Wrinkles in Space-Time
I don’t know if time is a flat circle, but it does have a way of bringing us back around to where we started. Ascending Empires, Ian Cooper’s mashup of space exploration, empire building, and dexterity-based gameplay, was one of my first modern tabletop flings. I even reviewed it, way back. I got a rule wrong, and the embarrassment was bad enough that I considered not writing anymore.
Now, fourteen years after the original game’s release, Cooper has produced the Zenith Edition. The original game can be found in the box, but let’s be real: fourteen years is like three full generations in board game time. Let’s see how the new edition fares in the cold depths of space. Or worse, an over-saturated tabletop market.
Photograph of a Battlefield
Persistent readers will be well aware that I’ve been writing about some of the titles to come out of the recent Indie Games Night Market. Three of them, High Tide, Out of Sorts, and Torchlit, were among my favorite tabletop experiences of 2024.
Chris Lawrence’s Propaganda represents a different manner of showing from the Night Market, both tonally and in terms of polish. Where that previous trio had been fashioned to a high sheen, functioning almost like an audition — and indeed, two of them have since been picked up by publishers — Propaganda is an act of unsettlement. It is the most starkly “indie” of these indie games, confronting players with difficult questions about the media we regularly consume.
Rebel Yowl
As much as I appreciated the spatial puzzle of Race to the Raft, Frank West’s follow-up to The Isle of Cats, I still have yet to try the original feline-placer. Instead, I’ve jumped straight to The Isle of Cats Duel, which is, I gather, a somewhat improved version of the same game, but in duel format. Two ships enter. Both leave laden with some variable quantity of cats. Also heaps of treasure, but who cares about gold and gems when you have all these cats prowling around?
Vandalizing the Barbenheimer
Let’s get this out of the way right now: Christophe Lebrun’s Barbarian Kingdoms isn’t going to teach you anything about the migrations, settlements, and wars that transformed European power across the fourth through ninth centuries. It’s one thing to fudge the timeline so that Attila and Theodoric are contemporaries, but Ælle? The centuries, they pass like falling leaves.
Bottle Princess
Since all I play anymore is trick-taking games, it seems fitting that I should inaugurate the New Year by writing about two titles that have been occupying my winter break: Bottle Imp, the reissue of Günter Cornett’s 1995 classic, and Rebel Princess by Daniel Byrne, Gerardo Guerrero, Kevin Peláez, and Tirso Virgós.
What’s their unifying thread? Mostly that trick-takers are often accused of being “themeless.” Probably because they often are. But these are two examples of how to imbue a trick-taker with a tangible setting, and in the process aid players in remembering the import of all those individual plays.
Best Week 2024! The Index!
Another year, another Best Week. Below, you will find my favorite thirty tabletop titles of the year, ranked according to obscure criteria I found sensible at the time. Click any of the images to be whisked to the proper article. Happy New Year!
Best Week 2024! Better Together?
Yesterday we talked about the best board games that embodied our hobby’s unique sense of togetherness. Today, we must invert the concept. These are the best board games of 2024 that are also about togetherness… in the word’s more uncomfortable sense. Cramped alliances, awkward bedfellows, partners of convenience. A fitting end for one of the strongest years in memory.
Best Week 2024! Better Together!
Board games: aren’t they really about family? Friends? Togetherness? Eh, sometimes. But for those times, today we’re talking about the best games of 2024 that thrive on positive human interaction. These are the games that are about sharing experiences with your loved ones. Especially if you aren’t in the mood for anything too competitive.
Best Week 2024! Combined!
Combinations! Good stuff, those. When board games ask us to put things together, a special alchemy occurs. Sometimes we’re even treated to surprising consequences. That’s why today I want to celebrate the year’s board games that ask us to assemble peculiar engines, categories, and words.
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Best Week 2024! Adapted!
Adaptation, the process by which a work is transferred from one medium to another, is a delicate and skill-intensive art, prone to going wrong at either end of its metamorphosis. Licensed games often get a bad rap. Maybe because they’re often bad. But that only makes good adaptations all the more important to celebrate. That’s what we’re doing today. These are 2024’s best adapted board games.
SPACE-BIFF! 