All Entries Tagged With: "board games"
Expensive Board Games–Do We Really Need Such High Production Values?
I believe that board game companies are in a marketing arms races. Each year board games achieve new heights in art, component quality and box design. This drives the retail price up and forces other companies to produce equally beautiful and elaborate products…and raise prices to pay for it. I am about to commit heresy [...]
Game Review: HEX HEX XL by Smirk and Dagger Games
Normally, we reserve the game reviews on LivingDice for brand new games. However, there is a new “re-launch” that I think everyone should know about. Smirk & Dagger Games (you most likely know them from Cutthroat Caverns fame) has relaunched their HEX HEX card game. HEX HEX was originally released in 2003. A couple years [...]
Review: Duck! Duck! Go! Board Game from APE Games
“Duck! Duck! Go!” from APE Games first appeared on my radar at the GAMA Trade Show in 2009, but I did not get a chance to play it. This year, with the release of the sequel “Duck! Duck! Safari!” I contacted APE for review copies of both games and they kindly obliged. Though I have [...]
Review: Crusade and Conquer
Crusade and Conquer is a new chess variant from Canada that I ran across at GTS this year and finally got a chance to take it out for a spin. The board is a standard chess board with a couple of exceptions; castles! Yes, there are little foam castles that stand on either side of [...]
Gen Con 2010 Clean-Up: xPirate from Exim Games and Outbreak: Undead
Gen Con 2010 was a great event, so great it addled my mind and I forgot two interesting games that I thought worth discussing. “Outbreak: Undead“ is a new zombie-survival horror role-playing game. Here are a couple of shots of the cover and the contents. The format of the book is a hand-written journal, so [...]
Cadwallon: City of Thieves from AEG Looks Interesting-Nice Miniatures
The Cadwallon: City of Thieves board game from Alderac Entertainment Group comes out at Gen Con, but they just released a shot of the game’s miniatures. Board game miniatures are often more token than miniature, but these impressed me enough to warrant a post. My interest is now officially piqued. I will add this game [...]
Valley Games–The Trials and Tribulations of Board Game Publishing Part 1
Torben Sherwood of Valley Games, the English-language publishers of board games (Titan, Container, Stronghold, Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage, Republic of Rome, Die Macher) kindly agreed to do some guest-blogging for Livingdice. Torben’s two-part series on the origins of his publishing company and the difficulties in developing a board game from concept to market are must-reads [...]
Review: Days of Steam from Valley Games
“Days of Steam” from Valley Games is the first post-GTS board game review. “Days of Steam” (DoS) differs from the usual “build routes” train game paradigm and instead uses a tile-laying mechanic that allows players control over what routes are in the game. Placing a single city tile containing two goods on the board begins [...]
Lair of the Liche Lord from Fantasy Nations: True Gaming
Last week I wandered into my local game store and noticed a display of new games arrayed on a table. The games were notable for their packaging and production values: plastic bags and photocopied rule books. On impulse, I picked up “Lair of the Liche Lord” from Fantasy Nations. “Liche Lord” is a tabletop war [...]