Author Archives: Dan Thurot
Love and Heartbreak in Georgian London
As a second-grader, I despised recess. Not because I enjoyed class — it was boring and tedious, hemmed in by schedules and busywork — but rather because I was lonely. Some people don’t understand loneliness. They can’t. It wears the soul to a grainy powder. I had recently changed schools, bidding farewell to my friends and those familiar halls. Now I spent those interminable minutes wandering the lawns, balancing on the rocks, avoiding the bullies I half-knew from church.
And then, like the sun warming my face after a chill, there they were. Two friends. Adam and Adam. They invited me to play make-believe with them. We soared across the grass, scraped our knees together, became soldiers and explorers, scared ourselves silly at sleepovers, told our first dirty jokes. Once, afraid that I had done something that would make them abandon me, I burst into tears, only for both Adams to enfold me in a gangly, childlike hug, reassuring me that all was okay.
Everything was bright. For a time.
I Love Night
Isle of Night isn’t here to blow your hair back. It also isn’t here to reinvent the wheel, make your day, or even dress to impress. Designed by Dustin Dowdle and illustrated by Ryan Laukat — right, that’s why it looks so familiar — this is a set collection game with a few good ideas rattling around its head. Unfortunately, they largely aren’t capitalized on.
Majestic Fifty-Seven
The Pax Series has long been free of Phil Eklund’s original authorship, but Pax Illuminaten, designed by Oliver Kiley, feels like the final broken link in a long chain — or perhaps the final thumb in the old man’s nose. This is simultaneously the most Pax of all Paxes, directly engaging with the Enlightenment thinkers Eklund has always been (selectively) enamored with, and the least Pax, directly descended from P.D. Magnus’s Decktet and eschewing the customary market manipulations for a session of musical chairs in the Bavarian court. It is uneven, sometimes baffling, and, contrary to all expectations, wholly engaged with what made the series so venerable in the first place.
Climb Ev’ry (Other) Mountain
Sigh.
Solstis is a puzzle. Not in the game sense, where you’re trying to figure something out. More like it’s an actual puzzle that somebody handed to a pair of designers, Bruno Cathala and Corentin Lebrat, and said, “Please make a game around this puzzle.” To which they replied, “Sure, haha,” and then spent the rest of the afternoon talking philosophy before remembering their assignment and slapping the whole thing together in twenty minutes.
Speaking of puzzles, Solstis has me seriously reevaluating my policy of playing every game three times before I review it. Solstis barely supports a quarter play, let alone a complete trio.
Eternal Sunshine of the Trick-Taking Mind
Once, in high school, I embarrassed myself in front of a crush. Emerging from the school play’s pit orchestra, I was accosted by a friend with a cup of hot cocoa. He grabbed me by the front of my shirt, snagging my then-new chest hairs in the process. In agony, I smacked him on the back of the head, only for his cocoa to splash onto the dress of the school police officer. “What the hell is wrong with you?” the officer shouted. I turned to find a crack to wither into. But there she stood, the girl I just wanted to play footsie with, gaping in horror at my behavior.
We all have bad memories. Sometimes, though, those memories are dangerous to touch, like prodding a canker sore. Brendon Fong’s We Need to Talk is a dual trick-taker and card-shedder about overcoming the painful memories of a failed relationship in order to move on to something new. And it’s about as close to therapy as the format gets.
Imperium: Kobayashi Maru
More than most fictional settings, Star Trek lends itself to what-ifs. Mirror universes, alternate dimensions, and time travel play a big role in making the final frontier ever more expansive, but we don’t even need to breach the time-space continuum to find uncomfortable alliances and enemies-turned-friends. In its messiness, Star Trek has always been playful. Ever wondered what would happen if a dilithium leak briefly tricked an intoxicated Commander Sisko into courting Lursa Duras? Me neither! But there’s a non-zero chance that someone in the writer’s room drafted an entire Deep Space Nine episode about that very scenario.
Star Trek: Captain’s Chair swims in those possibilities. Designed by Nigel Buckle and Dávid Turczi, and built around the deck-building system they unveiled in Imperium: Classics, Legends, and Horizons, this isn’t the first board game to bottle the spirit of Star Trek, but it is perhaps the one that most exemplifies its endless possibilities.
Chu-se Wisely
The time has come for Tom Lehmann to design a trick-taker. Okay, that’s not wholly accurate. Chu Han, set during the Chu-Han Contention, is strictly a ladder-climber and card-shedder, but the genres overlap to such a degree that most laymen couldn’t tell the difference. More importantly, as befits the creator of Race for the Galaxy, Res Arcana, and Dice Realms, Chu Han has a few cool ideas up its sleeve.
Unwitched
As much as I would prefer to cast off all longing and become immune to nostalgia, I will confess a squishy soft spot for The Witcher. No joke, my adventures with Geralt of Rivia helped me come to terms with becoming a father to a tiny screamy baby. And while parenthood hasn’t contained quite as much monster-slaying as promised, I still sometimes find myself asking how the White Wolf would handle daily indignities like PTA meetings and where this grocery store has hidden the chicken stock. (It’s a fetch quest, I tell myself. Just a fetch quest.)
Which is why, even though I had determined to pass on any additional sets until the next Unmatched Adventures showed up, I discovered that I was still helpless in the face of this tie-in. Please note that these two sets, Steel & Silver and Realms Fall, are not parenting guides.
The River Mild
So you’ve gone on a group river rafting trip without making a plan. It happens to everyone. Now everybody has their own idea how this trip ought to go.
Even me! Last week, I reviewed Roaring River, the latest design by Joeri Hessels and Wouter Moons, except it turns out I’d made a huge mistake that turned the game on its head. My apologies to the designers, who I’m grateful set me straight. Because while Roaring River still isn’t my favorite small card game, it’s significantly better than I assumed the first few times down the canyon.
Meet the Faceless Cusk
We all know that one of the juvenile pleasures of Wingspan is calling out the birds that sound like human anatomical features. Abbott’s Boobie! American Woodcock! Truly, I will never age past thirteen.
Finspan is the second spinoff of Elizabeth Hargrave’s unexpected smash hit, following last year’s Wyrmspan by Connie Vogelmann. Designed by David Gordon and Michael O’Connell, Finspan drops us into the sea. It also changes the nature of the game. Now, instead of calling out funny body parts, it’s all about announcing which fish resemble the people at the table. Me? I’m a Porkfish.
SPACE-BIFF! 