pies, cherries, and other sweets still sitting on it. For us, that would probably raise a few questions. For the ants…
Keep reading
Stag – Raising Beetles and Deciding Who to Trust
Beetles spend most of their early lives hidden underground, which sounds fairly peaceful. In Stag, their lives involve careful feeding, competition for space, evolutionary traits, and eventually a public disagreement…
Keep reading
The Phantom of the Opera – Following the Score Instead of the Tricks
The Phantom of the Opera takes Gaston Leroux’s story and turns it into a two-player trick-taking game. One player becomes the Phantom, trying to finish a composition for Christine. The…
Keep reading
Crops – Farming With One Eye on the Moon
In Crops, you have twelve turns to build a field of vegetables in a 3 by 4 grid. You place crop cards, connect matching family symbols, add goals to individual…
Keep reading
Capsule Collector – What’s Hiding Inside?
Bright capsules are lined up behind the glass, and somewhere inside them might be the toy you’re hoping for. Or, let’s be honest, it might be another rubber duck. You…
Keep reading
Kuroshio – Route Building on the Open Ocean
The Kuroshio Current carries warm water north through the western Pacific, along Taiwan and Japan. It attracts large schools of fish, followed by bigger predators, whales and fishing boats hoping…
Keep reading
Countryside – Four Workers and Too Many Farm Plans
A small patch of land slowly turns into a proper countryside. A field appears, then a garden, perhaps a barn, and before long there are fruit trees, animals, crops, and…
Keep reading
Durchmarsch – Or Why Stopping Is Harder Than Rolling
Durchmarsch is a small dice game about moving along a row of numbers, one step at a time, while constantly asking yourself one simple question: do I stop now, or…
Keep reading
Octobuns – Baking Orders With Eight Arms and Nine Spaces
The harbour is busy, the customers are hungry, and somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, an octopus is trying to run a bakery. That already sounds like a…
Keep reading
Faust vs Mephisto – A Tricky Deal With the Devil
Faust makes a deal with Mephistopheles. Wealth, honour, pleasure, knowledge, all the good stuff. In return, he puts his soul on the table, which feels like a questionable way to…
Keep reading
Carnuta – A Druidic Potion Puzzle With Sun and Moon Runes
Deep in the forest of Carnuta, a group of druids comes together for their yearly ritual. Not to hug trees, although I’m not judging, but to brew potions and decide…
Keep reading
2 PineApples – Count the Fruit Before It Changes
A pine, an apple, and a pineapple walk into a card game. It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that is more or less what 2 PineApples…
Keep reading
Wondrous Creatures: Winterfall – A Season of Change
The island of Starbeak was first discovered when explorers followed a strange bird with a glowing beak through the sea mist. On the other side, they found a mysterious island…
Keep reading
Moon Colony Bloodbath – Build an Engine, Then Watch It Break
Humanity has finally made it. We have permanent settlements on the Moon, rockets are arriving with supplies, colonists are ready for a fresh start, and robots are standing by to…
Keep reading
Las Vegas – The Biggest Payout Isn’t Always the Best
Welcome to Las Vegas, where everyone is chasing the biggest payouts, but the casino that looks the most attractive isn’t always the one you want to visit. One well-placed die…
Keep reading
Toys – The Teddy Bear Has Had Enough
When the lights go out and the house finally goes quiet, the toys wake up. At least, that’s the idea behind Toys. On one side you have the old guard.…
Keep reading